Monday, 23 May 2011

From the archive - Re: Superinjunctions


This was first published Wednesday, 14 October 2009

Twitter versus the Injunction - A Lawyer's 'Take'

"It is indeed a sad state of affairs when the legal process is confounded, not by government, not by the judges, but by that shallow and capricious phenomenon we call the Internet. That the users of a social networking site like 'Twitter' can have defeated an established legal firm seeking to protect the reputation of an esteemed client, is indeed troubling.

It is apparent to many not just in my own profession, but in the broader business community and in some sections of government that the 'world wide web' is looking increasingly like the 'Wild West': It has become barbarous, even feral. Long established laws, principles and ethics are being casually discarded. Procedures, conventions, practices that apply to the orderly, responsible dissemination of information are trampled underfoot by gossip, speculation and chatter. The execution of appropriate legal undertakings are being undermined by frivolous and unbalanced opinion.

When an established law firm went to court this week to obtain an injunction it followed due legal process. It did so to protect a respected client from the kind of tittle tattle that is rife on the Internet and that can destroy the reputation of a company as well as the livelihoods of its employees. That an august institution as the Law can easily be undermined should give us pause for thought. Who will defend you or me when our reputations have been thus maligned?

Do we really want an Internet that runs wild and unchecked, that has no rules nor boundaries? What if, say, we lived in a world where anyone, yes anyone, had access to the law, whatever their intent, whatever their status, and irrespective of their inability to pay? Well then Law would become a mockery, a free-for-all where any man could take issue with any other - however nefarious, or shallow, or ill-informed the intent might be. The courts would be overrun and would no longer have the capacity to defend those who generate wealth, those who keep our society ticking along - those who make society what it is.

Surely we do not want all men and women to have free and unbridled access to the Internet any more than we would want them to have free and unbridled access to the law? For that, I emphasise, must inevitably lead to the breakdown of everything that this society stands for, the trampling under foot of everything that is dear to us."

"I urge you all: Leave the law to those who can afford it!

(Lawyers name and firm withheld)

Thursday, 19 May 2011

A rape by any other name


Justice Secretary Ken Clarke came under fire yesterday when he tried to qualify the term "rape". Here we consider how widely the term is applied nowadays:-

No.69 a) - "The Wikileak" -
This Swedish definition of rape refers to any form of unprotected sex that results in unwanted discharge (also known as a leak). Some individuals have a tendency to leak everywhere, leaving others to clean up after them.

No.69 b) - "The Strauss-Kahn" - Not strictly rape in the Swedish or wider Eurozone sense. It involves the non-consensual intrusion of an unwieldy member state into zones usually designated to free speech and culinary sensations. In France Strauss-Kahn is often called the great seducer. It's worth noting some feminists view seduction to be a form of rape.

No.69 c) - "Reputational rape" - The application - or misapplication - of the word rape can have devastating consequences for a man's reputation. A highly emotive word - similar in its reach to 'racist' or  'climate-change denier' - it's often skilfully exploited by any politician looking to violate an opponent. In fact, The Justice Secretary took such a hammering yesterday you'd be forgiven for thinking he'd perpetrated a rape of ideas, of principles, of beliefs. And even if the charges - or discharges - were untrue or unfair they certainly appeared difficult to shake off.

Saturday, 14 May 2011

Free association


A celeb gives us his "take" on super-injunctions

"Hi there. Listen, I dig freedom of the press as much as the next man. Let's face it, without a free press, I wouldn't have the kind of following I have. So, I'm grateful, really, really grateful for a "free press". Thing is, in recent years the press has started taking liberties. So, for clarification's sake, let me simply state the obvious:-

"Freedom of the press means - My publicist is free to provide newspapers, television companies, micro-blogging sites, what-have-you, with any information (including gossip) that might enhance my image, that might further my career, might sell my films - you know, generally make me look like a fucking hip, cool guy. And, similarly, those media outlets are totally and utterly free to swallow anything my publicist feeds them (No point in denying that!)

