From CPD Webinars 06/07/09:

A police inspector left unable to work for five months after being trampled by a herd of cattle has been awarded more than £10,000 from the landowner.

Inspector Chris Poole suffered a punctured lung, four broken ribs and a severed artery when he was crushed by a herd of some 30 cows, while walking his dog on the Sussex Downs.
The landowner agreed an out-of-court settlement, claiming that not enough was done to protect public footpath users from the animals.

Under common law, farmers have a legal responsibility to take reasonable steps to ensure the safety of people lawfully on their land. They can also be liable for failing to take extra safety measures – such as the erection of warning signs or fences – if their animals are behaving aggressively or in an unusual manner.

While generally docile creatures, cows can behave in a threatening way if their maternal instincts are aroused by unusual disturbances such as dogs.

As a child I remember having a run-in with a herd of angry cows which at the time did seem very scary. Anyone who thinks that bulls are the only domestic ruminant which can turn nasty is simply wrong. Living in a rural area, though, meant that I couldn’t exactly avoid our Friesian friends forever and I inevitably learnt that ‘standing one’s ground’ is by far the best means of handling it.

A spokesman for the National Farmers Union gave some sound advice:

"Our advice to walkers is if you have a dog with you, keep it on a lead, but do not hang on to it should a cow or bull start acting aggressively.
"If you feel threatened, just carry on as normal, do not run, move to the edge of the field and if possible find another way round."

Blind panic should only ever be a last resort! 

Written in association with Injury Lawyers

From The Telegraph 04/07/09:

Roger Lawson, a director at the UK Shareholders' Association (UKSA), said that the body "might well support" the resolution that is being put to shareholders at M&S's annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday.

The backing of M&S's private shareholders – who account for around a fifth of the chain's ownership – could be crucial to the resolution being passed.

The special resolution has been brought by the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF), which represents 48 local authority schemes with £95bn in assets. The resolution calls on the M&S board to appoint an independent chairman at M&S by July 2010, a year earlier than planned. Sir Stuart is currently both chief executive and executive chairman.

Mr Lawson said: "There is a corporate governance issue. As an organisation we have always supported the combined code. We would encourage a separation of roles."

The soft-touch ‘comply or explain’ nature of the Combined Code on Corporate Governance essentially allowed M&S to opt out of keeping the roles of heading up the executive and non-executive arms of the company separate. M&S, of course, stands out as one of very few public companies who choose to combine the roles – despite the risks to the robustness of NEDs as corporate watchdogs and the ensuing unrest that may be caused to shareholders.

However meritorious the reasons may have been at the time for vesting in the same person ultimate executive and non-executive power, I’m not so convinced they hold much water now. M&S have clearly turned the corner from the dire straits they were in when the decision was made to combine the conflicting roles and at least now have a sense of common direction and brand placement.  While M&S face challenging trading conditions and an uncertain future going forward – not to mention a share price which has dropped through the floor in the last 18 months or so - the same could be said of many high street stores at the moment.

Arguably the funniest ad ever to have ever been commissioned for an MS product has been cancelled over fears of causing offence to viewers.  The web ad  focussed on highlighting Private Browsing mode of Internet Explorer 8 and featured a woman projectile vomiting in response to what her male companion had been viewing online.  This feature is now in the latest releases of all mainstream browsers and is colloquially (and perhaps most aptly) referred to as ‘Porn Mode’ in which the browser does not store lists of visited sites, cache or cookies allowing no traces of a surfer’s adventures through the fetishist depths of cyberspace to be found by others who use the same PC.

The ad was allegedly pulled as some viewers found it offensive which, while I can understand, does nothing to detract from the fact that we can all relate to suffering from that OMG IGP feeling sometimes (Oh my God I’m gonna puke).   Let’s face it: people look up some crazy sick stuff on the net.

It’s such a shame MS lost their nerve and pulled this ad though.  Quite who are heading up Microsoft's ads these days, I’m not sure but long may it continue.  Fantastically funny.

- - UPDATE - - There are actually a whole host of funny ads designed to promote IE 8.  You can check them out here.

