The Barrister Blog

Nice review for 'BabyBarista and the Art of War' from top blogger Geeklawyer

2009-07-16T23:58:00.008Z

Very nice review of 'BabyBarista and the Art of War' from top blogger Geeklawyer here and also below. To pre-order the book at a heavily discounted £7.19 (incl p&p), click here.

Baby Barista – the witness statement

Sometimes fiction is stranger than the truth. The truth is rarely visible in fictional accounts of the Bar, from Rumpole, This Life and onwards. We barristers are the subject of malice spite and envy from the failed barristers in the Cabinet right down to the Solicitor-Inadequates at the junior end of the profession, all of whom peddle their spite to any takers. At a time when the Bar Council is desperately attempting, and failing, to counter this black propaganda, BabyBarista enters the fray with his Machiavellian flailing, undoing all attempts at the rehabilitation of our image. Excellent.

BabyBarista is a fictional pupil at a fictional chambers and who blogs at The Times. The Art of War is the autobiography of his pupillage. BabyB is not a sympathetic character; like Geeklawyer he is scheming manipulative amoral disloyal calculating and backstabbing, but none of these virtues offset his essential badness. His only salvation comes from the fact that his rival pupils, competing against him for the single prized tenancy, are even more loathsome: ThirdSix and TopFirst are variously smug superior snobbish calculating and pretentious. Fine and necessary qualities in a barrister but not conducive to a spirit of camaraderie:

TopFirst telephoned me over the weekend. He said he wanted to talk about pupillage.
‘Look BabyB, we’re all in competition for tenancy, but let’s be realistic about this. Worrier and BusyBody are both now dead in the water and it’s developed into a straight fight between you and me.’
‘OK.’ No prizes for that one Mr Brainbox.
‘Well look, I’ve been thinking. You ever heard of the prisoner’s dilemma?’
‘[...] Yea, shows that cooperation’s often better than fighting.’
[...]
‘You’re suggesting a truce. Fine by me,’ I lied.
‘Exactly so. Fight and we may both die. Cooperate and there’s at least a small chance that maybe we’ll convince them to take us both on.’
‘Makes sense,’ I lied again. ‘You can count on me.’ [...]
… there will be no cooperation.

If you think only the pupils are oily rats then the barristers are just older more experienced versions: TheBoss – BabyB’s first pupilmaster. An unscrupulous, spineless coward, “You’re up to your neck in this, you realise,’ he told me. ‘If I go down I’m taking you with me.’“; OldSmoothie – a Peter Bowles character; TheVamp a cock hunting old slapper; TheBusker and OldRuin are, among others, old hack tenants in chambers who round out the sorry cast. This is one sorry improbable and deeply doomed set; no doubt soon to merge with Peckham Chambers and then vanish.

The Art of War is a hilarious parody of the profession and an engaging reprise of all the old cliches about us barristers. To those of us on the inside it was clearly this and no more: some of the scenarios were deeply implausible and the behaviour of the characters way beyond credibility, although it was this that rendered the humour. Geeklawyer worries a little, and somewhat hypocritically given his own blogging and Twittering behaviour, about whether this will be seen as pure humour by the public or if they will really imagine that judges and barristers will stitch them up just to get a round of golf in on a Friday? One really really hopes not.

The Art of War was a side-splitting read that Geeklawyer couldn’t put down: it gets his A+ recommendation. Open a new browser tab now and order it from Amazon immediately.
Tim Kevan, the recently outed ex-anonymous barrister behind BabyB, deserves a pat on the back for a great first novel. Geeklawyer hopes the second will arrive soon.

Christian Metcalf's blog at Estates Gazette

2009-07-15T09:07:00.004Z

Heads up for an excellent and very entertaining legal blog by Christian Metcalf of the Estates Gazette called The Property Law Blog. Despite it's title, it covers all sorts of things which might interest akll lawyers including the picture of the lego barrister, opposite.

Fatyak Kayaks

2009-07-14T14:59:00.002Z

Heads up for the brand new Fatyak Sea Kayaks which are made in West Somerset and are both great quality and a fantastic price. The kayaks themselves cost £209 and with the paddle and the seat back are still only £249 with shipping an extra £25 for anywhere on the UK mainland. For more details, click here. Dave Jackson, Chairman of Exmoor canoe club and a BCU Level 4 OC Coach and a BCU Level 3 Kayak Coach has already given the following testimonial: “Fatyaks are the perfect sit-on-top kayaks for your club or activity centre. Suitable for all abilities, stable for beginners whilst retaining a high level of manoeuvrability making them excellent fun for all in the surf.” In addition, they are also helping to promote the invaluable work of the RNLI for which you can make a donation here.

Great review of 'BabyBarista and the Art of War' from top blogger Charon QC

2009-07-13T19:23:00.012Z

Great review of 'BabyBarista and the Art of War' from top blogger Charon QC here and also below. To pre-order the book at a heavily discounted £7.19 (incl p&p), click here.

