Morning music
On this day a year ago
Temps perdu
Some years ago, I noted on the blog that my old head of chambers, one M.B., a pretty good civil barrister, had been appointed to the office of Circuit Judge. Now I see that no fewer than three other fellow-members of the same chambers (now and for some time joined with another set under a new name) have also received judicial preferment.
The first, one “R.P.”, was, as I recall him from over 15 years ago, a small and rather dapper man, maybe about 40 at that time, unfailingly polite, who had been a magistrates’ court clerk for many years, and had written a very well-received book on sentencing, as well as (and I only saw that today) several other books on law and procedure. Someone both erudite and modest, a good combination.
I see just now (thanks to the Internet) that R.P. is 56-57.
R.P., a man so modest and self-effacing that I know nothing about him on the personal level, despite having been in the same chambers as him for at least a couple of years (I was there 2002-2008, he for not so long), was (if I recall aright) nominally a “pupil” at first, having been previously a solicitor (again, if I recall correctly); as said, he had spent years as a magistrates’ clerk.
R. P. is therefore now “His Honour Judge R.P.” and has been, as they say, “deployed” to the North East as a Circuit Judge. In the old days, pre-1970s, people would practice almost entirely on one circuit, such as Western Circuit, Midland and Oxford etc, and if granted judicial preferment, would be appointed, almost always, on that Circuit. Now, however, they can be sent anywhere within England and Wales.
The other two appointments seen by me were those affecting two people who were, like R.P., both pupils of M.B. twenty-odd years ago. When I knew them, they were both in their early twenties, so must be about 45 now. Let us call them, in the manner of M.R. James, “JB” and “AW”.
J.B, a pleasant-enough fellow, and rather likeable, albeit no intellectual (if I recall aright), and who came from an affluent family (his father is or was a businessman involved in trade with China), has been appointed both as an employment judge (i.e. at the Employment Tribunal) and also as a Deputy District Judge (which is same level, really, as a full District Judge, but only sitting for 15-50 days per year).
As for A.W., I recall him as a serious and bearded young man, bordering however on the humourless (admittedly, I only spoke with him a few times); intelligent, and who, with his wife (whom I never met), actually played music live at least once on either BBC Radio 3 or BBC Radio 4 at that time, i.e. about 16-17 years ago.
A.W. is apparently appointed District Judge as of early January 2023, and has been deployed to Worthing in West Sussex.
Such appointments as District Judge etc may seem minor (there are c.400 full District Judges in England and Wales) but actually such jobs are not badly-paid— about £114,000 p.a. at time of writing (Circuit Judges get more, about £145,000).
I can see why barristers often apply for such jobs. They carry none of the uncertainty which can be part and parcel of being a barrister, such as where the next brief will come from; also (for barristers of a certain age) there is the attraction of a generous pension scheme, something unknown to the Bar (unless you pay out for a private one). Also, the judge (at any level) does not have the need to travel much, if at all, whereas a barrister in a provincial set can travel extensively.
When I myself was in London as a practising barrister (early/mid 1990s), almost all my cases were within London itself (often at the High Court, a shortish No. 6 bus, or a taxi, ride from my then home in Little Venice); but when I was based in Exeter in 2002-2008 (and living 50 miles west of there, on the Cornwall-Devon border), I sometimes had to travel as far north as Manchester, and as far east as London, Cambridge, Brighton etc. 600-mile roundtrips. I even made the odd overseas journey, though admittedly that also happened when I lived in London.
Always interesting to see what is happening over time to those whom I knew in the past.
Finally, I should add that I have no idea whether those I used to know, and who have been appointed to the judiciary, are freemasons. Possibly. Not impossible, anyway, thinking back to when I knew them, and thinking about what I do know of them.
Tweets seen
…and in Oxford Street, London, Jews danced in a circle, guarded by police and “CST” “minders”. An expression of Jew-Zionist supremacism.
Why did no-one shoot him, or just run over the bastard in a car? We always hear so-called “Christians” droning about “turning the other cheek” but what about “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you” [Matthew 7-6]?
Covid “panicdemic”
Well, there it is. Proof that hugely loss-making Twitter was both (as I speculated years ago on the blog) acting as an intelligence-collecting system for NWO/ZOG, and also proof that —time and again— the overall public debate or discussion in the “online forum” or “online public space” is —and in the case of Twitter, especially, was— being twisted by Twitter staff (etc); also offline (by the usual msm suspects). The “online public space“, as I termed it on the blog, as well as in my 2017 talk offline, at the now-defunct London Forum— with others later imitating my language and reasoning.
