Crikey...

Nearly a month since the last post on here - don't I feel guilty. Well, yes, actually I do. I've been busy bleeding cash due to the London student lifestyle, which I am still enjoying.

As for work, it's been coming thick and fast and unfortunately my response to it has been the total opposite, slowly returning thin answers to the various problems chucked at us by the dreaded Course Grids for the week's prep.

Finally I seem to have an evening to spare to catch up with stuff and sort through the three inch mound of paperwork which I have built up in the last three/four weeks. However, I go home on Saturday and have only three lectures tomorrow so the temptation to just procrastinate is massive.

I think I'll have a cup of tea and contemplate that rather elegant pile of paper - I mean, it looks quite academic having stuff out and lying around as if I'm working on it. If I actually do the work and file it my desk will be devoid of impressive looking stuff...

Ah, now you see I have actually been quite busy...

Erm - seriously... I've had to read stuff and prepare stuff and well, I'll be honest, I've not been at all bothered about doing anything at the moment.

I went home over last weekend which was excellent but now feels like ages away because it's nearly Friday already!

The two feedback sessions have put me in a weird mixed frame of mind. I failed opinion writing which I half expected and that has depressed me a lot. I got a High Competent on civil advocacy which is good, but not really good enough - I wanted a Very Competent... but I have to keep telling myself that it's only just over two months since I started the course.

However, opinion writing for real is approaching fast - the assessed one will be handed out before Christmas and is due in mid-January. Not fun. Especially if I can't learn how to do it - and fast!

All in all I'm not terribly happy with the course as a whole. I'm pretty sure I could have done far more constructive things with that £12,ooo not to mention the accommodation fees and beer money which is also rapidly going the way of the dodo. But of course if I do make it then it will all seem worthwhile. It's just that the light at the end of the tunnel looks more and more like an Ikea tealight than the 1500 watt halogen I'd hoped for...

So much for this being a regularly kept blog!

Mind you, it has been reading week. A week in which I have not got home before 2am once!

As a result I now have a week's worth of prep to do before Tuesday morning. Curses. Dining has also finished so there isn't even any good food at Lincoln's to perk me up.

Anyway, at least I have my Mondays off so that should help.

Crikey, what a busy week that was!

Two dinners at Lincolns, one massively awkward opinion to write, lecture timings to juggle, courts to visit and Lord knows what other things which I didn't get round to doing.

At least I'm now on reading week which gives me something of a reprieve until the 7th Nov, Mondays having been returned to me as my day off.

I've nearly finished one part of the assessed course, one more court visit - and hence stamp on my attendance form - and I'll be able to tick that box in my professional development file. Huzzah.

Anyway, off to Lincolns again today for Sunday lunch with the parentals, and I'll be out again tomorrow evening for the sponsorship night.

All I need to finish this term off nicely is a good result from the mock opinion {see above} and a black tie bash of some sort somewhere...

First proper dining night at Lincoln's Inn - Domus Dinner - a very good night had, and was sat near a criminal QC! Suffice to say that even in the modern bar, finding a high powered criminal practitioner at Lincoln's is like stepping in rocking-horse poo...

However, joy severely dampened by returning to discover rejection from Becket Chambers in Canterbury and the dawning realisation that I haven't prepared for my Criminal Advocacy tutorial in which I will be expected to cross-examine a witness... bugger.

At least I've finally knocked the bloody opinion for Re Harrison on the head - printed and largely forgotten... if only I had a skeleton for the pesky quantum in that case I'd have complied with the required work for the tutorial. Ho hum - one cannot have everything, and since I haven't been taught how to write an opinion I think the tutors should count themselves bloody lucky that I've produced anything at all... Hmmph - twelve bloody grand and not so much as a word of instruction regarding how to approach a piece of work which is bread and butter to a civil hack! Thank God for the criminal bar, if I could only get into it!

Crown Office Row chambers have now also rejected me... oh well, still two more left in the Autumn OLPAS pot to give me the bum's rush.

Coincidentally I picked up a leaflet from the ICSL school office which gives advice on CVs and covering letters - perhaps it's a sign?