Boring barristers?… some are far from boring… BabyBarista and the Art of War

Marcel Berlins has stirred things up with his article in the Guardian suggesting the modern advocates lack the flair and atistry of their forebears…. and suggests that modern barristers are boring.
I don’t know the name of the vintner that author of BabyBarista Tim Kevan uses… but I am going to ask him… because whatever he was drinking as he plotted out and wrote BabyBarista and The Art of War... I want some… it certainly does the business.
Tim Kevan, who is a Cambridge man and a barrister himself (although for the present he has gone surfing and writing), has created a marvellously mendacious manipulating monster for the 21st Century in the form of BabyBarista who plots, lies, and manipulates his way through the twelve months of pupillage to try and defeat TopFirst, TheWorrier, BusyBody and late entrant ThirdSix to gain the coveted tenancy.

When I was at university in the early seventies I read Brothers-in-Law, AP Herbert, Megarry and then read the entire Rumpole series written by Sir John Mortimer QC in the Eighties. BabyBarista follows this fine lineage but does not try to copy it – quite the opposite. Tim Kevan weaves colour and story through brief description and good narrative and is bang up to date on his cliches (which I suspect are deliberate to parody pre and misconceptions) and icons of the modern world of blogs, Twitter and Facebook. He paints a wonderfully surreal picture of the Bar, stretching belief but at the same time leaving the reader wondering where the inspiration came from. We meet his pupil master TheBoss – a man with absolutely no spine who, shall we say, gets into some pretty difficult water. There is TheVamp – a woman I could probably enjoy meeting myself in all senses of the word, UpTights – not my type, OldSmoothie – a pretty hopeless case and the avuncular “Feel the force, Luke” character of OldRuin – the only truly honest barrister in the entire book – apart from the lovely Claire.
I liked the way Tim used his experience of practice to parody different scenarios, different styles of work and personality, and some of the changes the legal profession is going through. His section on claim farms and their handling of accident claims is just wonderful. We have a judge who plays online bridge during hearings, an Insurance company which settles cases with a barrister by playing Battleships – the old game from childhood – and we have general mayhem and riot. I was left hoping for more extreme behaviour from BabyBarista in his quest for pupillage, conscious that I was rooting for an appalling role model for the legal profession and I enjoyed every page. Cleverly, Tim grounds the entire book with the sub-text of SunTzu, The Art of War.
As with all authors there is the obligatory “All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance… etc etc..”
I’m sure this is the case - but I couldn’t help putting a face to some of his characters from people I have met in my lifetime. This, of course, made it even more enjoyable for me. Roll on the next book.
BabyBarista is a Hogarthian romp, a parody, a satire with edge and I have no hesitation in finding for Tim Kevan and recommending it to you. Tim Kevan, a fellow blogger and friend, has done the business… and that, as my regular readers will have gathered, is my legion d’honneur… my highest accolade.. and it made me laugh… out loud.. as I read it lying in state on my futon with a bottle of Rioja to my left.

Book recommendation: Vodka by Boris Starling

2009-07-13T14:54:00.003Z

Just finished reading Vodka by Boris Starling. Set against the backdrop of the end of communism in Russia it traces that country's first faltering steps towards capitalism with the privatisation of a vodka factory. But that isn't even the beginning what with a private war between Russian and Chechen mafiya bosses, a serial killer on the loose and political intrigue going to the very highest levels. Oh and then there's the vodka itself which seeps not only into every part of the plot but also into the very soul of Russia itself. It really is a cracking read and I couldn't recommend it more highly. To buy the book, click here. Boris Starling is also the author of Messiah, Storm and Visibility.

Jack the Border Terrier growing up

2009-07-11T17:51:00.005Z

With thanks to Jay Stirzaker of JTS Electrical for taking the photos.

Brian Johnson's giggling fit

2009-07-08T14:17:00.001Z

Mist the Sheepdog from Borough farm Woolacombe

2009-07-06T14:07:00.001Z

For more information, visit www.boroughfarm.co.uk.

Jonathan Marshall flying with a Golden Eagle

2009-07-05T14:10:00.003Z

For more information visit www.experiencefalconry.co.uk.

Website recommendation: Seed to Plate

2009-07-01T13:19:00.002Z

Heads up for a great website called Seed to Plate run by Peter Clements. It provides some great guides to growing vegetable including a plot designer, a sowing calendar, grow guides and some really excellent video lessons. To visit the site, click here.

Article in Devon Life: Scribblings from the Surf

2009-06-27T13:09:00.014Z

The first in a new series entitled 'Scribblings from the Surf'. For more information on Devon Life, click here. To read the article, see the text below or click on the pictures of the original article below that.