In fairness to Microsoft, their new search engine, Bing, is actually pretty good and a huge step forwards from Windows Live Search. Having tried it on and off for a few weeks now, I’m continually impressed by it and would say that for certain types of searches in particular, it’s actually superior to Google.

Of course, one of Microsoft’s biggest challenges in successfully competing in the online search space is removing the connection people make in their minds about searching online and the name Google; arguably Google is far more than just the industry standard now – their name is synonymous with online search.

And this video from College Humor recognises that.  Brilliantly.

In the past week or so I’ve been somewhat troubled over my apparent lack of motivation to press ahead and crack out this dissertation. Although this could be attributed to pure laziness or post-exam buzz coupled with that summer-of-fun mentality that so often hits students, on reflection, I think my ill-timed inertia might be understandable.

Besides the hot weather we’re experiencing at the moment – exacerbated by my monster PC pumping out serious heat in my office – I think the postgraduate schedule conflicts with the natural yearly rhythm that’s ingrained in all law students.

The final stage of the orthodox academic cycle can be expressed thus:

Hot weather + sunny days = summer

End of exams = summer = (fun + no academic work)

Obviously having the dissertation spread out before me for the rest of the summer – we’re supposedly to spend 10 weeks wrestling with the beast – throws something of a spanner in the works. For every academic year that I can remember, the end of exams always signalled freedom from the shackles of academia – a chunk of downtime in which we could do exactly as our little hearts desired. Facing up to the reality that things are different this year has not be easy.

Fortunately, I’ve already arrived at the conclusion that procrastinating over this final hurdle of the LL.M won’t do me any favours. I’ve already done a chunk of research for it yesterday – adding considerably to my ‘depository’ of resources as well as hitting some proverbial dead ends – and have my first allotted meeting with my dissertation supervisor tomorrow.

Hopefully, that meeting will provide some help in tracking down a couple of killer sources which the university and their myriad of subscriptions seem to have circumvented entirely.  Actually, to be clear, it’s not the tracking down which is proving the problem - it’s the cost of them.  I’ve heard my uni are quite generous when it comes to subsidising sources for postgrad dissertations so fingers crossed I won’t be dipping into my personal funds over this.

“lost training contract conviction” – What a bummer. Maybe I’m accentuating the positive here, but at least you were offered one! Better to have loved and lost than.... and all that!

“is zune pass legall” Yes. Can you spell? No.

“i'm techno and you're not” – All right... don’t rub it in!

“my tennager's pretending to be a boy on the internet” – Holy Cow! And I thought I had problems. I take it your ‘tennager’ is a girl.... otherwise?

“legal practice course secret” – Go on then.... tell us what it is. Still, stable doors and horses spring to mind.

“llb worth it” – Probably not.

“is a llb worth it” – I refer you to my previous answer.

“law stuff” You know, just any old ‘law’ ‘stuff’.

“can a thief come in from roof?” I guess he can if he was suitably nimble. Or Spiderman.

“law student love life” – Slow, usually. Often non-existent (despite their fervent claims to the contrary).

“lawyer on a Dictaphone” – what is this, some kind of perverted menu?

“do people still use Dictaphones” – Yes, unfortunately.

“typical computer” – Base unit, monitor, keyboard and mouse.... usually with a bored office worker connected to it (or a teenager surfing for porn).

“lpc cornwall” – Oh come on – they’ve only just gas lighting.

“career prospects after lpc” – Let’s just say, don’t get your hopes up.

“ipod, i spilt water on mine” – Oh cripes. At least you didn’t put it through a spin cycle like muggings, though. Yes, it was pronounced dead at the scene.

“working law student” – A contradiction in terms if experience is anything to go by.

“hardworking law student” – Even rarer.

“typical charges computer service uk” – excessive, usually.

“funny computer wallpaper for law student” - Law Lord pulling a mooner? I don’t know.

“essential reading for first year uk law students” – Somebody’s keen! Save your energy would be my advice. You’ll probably need it coping with an excess intake of alcohol and nights of carefree unadulterated lustful shenanigans as a freshman. Well the booze part is usually correct.

