Endgame in Afghanistan - incredible film by Sean Smith for The Guardian

Tarp surfing

Review of Law and Disorder

Thanks to the blogger from North Devon who writes the NoClue Blog for a lovely review of Law and Disorder. In particular they say:

"...it’s very funny to read and you don't need to come from a legal family or be in law to appreciate the wry humour and enjoy the anecdotes and the devilishly funny stories...It’s a book that will appeal to anyone with a sense of humour and one which I simply could not put down until I had read it from cover to cover laughing out loud with every page. It’s nice to know that what happens in every office of any business in this land happens in exactly the same way within the legal profession - but done with a helluva lot more style and panache."

Watch Braunton's Lydia Cross star in ITV programme...

Following up on my article in Devon Life about Lydia Cross here, you can watch her star in an ITV programme called 'All the Queen's Men' with Alan Titchmarsh here. It covers her run in Braunton and also shows her presenting a bouquet of flowers to the Queen. It's from 29 minutes onwards.

'Scribblings from the Surf' - Devon Life 8/10: Lydia Cross and Help for Heroes

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

HEROES HELPING HEROES

Barrister and writer Tim Kevan meets an incredible family

Braunton in North Devon is home to some extraordinary people, but none more so than nine year old Lydia Cross who, despite having lost both her legs to meningitis when she was two, has been inspiring the nation with her positive attitude and good works. So, too, Lydia’s father Tony Cross who is the Devon co-ordinator for Help for Heroes.

Lydia Cross
Back in October 2003 Tony and Jodie Cross’s worst nightmare came true. Their two beautiful little daughters Lydia and Millie both contracted serious meningitis. First it was seven month old Millie who was rushed to hospital and given a 15% chance of survival. Then as soon as they arrived home, two year old Lydia wasn’t well. Unfortunately for the first few days they were told variously by health professionals that it was a virus or an ear infection until eventually she collapsed and was blue–lighted to hospital where on arrival she stopped breathing and was found to be suffering from among other things full multi-organ failure with septicaemia which it transpired was also due to meningitis. That night the plastic surgeon warned them that Lydia could lose her arms, cheeks, tip of her nose, lips and legs. Truly a parent’s worst nightmare. 

From those terrible weeks, Millie has thankfully fully recovered. As for Lydia, after two weeks in intensive care she had to go to the renal ward for dialysis. Luckily, her kidneys, arms and face all recovered but unfortunately she had to have below-knee, bilateral amputations on both legs. However, her parents were above all thankful that she was alive. As her mother Jodie says, “I thought I had the best cuddle in the world with Millie. Little did we know that we'd be in the same situation with our other daughter days later. When I had that cuddle with our little Liddie I felt the luckiest Mummy in the world. I'd secretly, at the beginning, dreaded that I wouldn't get the chance to hold her in my arms again, but thankfully I did.” Yet despite her disability, Lydia has managed to live as normal a life as possible, attending the local school and learning to walk, jump and ride a bike with her prosthetic limbs. She’s also learned to surf, getting up on the board and standing on her knees and thanks to the brilliant tuition of Maggie Buckland at the Leisure Centre in Barnstaple she’s even learned to swim without swimming legs.

But simply fighting for her own survival was not enough for the indefatigable Lydia. She campaigned to raise awareness of meningitis and by the age of six had already won the Pride of Britain Award for both her courage and her conviction. Then at the age of eight she did a sponsored one mile swim and in the process raised £13,500 for the Help for Heroes charity and this year completed a mile run in Braunton for the same charity with among many others two injured servicemen Ben Mcbean and Mark Ormrod. Oh and if that’s not enough she’s also helped support the British Legion and their poppy appeal. All of which led to her being awarded a Rotary Young Citizen of the Year Award by TV presenter Connie Huq this year as well as receiving perhaps the greatest accolade as far as kids (as well as many adults) are concerned: a Gold Blue Peter Badge. Not that it stops there. When I visited the family, she had been asked to be a patron of Help for Heroes and in the following weeks had a visit to see the Queen and a presentation to make of a Hero Bear to Prince William at the official opening of the swimming pool at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court. She then plans to walk up Pen Y Fan in Wales in August for Help for Heroes and the British Legion. But beyond all of this what shines out from Lydia is her love of life, her cheeky sense of humour, her kindness to others and a maturity beyond her years. It really is both a joy and an enormous inspiration to see. All the more so for the injured servicemen she has worked so hard to support. As Jodie says, “The lads say Lydia is an inspiration and when they find it hard they see her jumping around and smiling and wondering how they can give up.” 