SCRIBBLINGS FROM THE SURF

Celebrated blogger Baby Barista, aka Tim Kevan, swapped life at the bar in London for living by the ebb and flow of the tide in North Devon. But what does it all mean? He asks, in the first of this new series.

For anyone visiting North Devon, it’s almost impossible not to notice the effect that surfing has had on the local economy and culture from big brands like Tiki and Saltrock which now have a national presence to popular local boardmakers like Gulfstream. Yet despite this, surfing itself still remains a mystery for the majority of the population. What is it, for example, that drives people to get up at first light in the depths of Winter and clad themselves in thick rubber only to get pounded on the head by freezing cold walls of water as they paddle out towards the breaking waves? Or to give up well-paid jobs simply to be at the beck and call of a swell which can be as fickle as it is generous in what it delivers up from the far reaches of the Atlantic Ocean?

Despite the fact that many surfers spend much of their time either surfing or planning their lives around it, most would probably agree that it’s almost impossible to capture the full effect of the lure of the sea through words alone. As if just by trying to grasp its meaning would push it further from reach. Maybe it comes from our origins in the sea or the fact that our bodies are mostly water. As Goethe put it, “All is born of water; all is sustained by water.” But then again what it’s really all about is simply paddling out and harnessing the raw power of the ocean. Being at one with nature. Reacting to every small change in wind direction or swell size. Becoming another of the many creatures which live by the ebb and flow of the tide.

For my part, having been brought up by the sea in Minehead in Somerset and then ending up in the middle of London practising as a barrister the pull of the sea was almost visceral. As each year went by and the visits back increased, so the harder it became to return to the city. Finally about a year and a half ago I made the jump and moved back to the West Country and specifically Braunton in North Devon where I could finish a legal comedy novel I was writing for Bloomsbury Publishing and above all, I could surf.

But still, what does it all man? As the surfers sit on their boards and stare at the horizon in search of the next set of waves it’s almost as if their minds are cleansed of the everyday worries. Distracted only by the oyster catchers or the odd porpoise, it’s as if the gentle rise and fall of the ocean literally feeds the soul and restores perspective on an otherwise disordered world. As Anne Morrow Lindbergh said in Gift from the Sea: “Rollers on the beach, wind in the pines, the slow flapping of herons across sand dunes…One becomes…flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by today’s tides of all yesterday’s scribblings.”

Then there are the waves themselves. Those bundles of energy which travel across the ocean before rising up and dissipating as they reach land. Only in those final moments can surfers share the journey. But like a Spring plant which has lain dormant in the soil for so long, this is the time that waves burst forth and blossom into altogether more impressive creatures. Then to catch such a beast in full flow, well, how can you explain that? As far back as 1777, canoe surfing was described in an account of the voyages of Captain James Cook in the following way: “I could not help concluding that this man felt the most supreme pleasure while he was driven on so fast and so smoothly by the sea”.

But riding the wave is about more than just pleasure. It’s a sense of timelessness, of other worldliness yet at the same time as connected to this world as it’s possible to be. Daniel Duane describes it in Caught Inside as “a small occurrence outside the linear march of time”. In The Four Quartets, T.S.Eliot describes “the still point of the turning world… [w]here past and future are gathered” and it is perhaps only in poetry and the evocation of life’s mysteries that one can approach the essence of surfing with any accuracy. The words of William Blake, for example, resonate far more than simply describing the physical act of surfing: “To see the World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an hour.”

Then again, we can look back to the ancient Hawaiians themselves whose thoughts echo down the generations through the language they used. Specifically, their word for surfing is he’enalu which splits into two. He’e means to run, flow, slip, glide and also to flee as well as to ride a surfboard. Nalu means to suspend one’s judgment, to think within oneself and to search after any truth or fact as well as the surf itself. So, too, with the Hawaiian greeting Aloha which is broken down into alo, meaning “experience” and ha meaning “breath of life”.

But maybe also, it’s simply a tonic to the woes of modern life. Of the credit crunch, reality TV and an empty celebrity culture. Of bureaucracy, red tape and ever increasing health and safety regulations. Time away from worldly noise and chatter and a return to a simpler life if only for those precious moments in the sea. Above all else, perhaps, it is about freedom. As a Billabong advert once said: “Only a surfer knows the feeling.”

Tim Kevan is the co-author of ‘Why Lawyers Should Surf’ (with Dr Michelle Tempest) and his novel ‘BabyBarista and the Art of War’ will be published by Bloomsbury in August. For more information visit www.timkevan.com.

