Let us be clear on this. Rugby is the only game for gentlemen to play. Well, OK, Rugby Union: Rugby League is a clever tool for gentrifying Tucker over a period of decades and for distracting him from the perilous dangers of football fandom. Football is a game for morons: those who enjoy watching it and those who enjoy playing it. You don’t agree? David Beckham, Rio Ferdinand. There, Geeklawyer wins.
So it is seems odd that football and footballers have produced some of the more illuminating IP cases of late. Yes, it is a function of the huge monies extracted as a dumb tax from the fans.
Geeklawyer was not, therefore, entirely surprised to see the IPKat’s report of the case of the Football Association Premier League Ltd and others v LCD Publishing Ltd [2007] EWHC 3171 (Ch). Broadly, this related to the FA’s ability to coerce photographers into signing agreements that limited the photographers rights in relation to their own photos. The idea being that photos related to one player or one team could be constrained. Obviously it is a money thing: the FA, one presumes, gets more money from single interest photographs rather than for broad reportage.
Not very interesting to anyone but an IP geek like Geeklawyer.
No, the point that caught Geeklawyer’s eye was utterly a non sequitur to the substance of the litigation. It was that the matter was heard before Justice Warren (be still my fluttering heart). Geeklawyer has sparred with Warren J in the High Court on the Strand on several occasions. And by ’spar’ he doesn’t mean in any sickening deviant homo-erotic sense where Geeklawyer wields a trident, Warren hefts an Iaculum, the other side hefts a Pilum and they all fight to the death in the belly of the court. No, none of that. Sadly.
Warren is a thoroughly decent old cove determined to be fair to all sides. Whereas a lot of judges in that Court are ornery sons-of-bitches Warren is genuinely helpful. Unfortunately, all too often too helpful. He is loathe to strike out cases or otherwise crack the whip of the new Civil Procedure Rules: for him “contumelious default” remains a social faux pas glossed over, like a fart, by a dinner party host with impeccable manners. This is all jolly sweet (it makes Geeklawyer lots of money when a new skeleton argument is requested and an oral representation before the Bench is needed), but sometimes the burning welts from the Cruel Lash are really the true strokes of love.
Oh no, we’re back to sado-masochism again on this blog. Why does that keep happening?
None of which is to say that Justice Warren doesn’t enjoy tweaking the tails of the barristers before him. Yea, he’s perfect, but he isn’t a saint.
My Dear Geek,
Camus played football as did Socrates.
Camus was French and therefore prone to character flaws such as playing football. I’m not convinced that the ancient Greeks played football… anyway seeing as Socrates didn’t write anything down, I suspect this football nonsense may have been a fabricated Plato in an attempt to slur his masters name for all eternity and thus be the greatest Greek thinker.
Socrates most certainly did play football. I refer you to the ground-breaking work of Dr. M. Python in his “Fliegender Zirkus”. Wikipedia has a summary but you really need to read the full paper to appreciate all the nuances.
And anyway, gentlemen also play cricket.
But there is so little blood or injury in cricket. I had hoped Bodyline would develop into something entertaining but was disappointed.
Socrates was a Brazilian footballer.
See for example, this.
Strange, I always thought Socrates was a Greek Philosopher……
Nah… Drogba was the Greek philosopher.
Drogba? Wasn’t he a Druid!??!
My apologies to Lawminx who wrote me several emails last night that received increasingly incoherent replies as a function of the time and alcohol I consumed. I reproduce them here for my on humiliation (and because I thought them funny):
“Ah the moment is gone. The clock has ticked many a long beat since 8am this morning. Those ephemera that flitted then across the mind of Geeklawyer have passed into the insubstantial miasma of what was. That is, a hazy fog where the dull spectral voices of tortured souls seeking relief from the purgatory of hesitance mistiming and happenstance whisper murmured thoughts of penitence.
The clock ticks on, an illusion of quantum substance and insubstance.
Now. Now I say.
Forget the past - it is unreal.
>On 21 Jan 2008, at 23:02, Lawminx wrote: wrote:
>
>NOOO! I didnt even realise you’d commented!! by all means try again!!!!
>
>
>>On 21/01/2008, Geeklawyer
>>Did I offend with my comment on your blog? It disappeared.
>
”
———
”
>… In other words, you cant think of anything else to say, but this is not
>surprising given the wax lyrical of your email; either that, or you have been
>reading Beckett AND smoking something VERY strange….!,
>Perhaps, when you have emerged from this contemplative state, you may become
>inclined to grace my humble blog with a crisp comment or two; be assured that
>nothing stands in the way of such comment - not even a spam filter…..
>
”
———
”
>I am very very drunk. This is not odd. I shall write another comment. What
>happened before we shall let slip. No merit in apportioning blame guilt or
>negligence. The vicissitudes of blogdom will not overwhelm me. But I will fight
>another day. For this evening is disposed and committed to the obligations of a
>skeleton argument for My Lord. Who is not to be denied. and I am drunk and the
>authorities elude me. They slip between my fingers like the flirtatious minxes of
>Lawminx. A giggle here, a dalliance there, and yet when reached for they vanish
>into the arboretum.