What at first surprised me slightly, years ago, was that I could see that the usual crowd of “human rights” lawyers, bien-pensants, “liberal” msm types, anti-censorship loudmouths, pseudo-socialists etc (many, but by no means all, Jews) were in fact perfectly OK with a secretive transnational finance-capital offshoot such as Twitter censoring dissenting views, and/or “deplatforming” dissidents and/or persons labelled “neo-Nazi” etc.
The mask of Evil has slipped a little as regards Twitter, but remains firmly in place in respect of other online and offline platforms.
This is not just about the Covid “panicdemic”. It applies also to other matters, especially the constant Coudenhove-Kalergi propaganda being blasted out across the TV, radio, newspapers etc.
I happened to see a copy of Vogue magazine the other day, not my usual reading material. Flicking through it for a few seconds, I noticed that almost every photo and report was basically about blacks, and pushing blacks forward, to an almost unbelievable extent. No one is going to tell me that that is simply about making money for the publishers. There is something more behind it all. See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2018/12/10/tv-ads-and-soaps-are-the-propaganda-preferred-by-the-system-in-the-uk/.
Returning to “Covid”, I see that the Chinese Government has now turned its massive state repression machinery into reverse, and almost overnight dismantled the “Covid” police state measures. According to Sky News in the UK, that has meant an increase in “cases” (whether labelled “influenza” or “Covid”-this-or-that. Of course.
The stupid “lockdowns” isolate people. When they have to be released (because to shut down society and economy indefinitely is unsustainable, impossible) naturally their immune systems have been weakened. “Lockdowns” were always the wrong policy, not only from the economic point of view (look at the UK, for example) but from the strict health point of view as well.
While on the subject of Twitter, I see that it continues to omit the (only-recently-dropped) “Latest” tweets column on any given subject or subject-name searched for. This really weakens the usefulness of Twitter.
Late tweets
I have blogged in the past week about the poor standard on Christmas University Challenge, and again below.
That sign was still the ethos at Blackwell’s in the 1970s, when I asked for a copy of the Malleus Maleficarum, sat at a table reading it for a long time, then left without buying it, and still got a cheery goodbye from the staff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum
Christmas University Challenge
Again, two dispiriting performances from the alumni teams (Cardiff v. Bristol), who displayed the ignorance which has been the hallmark of the series both last year and this year, and which by now I actually expect.
One who at least attempted to answer, though usually wrongly, was Dominic Waghorn of the Bristol alumni team, of whom I see that Wikipedia says this:
“Dominic David Waghorn (born 1968, Lambeth),[1] is a British journalist who is the Diplomatic Editor of Sky News and presenter of the channel’s weekly international affairs analysis programme World View. He was before that US Correspondent of Sky News, the 24-hour television news service operated by Sky Television, part of British Sky Broadcasting. He is based at Sky News’ Washington Bureau. He was formerly Sky News’ Asia Correspondent, based in Beijing and Middle East Correspondent, based in Jerusalem. He became Sky News’ US Correspondent in 2011.”
[Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Waghorn]
That reads well, on paper, but that supposed “expert” not only failed to identify Volgograd as the “new” (since 1961) name for the city of Stalingrad, even after prompting from Jeremy Paxman, but then compounded his error by venturing “Voronezh?“, a city about 360 miles away, and in a different part of Russia.
There were several other errors by Waghorn and worse ones by others (those who actually tried to answer any questions at all).
The problem I have with these well-known and/or “celebrity” contestants is not only that their general-knowledge levels are, indeed, generally abysmal, but also a. that they are all people paid plenty of money by society as a whole, partly by reason of their supposedly “elite” education, and b. that those working in msm current affairs are delivering misinformation to the public on subjects such as Ukraine, European politics, and the “Covid” “panicdemic”.
Tweets seen about the show:
Good point (especially as I practically never get a popular music question right…).
Ha ha! That must be intended as good-humoured satire, surely? (from one of the subject’s colleagues on Sky News). Waghorn even failed to get right a fairly easy question about which seas were mentioned in Churchill’s famous post-WW2 speech at Fulton, Missouri, which brought the term “iron curtain” into popular speech (though Churchill had lifted the term from Schwerin von Krosigk, unless it was a simple co-incidence).
The seas in the question were Baltic and Adriatic, not (as Waghorn said) the Adriatic Sea and Black Sea. The other team also got that one wrong, incidentally, citing Baltic and Atlantic.
To be fair on him, Waghorn did get a few other questions right.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain#Churchill_speech; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutz_Graf_Schwerin_von_Krosigk.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 