"Freedom of the press does NOT mean - The press can publish any information or gossip that contradicts the image my publicist has worked fucking hard to develop (and for which, incidentally, I have paid a stack of cash over the years). If I take it upon myself to cruise the streets of LA late at night offering working girls my largesse, offering them my abundance, then what business is it of the press? Or for that matter, what business is it of the members of the public who buy those damn newspapers that my hard-working publicist works day and night to provide with interesting snippets of information about my good self?

"Does that make sense?"


Wednesday, 11 May 2011

Twitter and be damned - Part 69


This week celebs learnt Twitter can be used to get round super-injunctions. But we should never forget the micro-blogging site has tried and tested commercial applications as well. Even the legal profession can use it to sell its services...

Easyjudge - In need of a super-injunction? Easyjudge makes it quick and painless. Available to all irrespective of wealth. Yours for £60,000

Thursday, 5 May 2011

Afterlife 2


(An autocrat and a terrorist bogeyman discuss conspiracy theories)

Osama: You heard the latest conspiracy theory, brother?

Saddam: No, tell me about it.

Osama: People are refusing to believe I'm really dead.

Saddam: That's crazy.

Osama: Indeed it is, brother. Apparently the American government is refusing to release pictures of me. They say it might inflame my supporters. But some people on Earth have concluded that the real reason they won't release the pics is because I'm not really dead.

Saddam: Ha! Priceless, bro'. What a joke... Though I have to say it would make little difference if they did release them. Everyone saw pictures of my capture and execution, but conspiracy theories continue to circulate.

Osama: What? They saying you're not really dead?

Saddam: Yes... Can you believe it? People say I'm not really dead!

Osama: It's totally mad.

Saddam: Yep, but what can you do, brother? People love their consiracy theories. They need them... almost as much as they need us!

Osama: That's ridiculous. How can our followers need conspiracy theories as much as they need us?

Saddam: Not just our followers, brother. Our enemies need them too. A lot of them also want to believe that the likes of you and I aren't dead.

Osama: Struth! Mad old world, isn't it?

Saddam: Mad old world indeed.

Osama: Thing is, I want people to believe I'm dead... Then they might rise up in rage.

Saddam: I know what you mean, brother. That's exactly what they would do - rise up in rage. And so it's almost as though our enemies want people to believe the conspiracy theories. It means they've got us where they want us, but our followers do not.

Osama: Do not what?

Saddam: Do not have us where they want us.

Osama: Oh! I see what you mean, brother. Our followers want us in a place that'll make them rise up in rage. But our enemies do not.

Saddam: Exactly, brother... And now our followers, they cannot rise up in rage.

Osama: The cunning of the infidel never ceases to amaze me!

Saddam: Tell me about it, bro'... Although, it could be worse.

Osama: How so?

Saddam: It could be like Elvis over there.

Osama: Elvis? He's here? In this place? How so?

Saddam: Didn't anyone tell you bro'? This is actually the place where they send all the celebrity guys like us that people refuse to believe are really dead. It's a kind of like a purgatory, a conceptual celebrity purgatory. The big guy sends you here when the fans and followers refuse to believe you're dead.

Osama: I didn't know such places existed. The big guy didn't tell us.

Saddam: I know. I only found out about it myself a couple of years ago. It's what comes from having a fan club. There's no release or, at least, no final absolute release... It probably also explains the lack of virgins here too, brother.

Osama: And all the famous people, believers and non-believers alike come here?

Saddam: All the celebrities. I even saw JFK the other day?

Osama: JFK? Hold on! Everyone accepts that he's dead. The conspiracies surrounding him are not over whether he is dead but who killed him.

Saddam: You think, brother? Well, think again. There's actually another lesser known conspiracy that he's not really dead.

Osama: Struth! I had no idea... These conspiracy theorists think of everything.

Saddam: They do indeed!

Osama: So anyway, tell me about Elvis.

Saddam: Elvis?

Osama: Yes, Elvis. You said it could be worse, like it is for Elvis.

Saddam: Oh, yes. So I did, brother. Yes, poor Elvis. Well the thing about him is that he's stuck in this concept purgatory like the rest of us. Meantime, back on earth, all this speculation about whether he is really dead or not serves only to sell more records. The Elvis estate is still expanding... even now.