London Book Launch for BabyBarista

2009-06-25T16:05:00.000Z

The London book launch for my forthcomung book BabyBarista and the Art of War (Bloomsbury Publishing) will be on Wednesday 5th August from 6pm-11pm at the Old Bank of England Pub, 194 Fleet Street, Holborn, London EC4A. It's open house and a pay bar with no guest list restrictions so please come along and bring your friends. It promises to be a big night. Though just so we can get an idea of numbers, please can you email approximate numbers to booklaunch@babybarista.com? The invitation is below and to see a larger version, just click on the image. The book is a legal comedy novel and is based on the blog I write for The Times newspaper. It has been described by broadcaster Jeremy Vine as "well-drawn, smartly plotted and laugh out loud" and by author Boris Starling as "sharp, acerbic, and almost illegally funny". Reviews of the book can be found here and you can pre-order a copy here.

Braunton Book Launch for BabyBarista

2009-06-24T16:49:00.014Z

The Braunton book launch for my forthcoming book BabyBarista and the Art of War (Bloomsbury Publishing) will be on Friday 7th August from 6pm-midnight at The White Lion Pub, North Street, Braunton, Devon EX33 1AJ. It's open house and a pay bar with no guest list restrictions so please come along and bring your friends. It promises to be a big night. Though just so we can get an idea of numbers, please can you email approximate numbers to booklaunch@babybarista.com? The invitation is below and to see a larger version, just click on the image. The book is a legal comedy novel and is based on the blog I write for The Times newspaper. It has been described by broadcaster Jeremy Vine as "well-drawn, smartly plotted and laugh out loud" and by author Boris Starling as "sharp, acerbic, and almost illegally funny". Reviews of the book can be found here and you can pre-order a copy here.

My funniest interview on The Jeremy Vine Show

2009-06-23T05:14:00.004Z

This was several years ago and the subject up for debate was the right to protect your property from burglars. I remember at the time that the caller raised more than a few smiles in the studio! Click here to listen.

Chasing Dean: two great reviews

2009-06-22T20:21:00.004Z

Author Tom Anderson has scored a monumental hit with his new book 'Chasing Dean' in which he goes on a road trip in search of hurricane surf. He's had a great couple of well-deserved great reviews just recently in The Times and The Daily Telegraph.

Podcasts/interviews

2009-06-20T13:08:00.005Z

Just completed two interviews with Charon QC for the excellent Insite Law Magazine. To listen to either of them, click on the following links:

Interview on the importance of jury trials

Interview about 'BabyBarista and the Art of War'

Campaign to save Kimmeridge

2009-06-20T11:53:00.001Z

Dan Hannan MEP attacks Brown again

2009-06-18T16:27:00.001Z

Boxer Barry McGuigan MBE praises 'BabyBarista and the Art of War'

2009-06-18T12:50:00.009Z

"BabyBarista provides an entertaining and highly amusing insight into the mysterious world of wigs and gowns. Right from the start the gloves are off and the fight for tenancy is no less dramatic than a top class boxing match. It's a terrific read which makes you both laugh and keep the pages turning. It also confirms what I've always suspected - that the courtroom is not so different from the boxing ring." Barry McGuigan MBE, former World featherweight Boxing Champion. To pre-order the book at a heavily discounted £7.19 (incl p&p), click here.

Greg Schofield of Schofields solicitors in a new music video

2009-06-16T12:05:00.004Z

For more information see their website here.

Valerio Massimo on top of the world

2009-06-11T07:56:00.002Z

Very many congratulations to Valerio Massimo who summited Mount Everest on 21 May. He has now posted some fantastic pictures and an enthralling account of his ascent on his blog here. Valerio is encouraging people to contribute to Sir Edmund Hilary's Himalayan Trust which he founded to build schools and hospitals for the Sherpa people. For more information, click here.

Surf and sickies okay says Oz court

2009-06-11T07:46:00.003Z

Article in The Telegraph today which reports that an Australian surfer who took part in a competition when he was on sick leave from work has had an appeal against his sacking upheld.

Hat tips to Blawg Review and Quiz Law.

Saltrock Open 2009

2009-06-10T17:44:00.001Z

The next Prime Minister: James Purnell

2009-06-08T20:12:00.005Z

I have twice posted in the past saying that James Purnell would be our next Prime Minister. First last July (here) and most recently last month (here). I see that Guido Fawkes this evening reported and then retracted a story saying that he had an unconfirmed source who said that Purnell would stand if no credible candidate came forward by noon tomorrow. Despite being no fan of New Labour and it being obvious to anyone that Purnell would do far better than Brown, if he does decide to stand then I wish him well. He has turned out to be the only member of the Cabinet with sufficient guts to take on Gordon and the bullies who surround him. It was such political boldness which characterised Tony Blair and I think that Purnell remains Labour's only chance of avoiding complete annihilation. So, as I have now said twice before: watch this space. James Purnell as the next Prime Minister. Oh, and I see Paddy Power is offering odds of 12-1 for Purnell as the next Labour leader.

How to make the perfect cup of tea

2009-06-04T17:25:00.007Z

I can also heartily recommend Andrew Gadsden's www.allabouttea.co.uk.