« March 04, 2007 - March 10, 2007 | Main | March 18, 2007 - March 24, 2007 »
March 16, 2007
Barham, Kent
My third time here, where the representative of our IBLC London firm and I are getting ready for meetings in Austria. Barham is ancient and pastoral. Population is 1800. It was spelled Bioraham in 799, after Beora, a Saxon chief. The Anglican village church dates to the 1300s.
O famous Kent
What country has this isle than can compare with thee?
From Polyolbion, Michael Drayton (1563-1631)
Posted by JD Hull at 12:39 AM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2007
London: American werewolf in Mayfair--and two UK stars.
Yesterday I met for an hour with each of the following: Justin Patten of Human Law, and a man known only as Charon QC--who brought along his beautiful, bright and useful-as-hell assistant. I'll write more about these impressive, innovative gentlemen later. For now, my advice: dudes, if you can meet other lawyer-blogger-thinkers face to face (and especially stars like Justin and Charon), just do it. Get away from your laptop. Get interactive like humans used to do it. Meet.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2007
London: lawyers, bloggers and The Stones--and Anne's chestnut tree.
Department of Broken Molds: I had lunch today near his Crown Office Row chambers with the infamous, celebrated and talented barrister and mediator Dr. Cyril Chern, an American lawyer and ex-Los Angeles judge, who I've known for 6 years. His mother is British--and he is here in London to stay. We met in Budapest, or was it Vienna, in 2001--and it was like the shock of recognition when two "similarly" unusual pain-in-the-ass people meet. Cyril, in the words of Dr. Thompson, is "not like the others". And then, walking down Fleet to Cannon Street, not far from Tower Bridge, I visited the London Stone, a day early. This quick trip to London is on my way to meetings in Austria. Today it was an honor and privilege to spend some time with the busy Cyril Chern. Tomorrow, I have the honor of meeting UK lawyer-bloggers Justin Patten and Charon QC. And it will be a privilege to spend some time with each of them.
Anne Frank would have been 78 this year, on June 12.
In 1992, I first visited the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam and was moved (that's understating it) to discover that Anne, who died at the Bergen-Belsen camp in 1945 at 15, had pinned up on the walls of her attic room photos of the exact same American film stars of the 1930s and 1940s my mother had also worshipped as a teenage girl. My own vibrant, youthful and outgoing mother, and Anne Frank, are about the same age. On the plane on the way over here, I read a piece in The Times, the London paper, that the comforting chestnut tree (now 150 years old) she wrote that she could see from her attic while her family was in hiding is now going to be chopped down, despite efforts to save it. The tree, now 27 tons, is in danger of falling over--but cuttings of the original are being nurtured in hopes of replanting a healthy tree.
Posted by JD Hull at 02:32 PM | Comments (0)
March 12, 2007
Place of oaths, deals and mystery: The London Stone
On Wednesday I'll walk east from Mayfair into legal London, down Fleet Street past Dr. Johnson's house and then past St. Paul's, on a stroll tracing and just above the Thames, to 111 Cannon Street, in the middle of the financial district. Thanks to Peter Ackroyd, author of London: The Biography, I'll stop and discover an unspectacular grate I've passed many times before. I'll look wistfully and imagine. Therein sits the unnoticed, forgotten and neglected London Stone, indisputably ancient, over which oaths were made and deals struck for centuries. There's an inscription on it, I'm told. Although linked to pre-Christ Druid ceremonies, historians can agree that it's at least a marker from
Roman times, making it a 2000 year-old symbol. A small boulder, at or near its present spot for centuries, it has even survived the Blitz, and was once the symbol of authority and heart of the City of London. In 1450, Jack Cade, opposing King Henry VI in the Kent peasant rebellion, struck his sword against the stone in a statement of sovereignty after arriving in London with his rebels. He declared himself lord of the city. Later that year, of course, Cade's head ended up on a pike on the London Bridge.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2007
Pat Lamb: The billable hour is doing just fine, thank you.
From my other friend and mentor, The Blawgfather, Patrick Lamb, at In Search of Perfect Client Service, this is good, even if it does mention me and mine:
NEWS FLASH! Reports of the Death of Hourly Rates Greatly Exaggerated!
Posted by JD Hull at 03:22 AM | Comments (0)
Charon QC - Rest in Peace.
My friend Charon QC has died. No flowers. CQC was nihilist. He'll be missed, mainly.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:36 AM | Comments (0)