Osama: I follow you. So what's the problem with that, brother?

Saddam: Well, you heard the saying: you can't take it with you?

Osama: Ah! I see what you mean, brother. He cannot take it with him. That's must be very frustrating.

Saddam: Very frustrating indeed, brother.

Osama: But then, in our own way, we have not been able to take it - whatever it might be - with us, brother.

Saddam: You'd really want to, brother? Take it - whatever it is - with you?

Osama: Hmm... perhaps not, brother. Perhaps I wouldn't really want to.

Saddam: No, exactly brother!

Wednesday, 4 May 2011

Afterlife


(Exclusive! An ex-oligarch and his favorite ex-bogeyman are overheard discussing eternity.)


Osama: Seen any virgins since you got here, Bro'?

Saddam: Nope.

Osama: What? None?

Saddam: No, none.

Osama: I don't know, Brother. Sometimes I wonder what it's all about.

Saddam: What what's all about?

Osama: This martyrdom thingy. They said there were going to be virgins.

Saddam: I wouldn't worry about it if I were you.

Osama: Wouldn't worry about it? Of course I worry about it.

Saddam: As I say... I wouldn't worry about it. Brother Muammar will be here before long. He'll know where to find them.

Osama: What? The virgins?

Saddam: Yep... The virgins, Brother.

Sunday, 24 April 2011

Judge Dreadful


At a time when victimised celebrities the world over are coming under sustained attack from the "Freedom of Information League" one man defends the rights of those celebrities. His name is Judge Dreadful - though he sometimes operates under the aliases "Judge Needy" or "Judge Dodgy".

He, and he alone, safeguards the right to engage in hypocrisy. He alone safeguards the right to sleep with prostitutes and deny it. He alone safeguards the right to screw people left right and centre, to lie, to cheat, to deceive and generally to undermine the fabric of society... and yet, still appear the picture of respectability.

He is a man on a mission. Here is his charter:-

- Everyone in the legal profession, in Parliament, in society despises me. Therefore I take it upon myself to defend those who, through no fault of their own, find themselves despised (assuming they are wealthy enough to afford a lawyer).

- You can wake me up at any time of the day or night and ask me to issue a super-injunction - so long as you have huge amounts of cash at your disposal.

- I am the guardian of the hypocrits, the fakes, the bullshitters, in their basic requirement to be defended from those investigative journalists who march under the banner of "truth".

- If you are poor and you cannot afford a good libel lawyer, then fuck off.

- One day I might need the European Convention on Human Rights to defend myself from the "truth-seekers", so I am probably onto a good thing.

- You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

- I might bring the legal profession into disrepute, but if you say as much, I'll sue your arse.

- Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I reply: Who gives a damn?

(NB. All of the above is subject to a super-injunction, so it's illegal to read any of it.)

Wednesday, 13 April 2011

You wanna get high (dependency)?

The director of a major "front-line service" and champion of the “big state” tells us what the public sector means to him...

“I believe in government that endows its citizens with front-line services from cradle to grave.”

“I believe in government that spoon-feeds children from an early age, by force if necessary, and that is always on hand to pick up the spoon if it drops, or even if it does not.

“I believe in government that’s always there to wipe the noses and the arses of ordinary men and women, even if they are perfectly capable of wiping their own noses and arses.

“I believe in government that offers its citizens cosmetic surgery on demand simply because it cares about their insecurities. I believe in government that offers fat people stomach stapling so they don’t have to undergo the rigours of dietary discipline and forbearance.

“I believe in government that tells ordinary men and women where they’re going wrong, when they’re going wrong, even if those very people neither know nor care when nor where they’re going wrong.

“I believe in government that obviates the need for stoicism when the going gets tough, because front-line services like my own are always there to pick up the pieces when people screw up, even if we are totally incompetent at doing so.

“I believe in government that will fund my beliefs. I believe in government that’ll let me roll my ideas out to the whole of society, that’ll let me hire armies of generous, caring men and women who want to give, give, give until it hurts - and hurt, hurt, hurt until it gives. I believe in government that'll pay me three times as much as the Prime Minister and that’ll let me build an empire of generosity and empathy and hope.

