What is the 'it'?

The blog of the book

  • Katie (or is it Katy?)

    When I saw that the High Court yesterday granted special leave to appeal in a matter titled “Taylor v Killer Queen LLC”, my heart skipped a beat: are the Justices taking on a case in which Roger Taylor, the drummer of Queen, is suing some hinky antipodean Queen tribute band? The answer, unsurprisingly, is “no”, Continue reading

  • I seem to have a problem with definitions

    At the end of January we had a couple of days in Sydney. The purpose of the trip was so that I could speak to the new intake of judges’ associates at the Federal Court about proofing judgments. But we packed in a decent amount of fun before that. A train journey! Art! Food! Ferries! Continue reading

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  • The hyphen ninja

    Mugga Way, this morning. I have questions. Is it a school for learning how to be a secret ninja? “High Court judge by day, ninja by night.” (Be afraid.) Or is it the school that is secret: a secret school for ninja? (If it is the latter, they really ought to rethink their strategy: putting Continue reading

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  • Without a paddle: the third part

    There comes a point in any self-respecting spy novel, usually about two thirds of the way in, where the story kicks into overdrive. John Le Carre’s books are perhaps an extreme example of this. The painstaking, methodical teasing out of backstory, intrigue, and the setting up of whatever is to be the main action falls Continue reading

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  • “Without a paddle” revisited

    In case you were wondering (see previous entry), after a brief and (perhaps) dignified pause I managed to force myself back to “Karla’s Choice”. Possibly as a result of having put it aside for a bit too long, possibly because outside of work I am not the world’s most attentive reader (lol), but also possibly Continue reading

  • Without a paddle

    Here we are in January, one of the rare times of the year when my head should be well clear of judgments, grammatical forms and spelling mistakes – a time that I can set aside for, amongst other things, reading for pleasure. And yet. Last night I was sitting on the couch, making good progress Continue reading

  • The C word(s)

    May years ago, one of our boys came home from primary school with an important announcement: someone in their class had used “the C word”. We were somewhat taken aback by this. There was no conversation that could come out of it which we were anywhere near ready to have. So it was with a Continue reading

  • It’s all fun and games until somebody loses an “i”

    A couple of times each year a judgment comes across my desk in which what was intended to be a reference to “the Minister” turns out, on closer inspection, to be a reference to “the Minster”. The judge didn’t pick it up. Whoever typed the judgment (if it wasn’t the judge) didn’t pick it up. Continue reading

  • Another side title bites the dust

    From a citation point of view, I am inclined to treat the case names that appear as side titles in law reports as gospel. (I am talking about the titles that run down the side of the page, not the ones that run across the top of the page; those have their own problems.) So Continue reading

  • Learning journey

    According to Oscar Wilde, there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. Oscar Wilde’s metrics are different from mine. Imagine that you were a senior officer at an important public institution, and that a significant part of your job involved making sure that Continue reading