Tony Cross
Lydia’s parents Tony and Jodie are equally inspirational in the way they have handled their family difficulties and turned them into gifts. Tony was in the army for some fifteen years and during that time served in Iraq, returning to work there later as a close protection officer. He is now, among other things, the Devon co-ordinator for Help for Heroes which involves him going around the county explaining what it is all about. Above all, he is keen to emphasise that it is absolutely non-political and is about helping injured servicemen and not whether the fights to which they are sent are right or wrong. Their aim is to establish recovery centres around the UK not only to provide specialist care for the horrific injuries which are suffered but also to help those people to re-integrate themselves back into civilian life as well as relieving the burden on the NHS. When your country is at war and there are people not only fighting but also dying for the freedoms you often take for granted, it is hard to think of a more noble cause to be supporting. 

But beyond even the charity work and the determination of this formidable family, there is above all else an incredible spirit and love which radiates from them all. If ever there was going to be anything that left you with a lump in your throat, it is the sight of two such incredibly loving, modest and courageous parents and their happy, fun-loving and equally courageous daughters. Definitely heroes helping heroes.

For more information on Lydia Cross and to donate to Help for Heroes, click on the links on the article. 

Don't forget jury trials in the great repeal act

I've just done the second in my series of monthly articles for The Guardian Law urging the government to repeal the provision that allows for judge-only trials. You can read the article here and follow the series here.

New Devon blog: Ebb and Flow

Heads up for a great new blog called Ebb  and Flow which is full of ideas for what to get up to around North Devon. You can check it out here.

Poem on my Dad Rob the Rubbish by Radio 4's Matt Harvey

The wonderful Radio 4 Saturday Live poet (and fellow Devon resident) Matt Harvey did a poem about my Dad Robin Kevan in his guise as Rob the Rubbish a few years ago which was broadcast on Fi Glover's programme on Radio 4. Now it's going to appear in a new book by Matt entitled Where Earwigs Dare which is published on 14 October 2010. It is a collection of Matt's latest poems, horticultural, whimsical, ecological, political and just plain funny. You can pre-order it at amazon. With Matt's kind permission, the poem about my Dad is also printed below.

Rob the Rubbish…..My Hero

He isn’t where the glamour is
Or where the glitz and glitter is
He’s far away from cameras
Rob is where the litter is.
Whose litter?
Ours!

Sound citizens like me and you
Who leave behind a residue
The wrapper of a snacky thing
Petroleum based packaging
An apple core, a bottle top
Look! Someone’s dropped their glottal stop
The stray lid off some Tupperware
The forelock of a Sherpa there
A crushed carton of apple juice

The landscape soaks up this abuse….
….Then Rob steps in

And…by picking up crisp packets, cling film and tin foil
Incongruous empties of Sprite and Drambui
He nurtures the flora and fauna and topsoil
And subtly recharges the Feng of its Shui

Rob is more than merely stoic
He’s verging on heroic
He’s a super-dooper human
Doing topographic grooming
He’s a man whose civic pride
Extends up every mountainside
He de-clutters their crevices
He’s even done Ben Nevis’s
The litter droppers’ nemesis -
Is he a hero? You decide….

It’s a dirty world - but Rob won’t let us ruin it
It’s a dirty job - we’re glad that Rob is doing it

Matt Harvey, Radio 4, 27th January 2007

Letter in The Independent from my Dad Robin Kevan (aka Rob the Rubbish)

There's a lovely letter from my Dad Robin Kevan in The Independent today about picking up litter. He is famously known as Rob the Rubbish for his efforts which include not only cleaning up his local area but also mountains such as Snowdon, Scafell and Ben Nevis and as far afield as the trek to Everest Base Camp. The Daily Telegraph has described him as “the unlikely new hero of the environmental lobby” and The Independent said that “Mr Kevan thus follows in the footsteps of others who have decided something must be done and done it. One thinks of Florence Nightingale, Albert Schweitzer, Bob Geldof, Diana, Princess of Wales...”. Oh and he even featured in a book called One Can Make A Difference alongside the likes of the Dalai Lama and Paul McCartney. All from picking up other people’s rubbish! You can read more about him on his wikipedia entry. The letter is also printed below.


What I do is rubbish
Terence Blacker's article (16 July) is another in a long list by journalists and others trying to understand the phenomenon that is a British countryside blighted by litter. I achieved some notoriety a while ago by responding to a radio report about Ben Nevis being strewn with litter, going there from my home in Wales and cleaning it up. I worked on the basis that, if litter offends you, pick it up. It can then no longer offend you and the beauty behind it can be seen. It's simple.
Most people see litter all around them every day, but, because we are all so focused on just getting through the day, we don't actually notice it.
Once you really notice litter you are never quite the same again. I regularly clean up my small town and my activities have taken me to Britain's highest mountains and the Everest trail. 
It's a never-ending job but I'm sustained by the fact that everywhere I roam, things look a lot better behind me.
Instead of getting angry about the huge global litter problem, we could all try to deal with litter on the street outside our own front doors. Clear it up every day. Britain could then be seen for the lovely country it is.
Robin Kevan
(aka Rob the Rubbish)
Powys, Wales
The beautiful photo of my Dad cleaning up Snowdon is copyright photographer Howard Barlow who also sells iconic images of in particular seventies rock stars such as the Ramones and Blondie on his website here. He also has a blog here.

