Well criminal went well. Theft came up, which was okay. As were murder, manslaughter, provocation and diminished responsibility.
So hurrah!
I was utterly exhausted. So treated self to a bit of chatting, a ballet class, some wine and a Chinese with an old friend.
Tomorrow sees me revising duty of care for negligent misstatements resulting in pure economic loss.
I actually have nothing else to say. 5 days before this mayhem ends! But then after that I am attending 5 piss ups in 5 days…
Billygean: Help! My notes are rubbish.
Future Housemate S: What’s up?
Billygean: I know you can only plead diminished responsibility under s2 if the abnormality of mind is linked to your crime e.g. a schizophrenic can use it for murder but a depressive probably can’t… is this right?
FHS: Yes I think so.
Billygean: In the corner of my notes I have something about low mental development and low IQs.
FHS: I vaguely remember this.
Billygean: My exact notes say “someone with IQ of 50 can’t rely on it”. Is this true and do we have a case?
FHS: I have no idea. They can’t ask that can they?
Billygean: If they’re evil. Which they are.
FHS: Who has an IQ of 50 anyway?
Billygean: Us?
I am going out for a curry in 2.5 weeks’ time.
This is not ordinarily a big deal, other than that I won’t be randomly memorising items on the menu and worrying about whether public authorities can be sued in nervous shock cases.
Smouldering tutor will be there.
He is recently divorced and on the look out for a diligent student to begin an illicit affair with.
(Subtext: He wore his wedding ring in the December land law lectures and not in the May land law revision lectures. He has shaved his head which symbolises that he is Moving On. He also once like, made eye contact with me).
What to wear?
God I LOVE living alone.
I am alone until Tuesday because my Dad’s gone to see his relatives in Newcastle. This morning, I peed with the door open.
This afternoon, I did revision naked!
Is this okay to tell the Internets?
Anyway, I had a shower and the heating was on, and I was so comfortable that I stayed that way. I could totally get used to this. Of course, being allowed to go out and not stay in revising cases about people that kill other people by putting WIRES in their mouth, would be nice, but still. The only downsides are that I can’t actually remember the last time I spoke. I think it might have been Friday morning.
So then I made nachos (when dressed), and had delightful feast of these and re-fried beans and sour creme which I totally spilt all down me and I hadn’t done my hair anyway so who gives a fuck?
Yes the hair was a TOTAL MISTAKE. Short hair, there is no controlling it when it wants to stick up. You just have to deal with it.
So I think I’ll become a crazy lady with scary hair. It is easier than fighting it really.
NB. To continue earlier conversation about in-house Hollyoaks lawyers which I know you were just dying to do, I present you with an extract of a conversation with Future Housemate S so you can REALLY appreciate how the lawyer’s mind works:
Future Housemate S: How was lunch?
Billygean: Good and bad. Good, had humous. Bad, got distracted by Hollyoaks omnibus.
FHS: Ooh anything interesting?
Billygean: Yes, lawyer got the law wrong!
FHS: Oh?
Billygean: Yes, A handed B a pork scratching as part of her job.
FHS: Yep
Billygean: B then happened to choke on it. When asked if A would be liable for B’s death, lawyer said yes!
FHS: Oh God.
Billygean: They may not have used the word liable.
[pause]
But I can’t think of a normal one.
FHS: No me neither. “Done for?”
Billygean: About right.
FHS: How could he be liable anyway?
Billygean: No idea.
FHS: Did they not even talk about remoteness?
I appear to be a nominee for Big Blogger 2007. Incidentally it took me ages to work out what nominee meant. I only understand it in the sense of trusts and custodians. Because I am boring.
Today I am mostly annoyed. I am TIRED of revision and I still have almost two weeks left of it. I cannot physically memorise any more meaningless case names.
Also, there was a lawyer on Hollyoaks (in my stringent half an hour lunch break), who, when asked if A would be liable for giving B a product which B choked on, nodded!
I may have merely glanced at my criminal revision notes for Wednesday’s exam but even I know this.
So, the only solution is to be Hollyoaks’ in-house lawyer.
It still means passing though, damn.
MindReader: And how’re you, how’s work…?
Billygean: Good thanks. Ooh, three cats are having a meeting in our garden! Nose to nose, stare-out.
MindReader: Merger?
Billygean: *Twangs braces* buy gold!
MindReader: Buy low sell high *puff of cigar*
Billygean: *Snorts coke*
MindReader: Outrageous business meeting *goes to strip club*
Billygean: *Spends £100 on bottle of champagne*
MindReader: *Punches dog slave in face cos he can*
Billygean: Anyway. How’re you?
“What are we having done?” the hairdresser says, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder.
“Chop it all off,” I grumble.
She looks at me for a moment. “Sounds like a bad hair day or the break up hair cut,” she says.
I laugh and pull the photo out of my back. I show it to her and instruct her how to do it, because I am anal and secretly think I am a better hairdresser than her. She begins snipping away and I watch the long pieces falling to the floor.
“You could say break up hair cut,” I say slowly.
“Mmmm,” she says.
And then it all tumbles out of my mouth, the whole sorry story, and how I’ve moved home, and how that feels like such a step back, and how I don’t really know where I’m going, or what will happen, but I’m actually quite happy with that.
She listens sympathetically, mmming in all the right places.
It’s odd, that Catharsis you feel when you divulge to a stranger. Suddenly the entire sorry story has a shape, and meaning to someone outside my very close circle of associates. It is out of my cool bedroom, away from the window I lean out of, the beautiful music I surround myself with, away from the walks I take and the tears I’ve shed.
The contrasts are stark now, the cracks in the relationship, the mistakes we made. It is almost as if the words hang in the air, and there they are, the warning signs, the hasty acts, the cruel revenge, dashed blood-red for everyone except us to see.
If only those bits could be cut away, revealing the insides that nobody sees. The years of happiness, the early morning laughter, the ability to do any say absolutely anything around each other, the fields and lit up trees and glistening canals.
The hair dresser snips the last bit of my hair away. It falls to the floor in a clump.
I look up, and it suddenly all feels different.
I am so utterly exhausted.
182 more cases learnt today.
The other 200 tomorrow.
(Then commute).
Then two exams.
Then party.
Then sleep.
Then revise again.
My facebook status is currently set to “Billygean is an invitation to treat, or an offer, she thinks she’ll sit on the fence and move onto the next question.”
Cue a message from a random person I have never met (but is a lawyer) in my inbox this morning:
You’re an invitation to treat! And I suspect the consideration due is quite a lot. More than in Chappel v Nestle anyway! Have a good weekend Hot Stuff.
I don’t think I’ll dignify this with a response.
I sink forwards onto the sofa. “I don’t know,” I wail. “I don’t know any of it.”
That’s right, it’s contract law tomorrow.
“It’s okay,” my Dad says. “Gosling v Atherton allowed a claim for a loss of bargain even though he was claiming under s2(1) damages.”
I stare, willing it to sink in.
“And,” he says “In Jarvis v Swan Tours Ltd it was said obiter,” he raises his eyebrows at the poncy Latin, “that you may as well sue in misrepresentation because the damages are as generous.”
“Right,” I say, standing up and pacing. “Jarvis, how can I remember this?”
“Easy,” Dad says. “Goslings and Swans.”
I stare at him.
“Both birds,” he says.
“Oh,” I say, pausing. “What the hell are Goslings?”
