I spy with my little eye something beginning with...

...barrister.

The deadline for one of the non-OLPAS pupillage applications passed earlier in the week. Josephine, having long ago lost faith in Royal Mail, delivered hers to the clerks in person shortly before the deadline (not itself impressive) and not without some considerable effort in locating chambers (from which you would quite rightly deduce that Josephine has not yet undertaken mini-pupillage with this set. Also not impressive). But for a little game of Spot the Barrister, Josephine might never have made it there at all.

The luggage is one of the tell-tale signs. They're either scurrying about in the Chancery Lane area wearing a three-piece pin-stripe suit and a satchel over the shoulder so full it might burst at any moment, or storming along the pavements with a suitcase on wheels so enormous they would look better in Heathrow wearing flip-flops and a Hawaiian shirt. But it was the ravelled pink ribbon tied around the base of the shoulder straps that sentenced him completely. Short of sporting a wig and wing-collar it couldn't have been much more obvious. Mercifully his directions were rather more accurate than those of the sweetly helpful barrister I bespied beside a lampost on New Fetter Lane, who had pointed me in the opposite direction entirely.

Sauntering up Chancery Lane and back towards the bus-stop on Gray's Inn Road I was nearly knocked flying by a sincerely fraught-looking guy racing past me, large white envelope in hand bearing the words "Pupillage 2008" and the name of the barrister to whom the application should be addressed. Better late than never?

Following the recent scandal surrounding skulduggery and shenanigans in a Mooting Society South of the Thames, one wonders if the unscrupulous retiring President will be proudly boasting "veni, circumveni, 'vici'" in forthcoming pupillage interviews... If this is the manner in which he embarks upon his career at the Bar, the antics of BabyBarista look set to be surpassed.

Yes, it is Josephine's reasonable submission that Hannibal was not the last to declare "aut viam inveniam aut faciam"...

FOR YOUR SAFETY

• Please do not open the window beyond the restrictor

• Do not tamper with or remove the restrictor

• Report any damage or fault with your window immediately

Josephine feels that this constitutes an infringement of her liberty to jump to her untimely death in a spectacular farewell to Land Law.

Of course, she will be doing no such thing.

A Graduate of the School for Scandal

Well well. The blogging world is a-buzzing and a-bustling with gossip about the latest Mooting Scandal, and it seems there is something of a mutiny in the ranks. And rightly so.

Over recent weeks the President of the Mooting Society has shown a willingness to put personal interest before his presidential duties which were, as I (and, it seems, others) understood them, largely administrative and promotional. By employment of what can only really be described as skulduggery moste foule, el Presidente wangled his way through various moots both legitimately and illegitimately such that on Tuesday evening the accused himself immodestly drank a champagne toast to his own 'victory' from the silver winner's trophy of this year's internal mooting competition.

His behaviour has understandably generated considerable opprobrium. Susie Law School rightly points out that were it not for him, the Mooting Society and associated competitions may not have gone ahead, although I understand that even the establishment of the Society itself was not entirely without boisterous elbowing and the putting of several noses out of joint. One wonders if our esteemed President will take a similar attitude to pupillage applications and, following an unsuccessful interview, turn up in wig and gown on the steps of Chambers the following October regardless.

Josephine doesn't like gossip. Nor does she like underhandedness or chicanery. But if there’s one thing she really dislikes it’s an inability in a person to recognise that improperly-acquired success is not really success at all. It's grubby, unsophisticated cheating, and it makes a mockery of all those who acknowledge that some rules are not made to be broken.

In preparation for the upcoming summer examinations, Josephine has been attempting to conscientiously revise the law regarding leases and covenants in leases. Since opening Land Law Cases and Materials she has experienced periods of unconsciousness, giddiness and blurred vision which have been exacerbated by the persistent cacophony of angle-grinding and sandblasting from Grand Designs across the road.

In a fit of temporary impatience, Josephine hurls her casebook from the window of her fourth floor flat into the street below, felling an unfortunate old lady heading a queue at the bus-stop, whose collapse results (by virtue of the 'Domino Effect') in that of the other fifteen commuters waiting in the queue all of whom tumble into the paths of three successive oncoming (delayed) 141 buses.

Advise Maudsley and Burn as to their liability.

LAWinaBOX

Speaking of which, now comes a shameless bit of advertising - complete with backlighting - of my own. Or rather, by way of gratitude, on behalf of another.

Now is the time for revision and last-minute cramming for the impending summer exams. Might I recommend to fellow students, procrastinators and panic-induced-sleepless-night-and-nightmare sufferers:

The One and Only... LAWinaBOX

While the distinction between a lease and a license pales into insignificance against my more pressing concern that my Self, my Home and All My Worldly Goods are on the brink of disappearing - never to be seen again! - into the hole they are currently drilling in the street, these LAWinaBOX bits and pieces really are jolly useful. You can order them online straight to your desktop for immediate use but if, like me, you would be grateful for any excuse to leave your room but can't quite think of one, I also came across them in the Charing Cross Blackwells on Friday so presumably also available in all good bookshops.

Of course, an excursion across the country to Charing Cross Road could be just the sort of procrastinatory excuse you're looking for...

The Sound of Silence, or Lack Thereof

There seems to be a general move at the moment to dig up as much of the street beneath my window as possible, as loudly as possible.

Yesterday I was disturbed from half-past eight until eleven o'clock by gentlemen making a journey to the centre of the earth with what sounded like a convulsive woodpecker and a giant truck oozing grimey-black filth. Over which they proceeded to recite as much of their repertoire of expletives as was feasibly possible in the space of two and a half hours, all the while addressing one another with abuse such that any given outburst comprised more obscenities than it did sense.

On the same side of the street, workmen are attempting to assemble a large electronic advertising hoarding with backlighting. They've been at it since Friday and they seem to be no further on than when they started, notwithstanding the great commotion they caused over the weekend (yes, even on a Sunday morning). Across the road, and directly opposite my window, is a house entirely bedecked with scaffolding and currently without a roof from which the continual sound of hammering and sawing and welding emanates from almost the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed.

To add a touch of absurdity to general irritation, someone is presently pretending to be a wolf and has been howling for a full five minutes to the audible amusement of passers-by.


Now I know that the world must go on despite exams, but is it really necessary to cause so much noise?

Some of us are trying to revise.

Well, not currently.

But she will. She promises that in due course she will...