“And finally I believe in government that I can tell where to go, even though ordinary punters want to tell me where to go nowadays... And, I'll tell you this: If you miserable lot, you the public, are simply too miserly to give me what I believe in and what I really want, then you can all go to hell the lot of you, because I’ll simply up sticks and join the private sector.”

“And that's... that's, cos’ I believe!”

Monday, 11 April 2011

A year ago today...


As the day of reckoning for the banking industry approaches, we turn the clock back one year to what this site was saying back then...

Prime Minister Brown says: “I told you so.”

Gordon Brown wishes people had listened to him back in the 80s when he warned investment bankers were a bunch of greedy, reckless gamblers.

“Over recent years people probably thought I was a champion of these casino capitalists as they created their toxic mortgage-backed securities that almost brought the Western economies to their knees. But nothing could be further from the truth.”

“It was only for the eleven years I was Chancellor of the Exchequer that I labelled the City of London “a creative hotbed and a centre of wealth generation.” It was only for eleven years that I gave these charlatans free rein to bleed this country dry.”

“But may I remind you, before this, back in the days of the evil Maggie Thatcher, I used to call these pinstriped terrorists a bunch of dodgy geysers who would sell their own grandmothers - or words to that effect.

“I say to you now: It is the other people who told me to make friends with these fat cats who actually bear responsibility for the financial meltdown that occurred in 2008. I, Gordon, fought long and hard against the off-balance sheet vehicles that these bankers and their creative accountant buddies in America employed to hide the true nature of debt, of their liabilities. And I did this by appropriating these very off-balance sheet vehicles and by putting them to good use hiding my own government’s debt instead.

“But sadly, it was to no avail.”

“I stand here before you today and I say with my hand on my heart: I, Gordon was right all along. Everyone should have listened to me when I said how bad these greedy bastards were. And as for all my old mates at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, and as for the Goldman bankers currently advising my government, I say simply this: Repent! Repent! Don’t be stupid, be like Gordon. Become a penitent sinner.

“Indeed, as the son of a Manse, and as a deeply, deeply religious soul, I will remind you that it was Jesus himself who threw the money lenders out of the Temple. Now, I personally think that this was going just a teensy-weensy bit too far. I would have let them stay in the Temple and even allowed them to carry on advising Pontius Pilate for the time being. And yet I still say unto these money-lenders: Repent! Repent! Or at least, please try to show that you are thinking about repenting. Could you? Please?

“And indeed when I Gordon Brown leave this office of No.10, I will no doubt go back to the very Manse where I was born and where I grew up. And verily will I re-examine my religious roots, those roots that gave me the moral compass that I possess even unto this day.

“Yeah, verily. That is what I Gordon, Son of Manse, shall do. Unless, of course, these banking scoundrels, these Satans, put temptation my way and offer me a lucrative job in the City of London, trying to sort out the total hash they’ve made of things. And, of course, I will not abandon them in their hour of need - but only because I possess an extremely charitable nature.

“Yeah verily.”

“The bastards.”

Monday, 4 April 2011

If you want to know the time ask a pollster...

We're inundated with polls nowadays: Are NHS reforms good or bad? Do you support AV? Is Iraq intervention more justified than Libyan? D'you care about Arts Council funding? Is Lady Gaga a genius?

Of course the answer you get depends on the question you ask. So we commissioned a poll on polls to see how the public at large views them.


a) Do you hate being rung up by pollsters?

b) Do polls make good headlines but are otherwise meaningless?

c) Do respondents give any old answer to get the polling organisation off the line?

d) Should you be asking who commissioned the poll in the first place and what they want out of it?

e) Do pollsters load the question to get the answer they want

e) Should you get paid as much for responding to a poll as the pollster does for asking the questions?

f) Do you give a damn?

Answers coming shortly....

Monday, 21 March 2011

I know what you did last summer...


... and the summer before that... and the summer before that...


Posting too much information on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook has its downsides. Comments made in jest or whilst enebriated can come back to haunt us...