“injury compensation eyebrow waxed” – well you can try it. You’re a glutton for punishment, though: waxing your eyebrows and placing yourself at the mercy of personal injury lawyer.

“is law still worth studying if you get bad grades” – No, to be quite frank, it’s not. Don’t look at me like that – it’s tough love, baby.

“lawactualty” – Oh please – do me a favour.

“examination question on competition law” – tricky usually. And I’ve just finished dealing with that baloney so leave it for now. Deal?

Quite who in Bulgaria is searching for “law atually” I don’t know. But thanks for swinging by.

“what to revise for law a2 exam” – I don’t know – maybe the content you’ve been studying all year. Just a thought.

“how to make law exam notes” – Try using your own initiative?

“lpc cricket blogspot” – Whatever floats your boat.

“is lpc exam an open book exam?” - Which exam would that be exactly? And there was me thinking the LPC drummed specificity and attention to detail into students.

“revise, law, exams, 1 month” - Plenty, of, time, I would, say. :p

“llb student revision notes” – make your own, lazy!

“is llm in commercial law worth it if have llb” – Wow. Go straight for the jugular, eh?! I’ll tell you the answer in a year or so I guess.

“how hard is law in uni?” - Oh, please! What do you expect me to say?

“what is so interesting about competition law” – Good question... I’m still racking my brains.

“mum mooning the camera” – Shame on her, I say!

“riam dean not telling truth” – I’m not saying anything.

“facebook friend request from former girlfriend” – ooh sounds complicated. Could get messy.

“who hates working at Abercrombie” – Quite a lot of you, it would seem.

“the law on the use of dictaphones at work” – Ah, this one I can answer: your first port of call should be the Occupational Sound Recording Devices Act of 1893 (as amended). As I remember, it’s complimented by the EU Acoustic Recording Devices at Work Regulation 2003. And of course, the leading case of “Suffering Colleague v Pompous Boss at Desk 2007 All ER 284” affirmed that anybody using a Dictaphone in the presence of others is extremely annoying.

I realise that the true hay-day of ‘the dummies’ series of books has been and gone several years ago now and I think it’s fairly common knowledge that the vast range of topics on which these books exist almost beggars belief. It should come as no surprise, then, that there is a genuine ‘Law School for Dummies’ – pitched at US law school. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before a UK edition of an equivalent title rears its head?

I’m all for good preparation and self-help (up to a point) though I’ve never been a big believer in self-help books per se – perhaps because of their generally patronising approach which invariably promise the world and fall woefully short or the fact they tend to lead the reader on a helter-skelter trip into the bleeding obvious. I’m not quite sure who would actually buy Law School for Dummies: potential students, the interested lay person – if such persons exist – or desperate students looking for shortcuts to success?

In the case of the latter category, sound, useful advice is always a good thing, I guess, though I feel that while some study techniques are more conducive to success than others, there are very few shortcuts or quick fixes to be found out there. Study methods are also a matter of personal taste – a fact I highlighted in my recent ‘How to revise for a law exam’ post.

I’m also not sure that dumbing-down the law school experience, what it demands from students and offering supposed shortcuts to academic success can be a good thing. The graduate market is already over-saturated with second-rate law graduates churned out from former polytechnics and encouraging more like ‘Paul-shouldn’t-have-gone-to-Uni’ to leap into the breach can surely only exacerbate the problem.

In fairness to the US edition of the book which I’ve electronically thumbed through (at least the limited preview available on Amazon, anyway) it did seem to strike a reasonably cautious tone in warning of the hard work ahead and so on. That said, the closing chapter is entitled, ‘Ten little-known Law School Secrets’. Yeah, good luck with those.

Maybe I’m being overly harsh here. Still, I find it vaguely troubling that the title ‘Law School for Dummies’ even exists. It can hardly stand as the proudest addition to a law student’s bookshelf and supposing you were gifted such a book for Christmas? I should imagine that such a present would take some serious bouncing-back from.