Lost does Burlesque

Well not me personally, I was dragged rather quite unwillingly to go see a burlesque competition in East London tonight as my former flat mate and buddy from back home had designed one of the costumes. There was lots of boobies with nipple tassels, and suggestive spanking, which you would think would arouse any man.

I thought the evening would be filled with lots of men in Parker jackets, with seedy looks on their faces, but surprise surprise there were actually more women than men and all of them quite young!

Needless to say that my former flat mate and most talented costume designer was backing the right horse as the girl wearing her costume won! Hurrah!

Not something I intend to do again out of choice, but at least it was more enjoyable than an essay on Hart's internal/external view for Jurisprudence due Monday.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow or today as it is marks the start of the examination period. I'm a bit nervous/shit scared. I have worked out that I have 8 days revision/actually doing the work per each 5 of my exams, so it is going to be quite tight. Exams are a nerve wrecking time, people vomit, pass out under stress, and all your work comes down to 3 hours of an exam, in which you are supposed to write about 4 pages per question, 4 questions = 16 pages give or take. Not a lot considering you may have 20 pages of notes per topic ( a rare occasion but if I have done the work then I normally do have that amount) Then there is picking the topics and hoping that they do come up, question spoting (which is apparently never a good thing to do) either redoing the whole topic because you have no idea of what your notes actually mean, then if your exams are closed book you actually have to learn everything you have written down which can be an imense task in itself. Does anyone have a tip for examinations?

In accordance with examinations comes the dreaded exam result day when everyone really just wants to know if they have beaten other people and as law is so highly and boringly competitive, you get those who boast and those who are your mates and are quite shy about revealing their exam results.

What really does annoy me about exams and how they make up your grade of your degree is that no-one really knows or wants to tell us how are degrees are marked. There are various ways to do it of course and average of what you have done over the two marked years, or the four best marks over the period of two years (withstanding the fact that you have similarily consistent marks a 2:1 for example can be obtained if you have a mixture of 2:1's and 2:2's but if you were to get 4 3rd's in your 2nd year and then four 2:1's in your final year then the likelyhood of getting a 2:1 is unlikely)

So tomorrow dawns a new day for me perhaps because I actually will have to start doing the work at an alarming rate. And doing work constantly for the next 40 days isnt going to be appealing or attractive. Thoughts of exams are depressing and currently turn my stomach...

Good luck to all of you that have exams! I know that I'll need it, or by some divine intervention and hard work I can hopefully get some 2:1s this year :)

The Weather

In memorandum of Pops - delightful hamster, queen of her castle, greedy and idle like most lawyers should be. Although she lived out her last days as a vicious, blood drawing rodent, she shall be fondly remembered for her obesity, and repeatedly pissing on my hand.

Anyone enjoying the weather? A quintessentially British topic of conversation obviously.
But due to the weather two lectures for today and tomorrow have been cancelled! (not that I had any plans to go to them, as they normally throw me off what I have actually been studying as lecturers are so far forward of what I need to be studying for tutorials.

As I walked out of my ghetto chick high rise maisonette, I did see a little pitter patter of rain, but decided to go for it, only for it to turn into a full scale piss down, and after ten minutes of walking in the rain I decided to turn back and not go into university or do any work for the day, as the depression of the rain had taken hold of me(also due to the fact that I was soo wet all my clothes had become skin tight)

Interesting week perhaps this week, an inaugural lecture by my favourite lecturer and a trip to a crown court that the bar society have organised. The Bar society sent out emails and even provided a hand out for the occasion of how we should act whilst sitting in on trials. Such key pieces of advice like "do not run round the courts" and "switch mobile phones off" otherwise there could be disciplinary action such as expulsion from the society! (I'm sure this would reflect very badly on a pupillage application) Other key pieces of updated advice are that we are not to stare at witnesses or the accused, (why shouldn't I be able to stare at a witness or the accused and look menacingly at them and give them scornful faces? or even looks like "I know you did it") All these rules and regulations obviously imposed by the criminal lecturer who is organising the event, in case the bar society's members happen to be cannibalistic animals in heat, that wish to disrupt justice by answering their phones in court, and running around in open court happy slapping the judge (yawn). Also have missed a few opportunities to claim my "membership" card, and am being urged to collect it for without it I shan't be allowed into Court.. (thought anyone could walk into courts?)