Man City's great Georgi Kinkladze

Follow BabyDoc on his travels!

Heads up for a blog which has just started and will follow the adventures of North Devon's James Yeo as he sets off on his surf holiday medical elective to Vanuatu. See www.james-babydoc.blogspot.com

New record for Archie the incredible beer mat catching springer spaniel

Meet Archie, the incredible beer mat catching springer spaniel who belongs to Rick Yeo (of Rick Yeo Plumbing and Heating - tel: 07789 640966) who lives in Braunton in North Devon. He's been well-known for a long time for his special skill and became a YouTube star after breaking the world record with nine beer mats in one catch here. But he's been practising hard since then and on 16 July 2010 in the Black Horse Pub in Braunton, he scored a new beermatastic record of twelve! You can see it on the video below.

Legal training system failing law students

Heads up for a very interesting article by Neil Rose at The Guardian Law which says that “While the number of places on the LPC has exploded over the last decade, increasing by nearly 70%, there has been only a 20% rise (to 5,809) in the number of training contracts for them to go on, a figure that is falling in the recession.” Cartoon by Alex Williams.

Great review by Andy Martin in The Independent of Sam Bleakley's 'Surfing Brilliant Corners'

Great review by Andy Martin in The Independent of Sam Bleakley's excellent new book Surfing Brilliant Corners. As well as lamenting the  "adolescent brawling on the beach and the drunken orgies" of old he says among other things:

"Surfing Brilliant Corners is a jazz-inspired song of surfing...[which] easily transcends the traditional surfing-magazine brief. Part-memoir, part-metaphysics, the book is brimming with epic pictures of camels, deserts, jungles, oceans and occasional human beings...Bleakley argues persuasively that surfing, and therefore life generally, consists of imparting some new syncopated swerve to an old standard and improvising amid the maelstrom, "between chaos and control"."

Article at Online Journalism Blog

Thanks to Paul Bradshaw for allowing me to do a guest post at the Online Journalism Blog entitled 'Why I escaped The Times' paywall'.

Iceland’s safe haven from litigation

There's a fascinating article by Afua Hirsch at The Guardian Law Section about plans in Iceland to make it a safe haven for journalists through the introduction of the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative.

Lord Rodger: “homosexuals are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically coloured cocktails…”!

In a judgment of the Supreme Court today, gay and lesbian asylum seekers have won the right not to be deported from the UK if they would be persecuted in their home countries. But what jumps out at you is a particular extract from one of the Supreme Court Judges (at para 78):

"...just as male heterosexuals are free to enjoy themselves playing rugby, drinking beer and talking about girls with their mates, so male homosexuals are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically coloured cocktails and talking about boys with their straight female mates."

And to make it even better, the name of that Judge: Lord Rodger [honestly, that's his name - you couldn't make it up!]

Sponsored guest post: Motorcyclists make up 1 in 4 of all fatal road accidents

Motorbikers fare badly in Road Safety Foundation’s latest report

Bad news for motorbikers – a recent study into A-roads and motorways in the UK has found that motorcycle riders are involved in 25% of all fatal accidents on these roads.  The ‘Saving Lives for Less’ report, commissioned by the Road Safety Foundation, looked at fatal accidents on 28,000 miles of motorways and A-roads in the UK and found that in one quarter of these accidents, a biker was involved.

The Road Safety Foundation is the British arm of the European Road Safety Assessment Programme and produces a detailed annual report examining data from accidents that have resulted in serious injuries and fatalities on major roads throughout the country.  As well as looking at the overall figures, the RSF has ranked stretches of road according to the number of accidents that have happened on them in the past year.  Once again the A537, a popular biking route between Buxton and Macclesfield in the Peak District has been named as Britain’s most dangerous road.

This road, known to bikers and other road users as the Cat and Fiddle road after the pub at its summit, has consistently been amongst the top 10 most dangerous roads in the UK for the last decade.  The combination of steep gradients, tight corners and its formidable reputation have made it both one of the most popular roads amongst bikers and one of the most dangerous.  Police accident figures mentioned by the Road Safety Foundation in its report show that fatal and serious collisions on this section of road increased by 127%, rising from 15 in 2003-2005 to 34 in 2006-2008.

