Our Number One Granddaughter’s friend/housemate has returned from a brief holiday with parents somewhere on Cornwall, bringing gifts for Number One Granddaughter. Mostly these look like lumps of concrete but Number One Granddaughter assures me they are interesting rocks. She’s happy with them, so that’s what counts I suppose.
Amongst the lumps of concrete there were indeed some interesting fossils. Fossils are always fascinating, partly because they are so old, evidence of a life form of sorts from all that time ago. On one of our regular walks around here we go past a sort of embankment where the stony hillside is in strata. Every time we pass it one or other of us will comment on the fact that we have not yet found any dinosaur bones sticking out of the layers of stone. I doubt that we will ever find dinosaur bones and if we ever spot anything remotely interesting sticking put of the stone we will probably fall over in surprise.
In the Guardian’s “Experience” column recently someone described how he discovered a baby mammoth preserved in frozen earth in the Yukon, Canada. The article begins quite romantically: “I’d been working as a gold miner for only 30 days when I made my big discovery.” It conjures up images of eager miners panning for gold, hoping to strike it rich and singing “Oh my darling Clementine”. In fact he works for a company called Treadstone Gold and works a mechanical excavator called a “ripper”. It’s a wonder he saw the mammoth at all and didn’t end up chopping it to pieces. But how exciting that he actually realised what he had come across. I hope he receives some personal acclaim, not to say reward, for his discovery.
We tend to think of the legal profession as a band of gold diggers, especially in light of the crazy fees talked about in cases like the Vardy-Rooney affair. We have not had too much personal experience of such things, fortunately, but whenever we have needed to consult the legal people we have been astounded at how much you need to pay even for a letter to be sent. So it sounds a little odd to hear that junior barristers plan to go on strike. More fun and games in the justice system! There is a 50,000 case backlog already waiting to come to court. Serious cases are going unresolved for years and years. The justice system in “seriously fractured” says Dame Vera Baird, Victims’ Commissioner. But it seems that in the first few years of their professional life junior barrister a paid just over £12,000 per annum. Greatly publicised civil cases like the Vardy-Rooney thing might earn some people a lot of money bit the criminal justice system clearly needs some work.
Meanwhile, from the world of the wealthy comes the news that Prince William and Family plan to move into a modest 4 bedroom cottage, within walking distance of her majesty’s residence. There will be no live-in staff. They say they want the children to have as normal a childhood as possible, preferably in a rural setting. Good for them! The cynic in me suspects it’s part of making the whole royal family appear as normal as possible. It must be nice though to have the option to move house easily, without having to go through all the tension of selling the old house and buying a new one!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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