OK, today's the big day.
Arguing in front of the Lords and Masters of the highest court in the land, in a building opened in 1882 by Queen Victoria (Vicky, after 4:30 and if you were invited for gin and tonic.), it was...
No, wait. What the actual fuck?
Upon arrival, check in to see what court room our trial was assigned to, and goddammit, someone else's trial had ran over the scheduled number of days, and there was no court room in the grand old building available. Nope, were were now going to be arguing in the Marine Admiralty Courts building, or some such bullshit, a post WWII behoumouth with peeling paint and hallways that smell faintly like cat piss, it has all the charms of a fucking Wal-Mart.
Sometimes, life, she's not fair. Not fair at all.
And I was wearing my *good* blue jeans, too.
The courtroom was packed, and I'm sure it won't surprise you at all to learn that the crowd consisted entirely of my oppositions members of The Bar. Twenty-odd of 'em.
And one new face, I'd never seen before.
The Barrister.
The Barrister (always capitalized, even in speech, eh.) talks to the court, and never to the client. He comes from a group of Barristers that have their own Barristers Chambers corporation, and all the solicitors do all the work and put it all together, and then hire a Barrister to present it to the court.
He came over and introduce himself to me, managing to both look over the top of his half-rim glasses, and down his nose at me simultaeneously. He handed me a 64 page glossy full color brochure, with the month and year on it, for his Barristers Chambers corporation. Founded back in the 1700's sometime, there were 12 members of their Chambers, and when it came to Chancery court, they were the creme de la creme. He thudded a 400 page leather bound yearbook on the table as well. Engraved title, gold gilt edged, those puppies must have cost at least 500 pounds sterling each to produce. A note on the title page crowed that the bindings had been hand stitched.
"My bonaifides!" he boomed.
He patted me on the shoulder, and went over to his podium - he brought his own podium - and proceed to warm his voice up like an opera singer.
Now, here's where I normally would denigrate the man, his skills, and his choice of cravat and schooling. However, as he was getting ready, talking to the nearly two dozen lawyers and associates scurrying about arranging fucking stacks of file boxes (8 stacks in all, 6 boxes per stack, as they came in on hand trucks.), and generally making sure everything was ship shape, this now being in the Admiralty Courts building, and all; I was getting this weird, strange feeling.
It took me a while to recognize it, for I'd certainly never had it in the 25 hearings at Masters in Chambers preparing for this trial.
And then it dawned on me.
I wasn't the smartest person in the room.
He was.
That doesn't happen very fucking often, and this was particularly bad timing.
We all stood up, and the judge walked into the room.
Court was now in session.
To be continued...