Claiming accident compensation after a motorbike accident

If you’re a biker, and you’ve been injured in an accident, you might feel like your insurance company are on another wavelength entirely. At Motorbike Accident Law, we provide free legal advice, by bikers, for bikers.  Our service aims to help bikers who have been injured through no fault of their own to claim the motorbike accident compensation they deserve.  Our specialist bike claims solicitors are all bikers themselves and they understand what really matters to you after a crash.  To find out more about Motorbike Accident Law, and how our service could help you after an accident that wasn’t your fault, visit the My Motorbike Accident Claim website or call 0800 158 5540 now to speak with one of our claims advisors.

Author: Neil Worrall

Civil Liberties article for The Guardian: 28-day detention

I've just written the first in a series of monthy articles for The Guardian addressing different issues affecting our civil liberties. The first condemns Theresa May's decision to extend the 28-day period of detention without trial and can be read at The Guardian.

Law and Disorder: coming soon...

Advance copies of Law and Disorder: Confessions of Pupil Barrister have just arrived. This is the mass market edition of BabyBarista and the Art of War which was described by broadcaster Jeremy Vine as "a wonderful, racing read - well-drawn, smartly plotted and laugh out loud" and by The Times as "a cross between The Talented Mr Ripley, Rumpole and Bridget Jones's Diary". It follow's BabyBarista's fight for tenancy during his first year in chambers. It is officially released on 2 August and can be pre-ordered at www.amazon.co.uk.

BabyB hits the front page of The Guardian Online (click to enlarge)

Sponsored Guest Post: Free coaching session with lawyer and professional coach Sonia Gallagher

Are you willing to really succeed this year?
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This frame of mind enables you to conquer obstacles, solve problems creatively, and get more done in less time. Having the right skills is not enough. Your mind set is the most important factor.
Your beliefs hold you back, keep you in the same place, or move you forward.
Become familiar with your beliefs and start making leaps in your life. Once you are aware of your beliefs, you can apply strategies to modify and replace them with beliefs that enable your peak performance.  
Sonia Gallagher is an Executive Coach at Time for Life, LLC. She works with Lawyers and Business Owners who are ready to reach new levels of Success through Balance. Request a Free Coaching Session now at www.timeforlifenow.com.

Frame your photos with Phlib!

Heads up for a brilliant new way of framing your photos from Phlib run by my good friend Harry Singer, kitesurfer, surfer and top TV presenter. As the website says:

Psst! Not a lot of people know this.... your photographs are actually ALIVE! They have feelings too, you know. So how do you think they like being suffocated behind glass? Trapped in a box? Sentenced to Flickr? Or jailed on a hard-drive? Exactly! So FREE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS with a Phlib. It's the pain-free, friendly way of displaying your photos without torturing them (and yourself) with frames, clips, glass or backing panes. And why is it called a Phlib? It's short hand for Photo Liberation! Print your photographs. Smell your photographs. Touch your photographs. Love your photographs. Phlib your photographs! 

Have a look how they work here. You can order direct from www.phlib.co.uk. Oh, and check them out on BBC1 in a show called High Street Dreams on 9 July at 7pm where  famous fragrance genius Jo Malone and business tycoon Nick Leslau take Harry on a fantastical journey through time and space!

Interview on BBC Radio 4's World at One about The Times' paywall

Interview about getting a book deal and taking a break from the law

I recently did an interview with American lawyer and life-coach Sonia Gallagher. You can listen to it here.

The 100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time (beware bad language!)

Buy iconic rock images from the '70s and '80s

Howard Barlow began his career photographing the bands of the 70's and 80's for NME and Melody Maker. His iconic images of The Ramones, Queen and Iggy Pop are now available to purchase online here. For more information on Howard and to see more of his photos click here.

Book recommendation: 'Day for Night' by Frederick Reiken

Heads up for Day for Night by Frederick Reiken which is a beautifully written book spanning the course of both the generations and a huge variety of people's lives. With a collection of first person narratives it subtly reminds us of the connections that there are between us which can often go unrecognised. A global village where memory, experience and intuition collide on so many different levels. This is what Henry Hitchens had to say in the Financial Times:

"Day for Night, for which fans have had to wait a decade, the New Jersey native seems set to become a literary star rather than merely a cult author … we may be reminded of David Mitchell’s novel Ghostwritten, and also of those modish films that explore chance and causality through multiple, related plots: Crash, Pulp Fiction, Amores Perros, Babel. This is a novel of considerable ambition and Reiken skilfully marshals a cast of complex characters across a variety of locations. Reiken is a soulful writer as well as an artful one, and the confidence with which he proceeds is remarkable … there’s no denying the essential force of his vision and the precise intelligence of his prose".

