Clive Wismayer 🇪🇺🇲🇹 🇳🇱 🥪 Profile picture
Retired 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 & 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 lawyer & Brexile. Politics, history, law. Bitter & twisted.
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Oct 19, 2023 8 tweets 2 min read
A ramble down memory lane.

In the 1980s I worked for a leading criminal law firm, TV Edwards. They are still going now. I was based in their tiny two-man office in Harlesden, right across the road from Willesden County Court. Ours was very much a legal aid practise & me & my .. .. boss were quite successful, making most of the firm’s profit.

The main office was (& is) over on the Mile End Rd in East London, where the serious criminals operated. Consequently, they got involved in some big cases. They pioneered the technique of examining notebook ..
Jul 9, 2023 9 tweets 2 min read
Civilisation collapse. (Let’s discuss something cheerful 🙂)

Been reading about the late Bronze Age collapse lately. Never heard of it until recently but it’s a very big deal. Somewhere around 1,200 BCE a whole bunch of highly advanced civilisations were .. .. wiped out & a dark age descended over the eastern Med & the Middle East. Among the affected were the Mycenaeans, Hittites, Ugarit & Amorite states & the Canaans.

Now these states formed part of a globalised world of interdependent trade. The shipwreck that was recovered ..
Jun 24, 2023 5 tweets 2 min read
I was once told by a civil airline pilot that anyone from the lowliest mechanic right on up could point out safety concerns without fear of reprimand. The opposite seems to have applied at Oceangate.

Some parts of the design ..

https://t.co/hwYZZV6WlO
.. were regarded as ‘non safety critical’ but I’ve seen a convincing explanation (involving a cheap pair of scuba diving flippers) of why, in a hazardous environment, everything is safety critical.

Those who know something of the engineering problems have identified the ..
May 17, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
I’m presently absorbed by the Bronze Age Collapse which occurred in the decades around 1200 BC. The eastern med & middle & near east then formed a globalised world of delicate interdependence which was swept away by a combination of drought, famine, invasion & natural ... … disasters. Entire civilisations were wiped off the map, writing & other skills were lost & a dark age of 300 years or so ensued.

We too live in a world of interdependence whose fragility is on display in the arcane world of trade, with its mysterious rules of origin, ..
Apr 1, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
Right! Fuck the EU, screw The Netherlands & a pox on all foreigners!

Popped out to snort some weed during today’s chess match & 2 gigantic Dutch policemen arrested me, presumably for smoking in a prohibited area while being British. They spoke no English, oddly, & failed .. .. to react as required when upbraided in loud, distinct English. ‘Unhand me you ruffians, or you’ll be hearing from my solicitor’ I said, to no avail. Nor were they amenable to reason when I conveyed by gestures that I was in the middle of a game & risked losing on time. ..
Feb 16, 2023 9 tweets 3 min read
This is Henry, 6th Duke of Norfolk. He inherited property from his elder brother Thomas but refused to pass it on to his younger brother Charles, as had been stipulated by his father, the Earl of Arundel. Charles sued. In 1682 the House of Lords ruled against Charles, deciding .. .. that tying up property for lengthy periods (eg in deeds & wills) was ‘wrong’ (as Wikipedia puts it). Thus was born the so-called ‘rule against perpetuities’, still part of both English & American law & thus still baffling law students to this day.

Which brings me to ..
Feb 3, 2023 10 tweets 2 min read
In Memoriam

Walter Medley was the managing clerk at the small law firm at which I took articles in 1979. A small, dapper man with a brush moustache, already 70, he had been in the law since the 30s. In an office in which everyone used first names, he was ‘Mr Medley’ & to him .. .. I was ‘Mr Wismayer’.

He was a kind & excellent teacher from whom I learned conveyancing, not the line of work for me but invaluable experience nonetheless (I ended up acting against other lawyers who had fouled up). He was full of stories about olden times, like the ..
Feb 2, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
Let’s juxtapose:

Exhibit A - Allegra Stratton in the £2.6M press room and (scroll please):

Exhibit B - an article in today’s Guardian about The Slob’s publicly funded legal expenses which contains this quote from him:

‘Anybody who thinks I was knowingly going to parties that were breaking lockdown rules in No 10, and then knowingly …

theguardian.com/politics/2023/…
Dec 15, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
Dear @BBCNews

As a concerned member of the public I’m interested to hear the railway bosses’ side of the pay dispute but I have yet to see any of them interviewed.

I’d like to know about:

• their own pay scales & of any increases, bonuses, share options etc.
• whether in .. .. all cases they are providing a reliable, affordable & comfortable service
• whether & to what extent they are conducting negotiations in good faith & entirely without influence from govt.
• the profitability of Network Rail & the operators
• how far they take ..
Dec 14, 2022 6 tweets 2 min read
There was a report, or something, recently that said the BBC should produce more output for the working class. It confirmed my opinion that the BBC is institutionally upper middle class & regards the working class as interesting fauna. They empty the bins, drive the trains .. .. & buses, make things in factories somewhere & are mostly best kept out of sight.

Now & then the BBC hits the streets, usually in Stoke for some reason, & takes the temperature among ‘ordinary’ people with a bit of vox pop. How revealing it would be to see what gets left on ..
Dec 12, 2022 9 tweets 2 min read
On computing

I’m from the neolithic period of computing. In the palaeolithic I encountered my 1st computer at Leeds uni. I played poker against it. It was the size of a large fridge & had a ‘screen’ the size of that on a pocket calculator.