Here's the transcript of a "recent" interview. It was for the role of a "Press Officer" and it took a turn for the worse, when the candidate's networking history was discussed. Names - and sites - have been changed to protect the identities of those involved...



Mr. Holloway: I have to say, Mr. Porter, we were very impressed by your resume.

Mr. Porter: Thank you.

Mr. Holloway: First from Oxford... Treasury, two tier-one banks, Saatchi. Exquisite references.

Mr. Porter: Thanks.

Mr. Holloway: But...

Mr. Porter: But?

Mr. Holloway: We thought it appropriate - due diligence being what it is these days - to take a look at your net foot-print.

Mr. Porter: My net foot-print?

Mr. Holloway: Your net foot-print, Mr. Porter.

Mr. Porter: Okay...

Mr. Holloway: You have a curious web-profile.

Mr. Porter: I do?

Mr. Holloway: Yes. You do.

Mr. Porter: Right.

Mr. Holloway: Can I ask this? Do you think it wise, from a broader networking perspective, to "love ramming hot comatose, dumb Aussie bitches too pissed to string two words together - they talk shit even when they're not comatose anyway - but boy did she love a good fisting, my fist was still so fucking exhausted after last week's outing with that Mandy tart from the Covent Garden event." That's the kind of profile you, a publicity officer by trade, are happy to leave on the web?

Mr. Porter: Not exactly but when I posted it the next day I was a bit...

Mr. Holloway: You were a bit: "So fucking ass-holed I chucked huge billowing waves of chilli pedigree-chum dog-food kebab all over my keyboard and..?"

Mr. Porter: Hold on...

Mr. Holloway: Yes. Hold on. And can I ask whether there actually is a restaurant - or bar - called "Madame Dildo's Anal Lick-Fest?"

Mr. Porter: Not exactly but where did you..?

Mr. Holloway: Never mind where we found it... You're quite a regular, I see... March 23rd... July 10th... September 19th... Good place to hang out?

Mr. Porter: Hold on!

Mr. Holloway: Hold on to what?

Mr. Porter: Oh! Come on!

Mr. Holloway: And do you make a habit of "emptying bollock-milk over Irina's d-cup?"

Mr. Porter: You what?

Mr. Holloway: ... you were "going through a bad patch at work" perhaps?

Mr Porter: Yes, but.

Mr. Holloway: ... And did you actually tell your colleagues it was you who "whacked the fuck out of Mike's fucking Apple after the Powerpoint fuck-up"

Mr. Porter: That was an exag...

Mr. Holloway: You didn't tell them?

Mr. Porter: Come on!

Mr. Holloway: Thing is, Mr. Porter, as an experienced Press Officer, it appears the one thing you don't give a good press is... yourself.

Mr. Porter: I didn't exactly know...

Mr. Holloway: We'd find out?

Mr. Porter: What can I say?

Mr. Holloway: Do you see the point I'm making? One thing one never wants, in any firm, company, institution, what-have-you, especially one like our own, is for the press officer to become the story.

Mr. Porter: Yes, but...

Mr. Holloway: Yet it appears that's exactly what you're in danger of doing - judging by your foot-print.

Mr. Porter: Hold on just one goddam moment! Just take one look at this. This is the guy I'm supposed to be working for... Assuming I were to get this job...

(Mr. Porter takes a piece of paper from his inside pocket and unfolds it. He passes it to Mr. Holloway. It reveals a prominent businessman who's shaking hands with a recently disgraced Dictator.)

Mr. Holloway: Yes. I was coming on to that.

Mr. Porter: I bet you were, Mr. Holloway. We all leave foot-prints that can come back to haunt us, do we not? Surely, that, to some extent, is what this job's about? No?

Mr. Holloway: To some extent.

Mr. Porter: So, perhaps I understand, better than anyone some of the pitfalls of transacting... in the public arena... as it were.

Mr. Holloway: (Furtively) Yes, so then... what you're trying to tell me is that this role of "press officer" would be better described as one of ""spin doctor? Is that the way you see this role?

Mr. Porter: You could say that, Mr. Holloway. You could indeed.

(to be continued...)