Lecture on that snail and that bottle of giner beer

Heads up for a lecture by barrister Matthew Chapman for the Incorporated Council of Law reporting on the historic case of Donoghue v Stephenson. It's at 6pm on Wednesday 7 July in The Great Hall of Lincoln's Inn. Tickets are £5 but are free to law students and barristers and solicitors within three years' of call and admission respectively. To get a ticket, just fill out the form here. Matthew is also the author of the book The Snail and the Ginger Beer: The Singular Case of Donoghue v Stephenson.

Book recommendation: 'Surfing Brilliant Corners' by Sam Bleakley

Surfing Brilliant Corners is a beautifully written book by Cambridge-educated multiple European, British and English longboard surfing champion Sam Bleakley . It follows his surf travels in the last ten years and is accompanied by some stunning photos from top surf photographer John Callahan. It also uses the metaphor of jazz both for surfing and ultimately I guess, life itself. It packs in some incredible trips which are well off the beaten track from the likes of Oman and Haiti to to China and Liberia. A great read and a wonderful contribution to the increasingly rich library of literature by British surfers from Andy Martin's Stealing the Wave and Walking on Water to Tom Anderson's Riding the Magic Carpet, Grey Skies, Green Waves and Chasing Dean and Alex Wade's Surf Nation.

'Scribblings from the Surf' - Devon Life 7/10: Modern Artists in North Devon

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

MODERN ARTISTS IN NORTH DEVON

Two groundbreaking and highly collectable artists have chosen North Devon as their base, writes Tim Kevan

Modern art is often seen as something which is perhaps only understood by a small clique in the big cities and inaccessible to the rest of us. Whatever the truth, Conor Wilson and Gethin Wyn Jones are two such artists in North Devon who defy this stereotype by embodying a synergy between pushing forward the creative boundaries and gaining their inspiration from among other things, the natural world.

Conor Wilson 

Conor Wilson was born on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, two degrees south of the equator. He lived there until he was three in a house on stilts that would rock with the earthquakes. The beaches were volcanic black sand and when his parents were at work the local villagers would look after him and his sister. After this they spent several years living in the Middle Eastern states of Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Oman before coming to the UK to be schooled from the age of eight. This upbringing has instilled a passion for travel which has led him on many a wild trip through the backwaters of India, Thailand and Indonesia, providing a rich source of sensory experience that has been channeled into his creative life. 

But after such a varied upbringing, he ended up studying in Birmingham. He spent his time skateboarding, sketching, painting and learning. Having built up a collection of drawings he then needed a medium by which he could paint on the scale that he wanted and a local graffiti artist friend lent him an airbrush and compressor. He took to this quickly and in the Summer of 1996 some friends set up a groundbreaking street art exhibition at The Custard Factory Arts Center. It was an ambitious event and was planned alongside Ideal Skateboards’ fifth anniversary and Conor’s work was exhibited alongside thirteen other of the finest graffiti artists in the country. This led to huge interest in his work. However, on the second weekend of the show he had an accident in the exhibition space that left him needing surgery on my right arm and at the time the consultant thought it unlikely he would regain movement in his fingers and wrist. Yet whilst he was in hospital and facing the very real possibility that he might never paint again he was contacted by Uri Geller of spoon-bending fame. He had chanced on the exhibition and wanted to buy all of Conor’s paintings. Thankfully Conor recovered and for the next couple of years Uri acted as his agent, securing commissions with British Airways, introducing him to the people that mattered and setting up a show in New York.

By 1998 he decided to go it alone and has since established a successful creative career that has flowered in many different directions. A passionate surfer, snowboarder and skateboarder he also decided to move to North Devon for the surf and now exhibits not only at the JC gallery in Braunton but also has a permanent exhibition space at the Blue Groove restaurant in Croyde. He paints in a variety of mediums and styles, with subject matter ranging from acrylic airbrush portraiture, to landscapes in oil. He is also well known for his popular 2-d sand relief work. He has painted many interior and exterior murals from cable cars in the French Alps, to shops, bars, and restaurant interiors throughout Europe. His deepening passion for oil painting also led to a series of landscapes based upon sketches, plein air studies and photographs of the North Devon coastline in which he hopes to capture the mood of the moment in a looser, freer style.

Gethin Wyn Jones

Think modern art and one of the first names to spring to mind is that of North Devon resident Damian Hirst, officially the most expensive living artist in the world. So it’s a huge honour to be working for the great man, particularly when that work involves painting. That is exactly what Gethin Wyn Jones does in his day job. Not that it’s a particular surprise given that in 2006 whilst he was studying fine art and painting at Bath University he won the prestigious Nationwide Mercury Prize Art Competition. This was basically one of the leading student art competitions in the country and led to Gethin not only being presented with his prize at the Mercury Music Awards ad hob-nobbing with rock stars but also to his artwork appearing on the cover of the album for those awards. All of which is not too shabby for a lad who hails from Bangor in North Wales.