This has been possibly the least productive weekend I've had in quite a while... for some reason the 8 or so hours of preparation I still need to do for this week's opinion writing tutorial haven't been completed. Also I have no interest in reading for evidence, civil litigation or the criminal advocacy session... and that's before I disregard the reading I need to do prior to the main lectures.

That said, I now have Skype and have blown some cash on retro PC games!

Still, I'm off to the Old Bailey tomorrow in a suit, so that should motivate me a little more I hope.

Just a short post, using the marvels of Bluetooth technology and my GPRS connection, to say that I'm still childishly in awe of the Tilting Trains of Virgin. Having just sped from Watford to Rugby in about 40 minutes with various bits of the countryside at interesting angles I am convinced that they are the way forward, if only more routes could be served by them... e.g. London to Chester {with a stop at Shrewsbury of course} since I am currently on my way to Crewe in order to save time, changes, money and my mother having to drive to two stations to pick me and the sister up as we disembark from trains from opposite ends of the nation.

Already I have been rejected by a chambers... Still, I think it was in Sheffield, so I'm not going to cry about not going up there to try and live off £10,000 for a year.

I've just re-read the preparation guide for a piece of work due for next Friday, the 13th typically, which states that SEVEN hours should be set aside for its completion! Well, I'm going home this weekend, which means that I'll have about 4 hours with nothing better to do on a train... That still leaves three hours to be devoted to a single assignment. Blimey.

The deed is done.

I have applied for my first ever pupillage!

Four in fact, through the cunning and imaginitively named Online Pupillage Application Service, or OLPAS as it is snappily abbreviated. Chambers are located in Sheffield, Manchester, Brighton and Canterbury. At least I think I have applied to these places, the confirmatory emails are believable but the general layout of the OLPAS website does rather leave something to be desired.

If the location of these chambers seems a little random, it's because they're the only provincial sets with a criminal practice who are open to offers at the Autumn OLPAS round. To be honest I still have my sights set at Chester, or possibly Exeter but one cannot afford to be cocky or picky in this game. In fact, if a bunch of tax barristers offered me pupillage I'd probably take it!

The course is settling into a rather nice rhythm, hopefully I'll settle with it soon and fraught scribbling at 2.30am will become a thing of the past {to be fair I've only actually had to stay awake that late once and it was my own fault - I'd been boozing at Lincolns Inn}.

One thing I will say for OLPAS is that at least it's free - the BVC application system costs £40 for the privilege of applying to spend over ten grand on a course which doesn't even guarantee you a pupillage let alone tenancy!

Last night was frankly carnage. I cannot remember how on earth I got home, but I'm assuming it was by bus, having found my Oyster card shoved into one of my blazer pockets. I had earlier prophesied that if I ever got plastered I'd have to rely on some kind soul pouring me into a bus.

I had suspected it would get messy on the grounds that I'm still settling in here in London and not all is entirely rosy yet. However, my Criminal Advocacy had gone well and going to the pub at about 2pm without lunch seemed like a good idea at the time.

It wasn't.

I seem to be curiously awake as well, which is irritating because I know I need sleep and I know it will catch up with me - probably on my Court visit on Monday... I can see myself now falling asleep in the middle of a case and being ejected from the Court.

Just a short post to say that coming out of a lecture at 7pm is really quite surreal and is likely to become even more so as the nights draw in...

The amount of reading seems to be stabilising and I'm a lot happier about my prospects on the course, although it is a lot like being a Sixth Former again - prep to do and then a member of my Hall's security team goes round at about 11pm rounding up the smokers and socialites sending us all indoors because it's "quiet time". I mean really... we're all post-grads!

Having recently been issued my full timetable for the course up to the 5th January I am happy to report that Mondays are my "research and professional development" days and that I seem to have a large number of Friday afternoons off as well. Couple this with the fact that I have nothing other than 2 Court visits and an assessment handout happening before 10:30am and I am a lot happier than when I started the course.

As my current Facebook status declares, I am overwhelmed with the astonishing amount of paperwork which has been thrown at us, not to mention the eleven or so manuals, a copy of Blackstone's Civil Practice and, soon to follow, the Criminal version too.