>
>Wicked wind, when whilst though thy rain upon the head of thy son fall? What
>breezes blow hither on that demand, for when and why?
>
>As the end of the bottle draws to a close so does the World shimmy to a
>conclusion. My bed beckons me to the all enveloping embrace of Somnolence. Blessed
>mother Morpheus give me relief from now.
>
>Rebirth. Oh rebirth.
>
>Geeklawyer
”
———
I am, on occasions, a little prone to being over refreshed, as CharonQC would say.
Apologies to Lawminx for a bizarre and barely comprehensible exchange.
(with apologies to the Western Wynde)
I am drunk again.
I have attended a very interesting conference in Parliament about government IT. Naturally I felt obliged to consume the taxpayer portion of the fine wine and champagne served afterwards.
i think it’s joyce you’ve been reading not beckett.
and from greek philosophers, it’s but a short step (for a man) to greek lawyers - who are once again above you in the google search. how do they do it?
GL have you been at the laudanum again?
You say that as though it were bad?
No Worries GL;
Rest assured that I’ve had conversations with people far more weird than you, both sober and drunk!
My bad with the Beckett thing btw - he’s the poet that springs immediately to mind when conversing with the inebriated!
I’m not sure I’m consoled - if I am to be bad I should be recognised as irredeemably and supremely bad: “fairly odd” doesn’t quite cut it somehow, it’s a bit like getting a 2.2 in philosophy.
GL - a masterclass… We who are about to drink, salute you
Geek lawyer, this lady is well reassured as they say in the streets. Tomorrow night I go off to do some important research in a lap dancing club with a young, nubile friend and shall do so knowing you are by my side.
For what it’s worth, I did not note that you were “fairly odd” but did in FACT note that you were/are “Wierd”; to my mind ” Wierd” is at least worthy of a low 2:1 in Philosophy……
No way would GL get a 2:1 in philosophy; he doesn’t know his deontological from his teleological or his impermeable synthetic a priori from his post-structural semiotics. Instead he has knowledge that is directly applicable to his profession, which unlike a philosopher’s has innumerable material rewards.
The profession of law is the rich cousin of philosophy; it studies the translation of the perfect ideal and it’s application to the shadowy world of human interaction and relation.
That being said of course, the necessarily prerequisite of intoxication under the influence of bacchanalian forces has been meet by the aforementioned geek, so there is always hope of a transformation.
If only it were to study the translation of Latin as well, cos Geeklawyer’s is frankly terrible.
why would anyone want a degree with a 2 in it anyway?
’so ms minipupil, what do you feel you learned from your time at 3 geek court chambers?’
‘well my pupilmaster was mr geeklawyer…’
questioner puts head in hands as another bright young thing is lost to the world of criminal legal aid.
and hey geek - when do i get my bloody mini-pup??? olpas coming up and i have to get something on my cv - even though i’ve only studied law for 3 months and some chambers seem to have 6 month delays on allocating minis (counts on fingers) which means that if i get interviewed anyone who asks why i have one bloody mini on the cv will get a short (tho reasonably polite) answer….
off to square some circles - maybe i could get some legal aid work to tide me over if all the hacks are on strike? i am after all qualified - just not as a barrister. can’t imagine the govt will mind. if i can add up your fiendish sums to get my comments posted here i must be up to criminal defence work.
‘The profession of law is the rich cousin of philosophy’ - talking shite for more money.
“it studies the translation of the perfect ideal and it’s application to the shadowy world of human interaction and relation.”
From a humble writer’s perspective I’m sure at times it’s more like this, from the Great Gatsby
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
PS: Will we at any stage be required to do Calculus to get our comments through? I need to be prepared.
My Dear Geek,
Perhaps you were right after all. Your thread on football has degenerated into a stream of drivel and you have descended into mindless oblivion. The beautiful game can have this effect on people.
Excellent… I feel we are all making good use of time and the net. This is as it shold be
And.. not a lot about football. Mind you…, The BBC seem to be advertising the 6 nations tournament with the strapline “descended from the GODs”…. really ?
I prefer my Gods… to be Dionysian… but… there again, I would
football? - who was talking about football?
‘I prefer my Gods… to be Dionysian’
so how many of them do you expect will fulfill this condition? and don’t go cross-cultural - i know what you qc’s are like.
Artemis, Persephone, Hades…. I hang out with them sometimes…. and… Zeus likes a glass or two..
I dunno… this has all become a bit too highbrow for me……
I remember going to a dinner party like this some years ago - I was over refreshed, of course, but so, as I recall, was the High Commissioner hosting the event…..
Then a small steel band came in…. even more bizarre… I had to dance - it was not of “Strictly Come Dancing” standards - but I did end up dancing with the High Commissioner himself no less. (Well… not with him, exactly … more like on the same floor as him… I would like to make that clear.)
I remember going to a dinner party like this too your lordship Charon, however, I don’t remember going home.
Ms Robinson
You weren’t the High Commissioner were you?
This may explain why you stayed on.
I like Eris… and would love to drink cider made from golden apples.
I have the talking shite bit nailed… mmm.. now for the making money.