His own work explores the relationship between colours and different systems or situations and he has been using a computer to study the interaction of colour. In other words he’s taking a scientific approach to how each colour reacts to another one as they sit alongside each other. This has gradually led him to study the construction of a virtual two dimensional space. His intention is to make this ‘virtual two dimensional space’ seem vast and is fascinated with how he should present this space on a computer screen. One way of doing this is through geometric landscapes whose hard edges he not only finds to be clean and perfect but which also allow him to differentiate very clearly between the colours. They also allow him to play with how the eye looks at things, sometimes providing the appearance of an optical illusion.

He’s driven by a passion to make the world look a little bit better, a little less drab and though he hesitates to say it, even a more beautiful place. For this he takes his inspiration from a huge range of sources including architecture, computer games such as Shadow of the Colossus, Sim City and Command and Conquer and the mountains of his native Welsh homeland. He also finds particular inspiration in the countryside and sea of North Devon. He’s inspiring to listen to and you get the feeling that he’s ambitious at some point in the future to really change the way people look at things through work that might even be considered seminal. What this means in practical terms is spending hour upon hour experimenting with his art and creating some wonderful pieces in the process.

For more information, visit: Conor Wilson's website, Conor Wilson's blog and Gethin Wynn-Jones' website.

Jack surfing last week

Corner Bistro in Braunton: Update

I previously posted about The Corner Bistro in Braunton here and you can also see what I had to say below. I'm delighted to say that they continue to go from strength to strength. To see samples of their various menus, click on the following links: breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner

Previous post
Whether you're after eggs benedict for breakfast, a quiet coffee or a delicious evening meal, then look no further than The Corner Bistro in Braunton, North Devon which is both a wonderful, down to earth and friendly cafe during the day as well as an incredible restaurant in the evening. Run by Emma and Andy who also enjoy surfing, you can find out more information at their website here. Oh, and they make the best bacon sandwiches in the world!

DNA testing iPhone app from Cellmark

Great to see that businesses that service lawyers are now turning their sights to iPhone apps. One such is that produced by Cellmark who do DNA testing. The app is called iDNA and "is designed to provide you with the information you need before you decide to undergo DNA relationship testing" and includes a facility that "offers existing customers the opportunity to check the progress of their DNA testing case", whether they be lawyers, doctors or private individuals. It also includes "details of the wide range of different types of DNA relationship testing that Cellmark offers". Cellmark Marketing Manager Paul West says: "The key thing for the legal community is that it provides an aide memoire about DNA testing – offering advice on the effectiveness of each type of testing and also provides videos about the key issues and for existing customers of Cellmark they can quickly and simply check on the progress of a case."

Hat tip to John Bolch at Family Lore. Please note that whilst Cellmark sponsor my www.babybarista.com site, I am not being paid for this post.

Malcolm Tucker from 'The Thick of It'

Joel Tudor surfing in 'Longer'

LawDonut - legal resources for business

Heads up for LawDonut which provides lgal resources for business. They also have an excellent blog covering practical and topical legal issues for your business.

The Spirit of the Marathon

The Riverside Italian restaurant, Braunton

Heads up for The Riverside, a wonderful new Italian restaurant at 30 Caen Street in Braunton. It's run by River Cafe-trained top chef, restaurant manager, surfer and all round good guy Steve Cave who also has an excellent food blog called The Dinnertime Allstars.

High Renaissance Man

A tale of two citations by ICLR

Heads up for a video by the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting featuring two fictional barristers appearing in court called A Tale of Two Citations.

Hilarious video of Ethel the Jack Russell puppy

BabyBarista to feature as Book of the Month at the Hexham Book Festival in August 2010

I see that BabyBarista and the Art of War is to feature as Book of the Month at the Hexham Book Festival in August 2010. For more details, click here.

BabyBarista says that the paywall will be a disaster for The Times

In his most recent post, BabyBarista says that the paywall will be a disaster for the Law Section of The Times in particular and suggests that The Guardian's Law Section might be about to trump it.

Sponsored blog post: Problems with new claims portal delay introduction of “quicker claims”

The new road traffic accident claims process, intended to bring about a faster accident claims process for low value RTA claims has so-far proved anything but successful. The new process was introduced by the Ministry of Justice at the start of May and has been hampered by “teething troubles” affecting solicitors and insurers who try to log in through the online “portal”. Problems with the new process might mean delays for some of the hundreds of thousands of cases it was expected to deal with each year.

Low value accident claims, where the injury compensation is valued at between £1,000 and £10,000 form the bulk of the road traffic accident caseload for most personal injury lawyers. The new process, announced back in 2009, is an attempt to streamline the investigation and resolution of these types of claims.