Just about every lecturer is handing out small assignments to be completed for next time along with little quizzes and further reading matter on the school's interactive learning tool, called CitySpace {which runs a lot like Web CT for anyone who is familiar with that}. I have never used a tool like this before in my life, the Law department at Exeter having only just stopped asking for essays to be completed in cursive script with illuminated paragraph headings.

Still, I've nothing to do until Tuesday lunchtime so I suppose I can't really complain, although I do still need to find a decent supermarket... Preferrably with its own bus stop...

What a day. I was very nearly late for my first proper lecture of the whole damn course because the first bus on my route was full to bursting and consequently didn't stop... I'd just decided with a colleague that if the next bus didn't stop we'd share a cab to Highbury & Islington tube and get to Chancery Lane from there. Luckily my bank balance and internal thermostat {not to mention stress levels} were saved by a relatively uncrowded 341 bus.

This was at about 08:15 and the lecture started at 9am. It took nearly 45 minutes to get to Chancery Lane and I had to powerwalk to the lecture hall, where I arrived flustered and generally unhappy with the London experience.

Lectures continued all day with short breaks for chit chat with the very few people I have been able to meet on the course, a short catch up with a couple of old friends from Exeter, lunch and then collection of my final batch of manuals {a further 4 books!} and a copy of Blackstone's Civil Practice, which is simply mammoth.

Anyway, returning home at about half five, complete with water filter for the frankly abismal supply in my room, I had to make a quick turnaround to attempt to meet some friends in Town around 7pm.

The number 73 bus put paid to my idea of arriving more or less on time, as the one I had boarded after waiting for nearly a quarter of an hour {for a service supposedly arriving every 3-6 minutes, HA!} ceased at Kings Cross Thameslink, leaving me to continue my journey by tube and then considerable walking... The journey back was much worse, it having begun to tip down with rain as I waited for over half an hour on Oxford Street for a damn bus which then took nearly an hour to get me no more than 5 miles. Had I not been fed up, tired and beligerent with London Transport, I could probably have paced out a bit and beaten the bloody bus home on foot.

I have only been in London for 3 days and already I loathe Red Ken's Bendy Bus with a burning passion, the crassness of its design is only matched by the shocking schedule... I'm sure Routemasters could carry as many people whilst having the benefit of not having to wait for three changes of a set of traffic lights before turning a sodding corner.

On top of this I still have two more chapters of a manual to read for 11am tomorrow.

OK, so I'm now installed in London Village.

Registration today was an absolute nightmare in the frankly tropical heat which baked the city all day. However, it's all done, even the total embarrassment of having to ring Exeter for a copy of my transcript showing in disgusting detail just how much I fluked my degree!

Anyway, in other news, ResNet here is £100 for a year, and their rules, AUP and registration technique seem to be cribbed from Exeter to such an extent that a thank you is mentioned on one or two documents.

Having now got internet in my Uni accommodation room, and a University address means that I have already got into Facebook {I didn't hear of it until after I'd graduated from Exeter, by which time it was too late...} which I'm hoping will not turn into the full-blown addiction suffered by some people I know...

~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, I hope to keep this blog far more regularly from now on, simply so that some sort of record of life as a BVC student can be found on Google or whatever. Hopefully I'll be able to dispel some myths and give a decent picture of what is always likely to be an expensive and intensive course.

Meantime, I must finish unpacking...

My offer letter from the Inns of Court School of Law arrived this morning.

They would like some fees from me.

Last year, the course fee was £11,635.00 - Positively bargainous I'm sure you'll agree for less than nine months of teaching at four days per week.

This year, the course fee is a staggering £12,275.00 - Any donations will be extraordinarily gratefully received...

I have been offered, and today accepted, a place on the Bar Vocational Course at the Inns of Court School of Law!

I didn't get an offer from the College of Law - I wonder if it was a fit of pique on their part that I didn't put them first choice? Still never mind. I have a place which is the main thing.

Hoo-blooday-rah!

I'm afraid I've been rather ill recently, only a little 'flu type thing, but enough to ruin a weekend and put me off work for a day and a half. Still, I think I'm better now - and just in time to have another little rant about the crassness of the politicos whose life's work seems to be to irritate the hell out of me.