Additional problems this week may be caused by the bi-weekly seminars, this unfortunate organising of events had lead me to have 3 x 1.5hr tutorials and 1 x 1 hr tutorial on the same week, and seeming as I spend most of my first week that is free of seminars thinking that I have a lot of time to do the work and find a way to distract myself from it, this week could prove to be difficult (like every second week since the beginning of term.)

Depression is also looming because exams are near. Friends and I are thinking of ways to get ourselves out of them such as throwing ourselves in front of a car or bus ( deemed to hazardous and potentially life threatening to be carried out) other suggestions are pregnancy( damn my biological factor of being a male) or somehow burning our hands so that we can't write. None of which will be carried out, however what is most likely is spending a period of 24-30 hours before an exam staying up, drinking red bull and trying to study an entire years worth of topic in that short space. I am not obviously an ideal student, in many respects.

S5 Public Order Act

Sorry for the fontsizes etc it has all gone slightly weird and even when I edit it back it just reverts to another weird form.

Last night whilst taking a bendy bus home from a light evening of seeing Sweeney Todd, (which by the way is highly recommended) myself and another law student encountered a man on the bus, talking into his phone saying how he had been arrested.

According to him he had 6 or so.. glasses of wine and was walking towards a bus stop in central london. A community police officer had stopped him and said that he was acting in a drunken manner. To which the man replied that he was fine and continued to walk on, the police officer did not seem to like this and told him to "calm down" to which the man's reply was "I am calm".
Apparently the Poo lice then dragged him to the side of the road, to which the man responded with "fuck off". He was then arrested so he said under s.5 of some act to which I said it could have been the Public Order Act, and was charged £80. His female friend who he also was with, who had been drinking the same amount tried to step in, however also got herself arrested.

So in my legal and slightly drunk state I advised him to appeal to the decision.
So as I got home I tried to look up the relevant legal jargon, however the computer screen was shaking at me in a disagreeable manner.

I managed to pull up some basic research though:
S5 Public Order Act 1986

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he—
	(a)	uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or
	(b)	displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,

DPP v Orum [1988] 3 All ER 449

A police officer is capable of being 'a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress' by 'threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior', for the purposes of s 5(1)a of the Public Order Act 1986. However, if he is not likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress by the words or behaviour used it is not likely that he will be able to arrest the person using the threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour under s 5(4) for offensive conduct, since the officer, if he is the only person present, will not be in a position to suspect that an offence under s 5(1) has been committed.

I suppose the man who liked his wine was arrested under s.5 because he swore in a public place and was perhaps viewed as being abusive, or using insulting words or behaviour.


And this
"Being drunk and disorderly is a crime and you may well be arrested or fined, rather than just told to quieten down. Being disorderly means being aggressive or abusive, or generally making a nuisance of yourself. Police can give you an on-the-spot fine of £80 for being drunk and disorderly. They can also arrest you if you are likely to be a danger to yourself or someone else, or if you are so drunk you won't remember being given an on-the-spot fine! If you are arrested you may have to sleep it off in the cells and may be charged in the morning."
from here

So he may in fact of been arrested under s.5 for using insulting words or abusive behaviour, or either for being drunk and disorderly.

Nice one Poo Lice.

An Introduction

Hello there,
Let me introduce myself. I am a 19 year old male law student with delusions of perhaps one day practicing at the bar (however without that 1st class degree lets consider that it will be impossible and that im getting into thousands of pounds into debt for nothing)

I currently in my 2nd year Law LLB at a semi-prestigious London university good for Law but not a lot else according to the Guardian and The Times.

What else to write? I have other interests which normally have a higher priority than actually do law work such as going out to clubs and waking up the next morning wondering what I have done and who I have offended.

I hope to start this blog for other law students who feel that they don't quite cut the mustard with all the other bloggers out there, who seem so enthusiatically whimisical with every post that it makes us less presentable people feel a bit crap, and perhaps for all those students who can't seem to be stuck in the library 9-5 Monday to Friday because they can't even get themselves out of bed!

The title of this blog adequatelly describes how I feel, Lost (not the tv series), completly. While I can be hardworking I'm not the type that loves to study law, (perhaps a change in degree is needed) Like most law students I feel apathetic towards a degree that ultimately decides my career. A career in law almost seems like a joke in my current situation, am I an oxbridge graduate? Do I have a 1st? Do I have a 10 page CV full of extra curricular activities? No!
Oh well High Street Solicitor firm for me then.