From April 30th this year, all low value RTA claims will be made using a 2 or 3 stage process. This process aims to make the business of establishing liability and finalising payments to be made to the accident victim much faster. Most claims will go through at least the first two stages of the new process, although if there is a disagreement on the level of compensation to be paid out, then there is a third stage to the process, involving either a written or oral hearing to decide the quantum.

What does this mean for claimants?

If you have been unfortunate enough to be involved in a road traffic accident which has left you with minor or moderate injuries, then in theory at least, the new system should mean you receive your injury compensation cheque much more quickly than in the past. This is thanks to the strict deadlines for many of the stages in the new process (typical examples include a 15-day time limit for insurers to decide to admit or deny liability).

However, problems with the online “portal” – a website set up to allow insurers and solicitors to exchange details of claims – have been reported by various law firms since before the system went live on 30th April. These problems have seen some law firms unable to login in to upload details of their clients’ injury claims, whilst others yet to receive the passwords and codes needed to access the portal. Even those firms that have been able to log in to the online service have found that frequent crashes and interruptions of service are the norm.

With lots of hopes riding on the new software and the new process itself, it remains to be seen how quickly the problems of the past few weeks will be sorted out. After all, it is the injured accident victims who stand to lose the most from any delays to their claims.

Author: Neil Worrall

Press release: BabyBarista resigns from The Times over their decision to charge

For immediate release

Barrister and writer Tim Kevan has withdrawn the BabyBarista Blog from The Times in reaction to their plans to hide it away behind a subscription-based paywall. He commented: “I didn’t start this blog for it to be the exclusive preserve of a limited few subscribers. I wrote it to entertain whosoever wishes to read it.” In a further post he said, "I think the decision will prove to be a disaster. There are so many innovative ways of making cash online and the decision to plump for an across-the-board blanket subscription over the whole of their content makes them look like a big lumbering giant...Canute-like in their determination to stop the tide of free content and using a top down strategy which makes even the Post Office look dynamic."

The re-launched site is at www.babybarista.com and includes numerous cartoons of the blog’s characters by Times cartoonist Alex Williams. By way of background, BabyBarista is a fictional account of a junior barrister at the English Bar. The stories he tells appeared on The Times for over three years and they also led to him getting two book deals with Harry Potter's publisher Bloomsbury. BabyBarista and the Art of War was published as a trade paperback last year and was described by broadcaster Jeremy Vine as “a wonderful racing read - well-drawn, smartly plotted and laugh out loud” and by The Times as “a cross between the talented Mr Ripley, Rumpole and Bridget Jones's Diary”. A mass market edition with the new title Law and Disorder is due out in August. Book Two of the BabyBarista Files will also be published by Bloomsbury. The provisional title is Law and Peace and although a date hasn't been finalised it is likely to be published in 2011.

Online response to this story

This story has caused an enormous response from newspapers, bloggers and tweeters and the following are links to around seventy of them: Vanity Fair, The Guardian, New Statesman, Media Week, The Bar Council, The New Lawyer, American Bar Association Journal, Michael Wolff @ Newser, Estates Gazette, Prof George Brock, Charon QC, Geeklawyer, Phancee, Business Insider, Infamy or Praise, Editors Weblog, le monde, LawDent, Family Lore, Android's Reminiscences, Delia Venables, f/k/a, Jobsworth, Binary Law, slaw, Broadcast Journalism, Tech Dirt, The Wall, Journalism.co.uk, Pragmatist, Criminal Law and Evidence, Memex 1.1, Practice Source, Felix Salmon at Reuters, Media Gazer, White Rabbit, Trainee Lawyer, Exile On Moan Street, Malice in Wonderland, The Latest on PPC, Media Bistro, Legal News, Martin Stabe, CyclothymicMusings, You Get The Info, Cyber Culturalist, Alexandre Gamela, Whyte Wolf, It's Digital PR News, J Source, A-Z of Global Warming Of Interest to Lawyers Medie Varlden (Swedish), De Jaap (Dutch), Ger Timmer (Dutch), Media Facts (Dutch), I Love Media (Dutch), Media Ned (Dutch), ABC Spain (Spanish), 233 Grados (Spanish), Lola Como Mola (Spanish), The Protocol Droid (Spanish), LaInformacion (Spanish), FayerWayer (Spanish), Direnet (Spanish), Golpedegato (Spanish), elarea.com (Spanish), El Otro Juan (Spanish), Dziennik Internautów (Polish), Alternative Blog (Japanese) and finally tweets.

Article on BabyBarista in The Circuiteer Magazine of the Bar's South Eastern Circuit (click to enlarge)

'Scribblings from the Surf' - Devon Life 6/10: Waveskiing for England

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

WAVESKIING FOR ENGLAND

Barrister and writer Tim Kevan meets a world champion waveskier and a shaper

Waveskis are the surf canoes that you sometimes see catching waves in the surf. It’s a less well-known sport than surfing and those that take it up are sometimes disparagingly called ‘goat-boaters’. But there are two waveskiers in North Devon who are held in equally if not higher regard than many surfers. One is a bona fide world champion and the other is an experienced and highly respected shaper.