Banning smoking in public places is just laughable. It's going to be almost as difficult to police as the Hunting Ban and a damn sight more likely to be flaunted by those affected.

1. If the Govt. really wanted people to quit, they'd ban fags - QED.

2. The Govt. makes too much cash from the duty on cigs {and other tobacco products which have been proven not to be anywhere near as detrimental to health} to risk losing such nice income, which is handily more or less guaranteed due to the addictive nature of the substance.

3. If people do play by the rules, we'll see far more people clustered around doorways having a smoke in a non-enclosed public space. This will lead to either more of those little ciggie bin things needing to be nailed to walls, or a lot more butts lying around on pavements.

4. As for passive smoking, well, it won't reduce it by much - but I strongly suspect it will just shift it to a different and less vocal group of 'victims' {I use inverted commas since there are still various campaigners who claim the validity of passive smoking research is not entirely beyond reproach} i.e. the children of smokers, who will no doubt be forced to breathe second hand smoke at home as their parents don't want to go to the pub because they can't smoke there.

I was going to sit down and scribe a massive essay going over the issues brought up by this Danish cartoon fiasco. But every time I tried it just descended into a vitriolic rant, so I've been thinking and have decided to use some simple and fairly tame sentences to record my impressions of this whole stupid business.

1. The cartoons have been justified by the ridiculous reaction to them
2. World faiths MUST realise that they will only have the respect they earn, and when people committ acts which the majority of the international community dislike they will lose that respect.
3. No system of values is above another - our freedom of speech is no more or less valid than the Muslim credo of not producing pictures of their prophets. However, in the west we have freedom of speech so the Muslims will just have to lump it.

"People could be evicted from their own homes if they cause a nuisance to their neighbours, under a new action plan for Tony Blair's "respect agenda." " - source

Jolly good, I now don't have to worry about my own problems or feelings, the Government has said something unbelievably crass. If the Conservatives came out with drivel like this it would be villified as "knee-jerk reactionism" or "flagrant opportunism" or some other mildly derogatory 'ism'. However, this from a Labour Government is the new Tough Tony - loves the jobs you hate...

It's a classic example of just about every policy introduced into this country since 1997, badly thought through and wrongheaded in the first place, it won't be possible to implement it and it will cost millions of pounds of public money to buy in more votes - sorry - I mean buy in more civil servants to administer the scheme.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said there would be an "explicit focus on changing the culture of society". This from a man who wishes to have people locked up for months on end without trial and have us all watched like a sort of State-sponsored reality television show.

I wonder whether Jack Straw and Tony Blair will be attending parenting classes? They surely should since both of them have had children caught behaving badly in public; drug abuse and underage drinking is exactly the sort of "nuisance behaviour" that these new measures are supposed to curb after all.

"In a speech in Downing Street, Mr Blair said he accepted that on-the-spot fines had reversed the burden of proof for some crimes. But traditional justice methods were too cumbersome and too remote from reality, he said. "

Ah - I see, sorry Tony, the old idea of innocent until proven guilty shouldn't apply to 'yobs' or 'thugs' on the streets. You're right, maybe we should just let policemen summarily birch the offenders there and then? Typical New Labour missing the point - and taking the opportunity to chip away another foundation of justice. What Blair means by cumbersome and remote is that he cannot easily influence the system to play the way he wants it to.

Anyway, it's the children of Bristol I feel sorry for. Now that their schools are bribing them to work hard for their GCSEs they'll have some money to pay the on-the-spot fines at least...

Congratulations to Adam Adamson, the director of the Narnia film. He's done a splendid job especially given the brilliance of the books.

I hope that the other films in the series are as good and that it gets the recognition it deserves as one of the classic fantasy stories of all time. {I think it's certainly better than that Potter fellow, much better written for a start!}

The one puzzling thing is that the first book in the Chronicles is actually "The Magician's Nephew" which explains a little of the background to the professor. Still, there's plenty of time to include that, probably as little flashbacks or something - the book is only short after all.

Anyway, I'm back at work now and waiting for March to arrive bringing my birthday and hopefully a place at Bar School.