In 1989 we got a bunch of IBM .. .. clones networked to a server. It fell to me, somehow, to teach our highly resistant legal secretaries to switch away from their typewriters.

I recall one evening reviewing a long affidavit on screen, trying to work out why, when printed, its right hand margin was ..
Nov 26, 2022 4 tweets 3 min read
@snb19692 @LindenLyn On which PPE Medpro dodged taxes. Funny thing is, HMRC’s winding up petition seeks only £800,000 or so. On £65M profit.

Let’s blame benefit fraudsters though. Be fair. @snb19692 @LindenLyn And just to add - it’s quite something that not only did Medpro not supply the PPE contracted for, it didn’t even pay its ridiculously low taxes!

In a proper system these people would be put in the stocks, jailed & then sent off for re-education upon release.
Nov 25, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
This obit of one of the Queen mother’s ladies in waiting is a hilarious insight into a world of fawning, vapid flummery. Her working day started with breakfast in bed, apparently (someone had to do it). Some quotes:

‘Early in her waiting life, ..

thetimes.co.uk/article/9a2ddd… .. while awaiting the arrival of German royalty, she asked the Queen Mother if she should curtsy to them. She retorted: “Curtsy? Of course not. They’re Germans.”’

‘Hugo Vickers, the royal historian, recalled of Campbell-Preston: “She was a brilliant person at ..
Nov 25, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
It’s weird that there is no mention in this article of the winding up petition issued against Medpro a couple of months ago. The petitioner is HMRC. Under fire yesterday, the govt. said it was in mediation with Medpro over breaches of contract but ..

thetimes.co.uk/article/670afc… .. that makes no sense to me - winding up trumps other dispute resolution activity. The amount at stake in the mediation is much greater than the petition debt. I guess the petition is on hold while negotiations continue.

It’s worth watching this closely because it’s big.
Nov 24, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
They always stress the urgency of acquiring PPE, as if that justifies the corruption, forgetting:

1 Hancock’s HoC boast in Jan 20 that the UK was the best-prepared country in the world
2 their initial strategy was to let Covid rip (aborted by Cummings)
3 the ‘urgency’ did not .. .. actually work, the UK’s performance being among the worst, as shown by this graph from mid-2020.

Still, at least their pals made a lot of money. Image
Nov 1, 2022 6 tweets 2 min read
As he’s in the news, worth recalling a story about @MattHancock. You probably remember it. During the 2019 GE there was a scandal about a small boy having to be treated on the floor at Leeds General Infirmary, there being no beds. Hancock rushed up to put the fire out & .. .. concocted a story about 100 Labour activists showing up & one of his aides being assaulted. It was utter crap but the BBC peddled it anyway.

Also worth remembering Alison Pearson announced she had a scoop proving the little boy story was fake. She had to can it, though, ..
Sep 28, 2022 5 tweets 1 min read
I believe in signs. Before the property slump in 1989 I used to see forests of ‘for sale’ signs when walking to work along Windsor Rd, Ealing (shown below). They disappeared almost overnight. The estate agents all went bust & solicitors’ conveyancing income dried up. Millions .. .. found themselves in negative equity.

An acquaintance has just had a fixed rate mortgage offer withdrawn by the Nationwide BS. That’s a sign. It portends uncertainty among home owners & 1st time buyers, natural Tory voters, one would think.

This effect of Kwarteng’s ..
Jul 15, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
We need a Conservative party, just not this one. A voice saying:

• there’s no free lunch
• over-dependence on the state is bad
• the surest route to self-fulfilment is hard work
• make the most of the opportunities you have
• ultimately, the prosperity of everyone .. .. depends on thriving business
• the monarchy & other traditions are important
• law & order must be maintained
• the countries of the UK are better together
• inward migration must be controlled
• the state does not excel at delivering services

Now, you need not agree ..
Jul 14, 2022 5 tweets 1 min read
In the Dutch parliament there are, or have been:

• an over 50s party
• an animal rights party
• your standard conservative party (not like ours)
• a green left party
• a kind of Liberal party
• right wing nutter parties (always fragmenting)
• Christian parties
… …

• a socialist party

I’m fine with this, so long as the nutters remain marginal. Debate in parliament (which I watch but don’t understand) is reasoned & conducted by well-dressed, relatively normal people.

This is PR. The UK, light years away, has panto politics instead. ..
Jan 29, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
Revolution

Yes, the UK (& the US) needs one but no, it’s not possible in the classical form with barricades, tumbrils etc. Anyway, there’s no need to turn the world upside down when all you want is a functioning, fair economy that works for everybody.

In the classical .. .. revolt you must take over key branches of govt. media, army barracks etc. Sometimes that’s all it takes. Similarly, there is one key point to be conquered in a peaceful UK revolt - the Labour party.

Flood the Labour party with new members. For good measure, join an ..
Jan 27, 2022 20 tweets 4 min read
Prince Andrew - a solicitor’s view 🧵

I was a civil litigation solicitor, which means my job involved legal analysis, case preparation & strategy, the last being by no means the least important & a skill requiring plenty of experience.

First Interview:

This is important. .. .. In my office I’m, if not the boss, then at least in control. I would expect to call Andrew ‘Andrew’, not YRH or sir. No deference. My job will be to impart unwelcome advice, not to fawn or grovel. I can see a 50 ton truck with Andrew’s name on it hurtling down ..