Kieron Davies – The world champion
It’s not often that you get to meet a world champion, particularly in a remote location like North Devon. But Kieron Davies is not only a former World Masters Champion at waveski but also fourteen (yes, 14!) times British Open Champion, five times European Champion and the current Irish Open Champion as well as having placed fifth in the world open in Brazil. Phew, and that’s before you even look at his numerous other Welsh and Scottish titles. Yet when you meet him, you’ll find one of the most understated men you could imagine. That’s probably because he’s got nothing to prove to anyone. It’s probably also due to his thirteen years in the RAF during which time he sometimes got flown around the world to compete internationally at this sport in which he has excelled. He’s happy if you want to call him a goat-boater. You can call him whatever you like as far as he’s concerned. A man who trains pretty much every day and who’ll charge with the best of them. He really isn’t going to worry what pre-conceptions people might be starting off with.

Yet it wasn’t waveskiing which made me first sit up and notice Kieron Davies. It was simple enough. I wanted to put some sisal carpet down in my house but when I visited an established local shop I was told that it was just too difficult, for which I read, ‘not worth their while’. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve since realised that given the difficulties involved with such tough material it probably wasn’t worth their while. But despite this I was told to ring Kieron at K2 Carpets and sure enough his can-do, nothing’s a problem attitude prevailed without the slightest whinge.

Originally from Plymouth, Kieron started with canoeing when he was six or seven and then progressed through from a surf shoe to white water paddling, rock-hopping and then finally paddling a ski when he was around eighteen. But it was perhaps the RAF and specifically the waveski trainer Paul Beak that really inspired what has become a lifelong passion for the sport along with numerous skis being shaped for him by Alan Neighbour of Pro Design. That, and the fact that he spent six years in West Wales (being one of the first to surf a break called The Pole just off Freshwater West) and later eight years at the Chivenor RAF Base (as it then was) just outside Braunton in North Devon where he also gained his major sponsorship deal from a local company with international reach, Saltrock Surfwear. Yet despite all of his achievements, he’s a man who is very happy with where he is in life, still skiing competitively but also longboarding and kayaking when the mood takes him.

Gareth Harrison – The shaper
Gareth Harrison is a little like the top golfer who was competing when Tiger Woods was at his peak in that coming second to Kieron would in any other era have left him with the top spot and were it not for the great man, he’d have been a national champion. But that’s not to diminish the years of high level competition which he has also been through.

Originally from Exeter, he’s been in Braunton since he was very young and first rode a waveski when he was about eleven. Then when he was about eighteen he got his own ski for around £200 and was a regular at Saunton Sands before moving on to Croyde. Originally there was the Golden Coast Waveski Club at the Thatch in Croyde run by Steve Cox, the headmaster of Challacombe School. Then there were local competitions which progressed to national ones ranging from Cornwall to Wales and Scotland. He’s won more than his fair share of trophies finishing second behind Kieron in the national championships and in the top eight in Europe at a competition held at La Torche and the top twelve in a competition held at Les Sables d’Olonne, both in France. He’s also represented Great Britain at three world championships, in Cornwall, Bakio in Spain and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean.

He’s a carpenter and joiner by trade and by all accounts a top one at that whose work has appeared in Country Home Magazine. But whilst he’s self-employed these days, he started out working in a furniture factory in which he had a hand in manufacturing the Kuwaiti University Library and Royal Palace which in 1990 appeared on the television at the end of the first Gulf War. It was his creative skills which then led him to making his first waveski in the Winter of 2001. Having produced one for himself, Kieron was not slow to spot the quality and ordered one too and his shaping has progressed from there.

But above all Gareth is a character who’s not only larger than life but like Kieron is positive and can-do. Someone who they call ‘The Knowledge’ for the breadth of his opinions. A family man who is always talking about his daughter Madalaine and his wife Jane. A local who knows everything that’s going on. Someone with a love for life. As for the mention of goat-boats and people making ‘baa’ noises as he paddles out, he too doesn’t care and says he enjoys the banter and specifically like doing something that is different.

But the reality is that in Kieron and Gareth they’re not just being a little bit different. They’re achieving great things abroad whilst at the same time remaining utterly true to their roots.

Tim Kevan is the author of the comic novel ‘BabyBarista and the Art of War’ (Bloomsbury) and the co-author of ‘Why Lawyers Should Surf’ (with Dr Michelle Tempest). www.timkevan.com.

Danish flash mob celebrates bus driver's birthday!