Law and Disorder Read Free Page B

generally organise everyone on the planet, as well as wanting to know everyone’s business and more. It’s exhausting just watching her so I can’t imagine what it must be like to be whizzing around inside her head. Needless to say she’s been on every student committee and organising body you can imagine and was renowned even before arriving at Bar School. A human whirlwind, unable to sit still. Oh, and an overachiever on all fronts which makes it even more unbearable. She’s the other one with the Cambridge first. Same college as TopFirst in fact, just the year below. Didn’t have time for a master’s. Life is short, particularly when you’re BusyBody.
    Not that she herself is short. More what you might call big-boned all round. Not massive or anything but I would say that she’s as aware as anyone from the cut of her thigh that she’s blatantly sitting on a genetic time bomb which will explode inside of her by her mid-twenties and add another five stone in the process. Perhaps it’s the price she has to pay for having inherited her Italian mother’s dark good looks, something which was evident from a photo which BusyBody has as her screensaver. Whatever the reason it leaves her very little time to find an unsuspecting husband, something she is just as transparently ambitious about, even on first meeting.
    As I described her to Claire, I reflected on my first impression. On balance, I’m against.
    Thursday 12 October 2006
    Day 9 (week 2): Utter barristers
    Today I’m feeling a little the worse for wear. Last night was my ‘call night’, the time when I was officially ‘called to the Bar’. Technically called to the ‘utter’ Bar which apparently makes me an ‘utter barrister’. Still sounds rude now. So we all queued up in Inner Temple Hall and were paraded in front of our families and various members of the great and the good to be officially made barristers and be given the right to wear the wig and gown.
    The hall itself was all wood panels, coats of arms and ancient portraits, but none of that was as impressive as the hat that my mother arrived in. To say that it looked like a peacock would not be to do it justice, for in all aspects but for the fact that it did not have blood running through its veins, it did indeed appear to be a peacock. Claire, who had changed her usual black trouser suit for a jacket and skirt, thought it was all mightily amusing and kept telling me not to worry. Which would probably have been good advice were it not for the fact that her headgear had caught the attention of HeadofChambers who had sidled over to see who on earth it was sporting this grand design. Even that would have been OK if HeadofChambers had not felt the need to compensate for the air of silliness surrounding my mother by lecturing her on the significance of the ceremony. Even I, who had actually read about it beforehand, didn’t quite understand it. Remember the scene in Pulp Fiction when they tried explaining Dutch marijuana laws? It basically came across as something along those lines, but centuries older. Let me give it a go. First, ‘inner barristers’ are students, as they sit at the inner tables in Hall. All simple so far. ‘Utter’ or ‘outer’ barristers are the juniors and QCs. I’m still there, just. Then, the next day the inner barristers trot off to court as utter barristers along with all their newly found QC buddies. But no. Once at court, the QCs are suddenly the inner Bar as they can plead from ‘inside the bar’ in court. I’m afraid I’m still none the wiser – a phrase incidentally that is worth mentioning in front of any lawyer just to hear them mutter back in an almost Pavlovian reaction, ‘No, but hopefully at least better informed.’
    Anyway, I’m glad we’ve got all that settled (just what TheBoss said on Tuesday). Unfortunately the lecture from HeadofChambers took rather longer and even my poor mother, standing there keen to please, was starting to look a little