Special Christmas Invitation to Treat: A free legal opinion with every copy of On Lawmanship sold and $10 to charity‏

Dearly beloved,

Christmas is a time to reflect upon the good health of family, friends and the application of the doctrine of laches to those who arrive late to the eating of the Christmas pudding.

2012 has been an interesting year, I have had many great victories, and many narrow defeats, but such is the hurly burly of a life in the law.

My triumphs have included:
a) Leading Rwanda to a seat on the UN Security Council. Many, many nights of hard drinking with Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Peter Hargitay, Don Cheadle and Zsa Zsa Gabor eventually paying rich dividends;
b) Using all my powers of persuasion through days of fire-side whispering, gentle cajoling, neuro-linguistic programming and dark journeys into the hypnopompic states of consciousness to allow Steve Hooker to overcome the yips and soar back into medal contention at the Golden League High Jump meet in Lausanne;
c) Applying my training as a cartographer and my profound knowledge of the Pacific (developed during my youth on Pitcairn island) to hide Sandy/Sable Island from Google Maps thereby laying the foundations for a prime location for a piratical lair or an offshore processing centre for refugees; and
d) Finally freeing the micro-fauna of the Galapagos from the scourge formerly known as'Lonesome George'. A poacher's worst nightmare, this pesky tortoise had eluded me for nigh on a decade before I discovered his love for the moving siren songs of the popular chanteuse 'Skrillex'.

My defeats, though few, continue to sting:
a) Narrowly missing out on the job as CEO of the National Rugby League due to my controversial belief in the existence of potentially up to 14 limbs in Masters v Cameron;
b) Advising one of my blue chip clients, EB Private Equity, on their ill-fated tilt at storied retailer David Jones; and
c) Narrowly missing out to Stephen Gageler on elevation to the High Court because of my inability to identify Cameron Smith, Wendell Sailor or Jonathan Thurston when quizzed on the topic by Dyson Heydon.

Special Invitation to Treat

In keeping with the spirit of season, I am prepared to extend an incredibly generous invitation to treat to my learned readership. For the month of December, with every copy of Whitelocke: On Lawmanship purchased in Australia*, I will throw in, for no further consideration, a hand written opinion on any topic vexing the purchaser. If you provide me with a précis of the facts in question (no longer than 150 characters) I will opine definitively and without qualification and such opinion will be able to be used as compelling evidence in any commercial dispute and will, in my view, be binding on lower level courts and administrative tribunals in almost all Commonwealth jurisdictions.

Donation to Charity

In a final gesture of Christmas inspired bounteousness, I will give $10 from every Book & Opinion package sold in Australia* in the lead up to Christmas to the Sydney Story Factory, a not-for-profit creative writing centre for young people in Redfern, Sydney. A truly worthy cause, made particularly timely by Russel Crowe’s impending departure from “the Burrow” and the consequential requirement for a plucky local to pick up the pen and take carriage of the Book of Feuds going forward. You can read more about the Sydney Story Factory at http://bit.ly/PC3y4o.

Merry Christmas,

Your Obt. Svt.,

Bullstrode Whitelocke

Book Extract: From Chaloner Chute to Sir Loveban Lislebone Long: A History of 16th and 17th Century Lawmen with Riotous Names

Sir Orlando Bridgeman (1606 –1674) 1st Baronet SL, English common law jurist, socialite, civil works advocate, crime fighter, lawyer, and beloved politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1642.

Orlando Bridgeman (born Orlando Jones) was born shortly after the turn of the century into a wealthy family of highly regarded socialites and philanthropists. Tragically, as a child he witnessed his parents, John , Bishop of Chester, and Elizabeth , daughter of Reverend William Helyar, murdered at the hands of local brigands. Orlando narrowly escaped their gruesome fate by posing as an elderly female papist, before ultimately taking shelter under a bridge over the nearby River Douglas for 47 days and nights. Initially fearing the bridge, like a Bangladeshi batsman facing Shaoib Akhtar, he ultimately drew strength from his fear, then used his power over fear and his knowledge of bridges and their mysterious ways to his advantage. Re-emerging into society, he renamed himself Bridgeman, and dedicated his life to fighting for the causes his parents had so proudly supported.

Bridgeman fought many battles for the public good, most notably as a staunch Royalist in the English Civil War, his views a great source of comfort to myself, John, Tony and the other monarchist leaders during the dark days of Australia’s republican referendum period.

In April 1640, Bridgeman was elected Member of Parliament for Wigan in the Short Parliament. Despite widespread respect for his work as a wealthy vigilante, then, as now, the election in Wigan was dominated by concerns around Rugby League. Thankfully, Bridgeman’s platform, which was based around a desire to reduce teams from 45 players a side to the more exciting 38 a side format, was well received by an electorate starved of exciting football. Bridgeman spent time as an administrator of the Wigan Gentleman's Rugby League Football and Sandwich Commission before he was embroiled in a scandal over player payments exceeding the salary cap, which ultimately made his position untenable and led to an ignominious second rugby league life as a side-line commentator.

In 1642 he formed the “Ye Olde Justice League” with Lord Strange at Chester against the parliamentary forces of evil. “Lord Strange and Bridgeman” was later serialised into a popular comic strip in which they did battle against not only parliamentarians, but also characters many claim to be the earliest incarnations of Magneto and Dr Freeze. In time he received many honours, being knighted in 1643, acting as Custos Rotulorum of Cheshire, appointed Serjeant-at-Law, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. In the late 1980s he had a popular US basketball team named after him.
Aside from his more celebrated work as a crime fighter, Bridgeman was highly regarded in his time for his participation in the trial of the Regicides of King Charles I in 1660, a trial marked by the courage of those involved as they stood up for what was right by flip flopping back to the victors in a hysterical, grasping and unseemly attempt at self preservation. Bridgeman also devised complex legal instruments for the conveyance of land, instruments which have sadly fallen into disuse and which all of us who have waded through the simplistic nightmare that is Torrens System lament to this day.

Sadly, Bridgeman is credited with creating the Rule Against Perpetuities. The Rule Against Perpetuities is rightly considered a disaster, the first in a long line of intrusions by equitable concerns of "public policy" into contract law. When did it become against the public interest to draft contracts that ensure the remoteness of vesting? Beats me. At least he had the decency to take into account a period of gestation to cover a posthumous birth.

That one blemish aside, Bridgeman is rightly regarded as a great lawman of the 17th century and the only legal superhero who took his name from a vital piece of civic infrastructure.

Book Extract: From Chaloner Chute to Sir Loveban Lislebone Long: A History of 16th and 17th Century Lawmen with Riotous Names

Sir William Whorwood (c.1500-1545)

Sir William was not only fabulously named but he was one of the most significant lawmen of his time, acting as both Solicitor General (he replaced Richard Rich whom we have described earlier in this book) and then Attorney General under the reign of King Henry VIII.

Sir William’s father John, formerly John Percy, had been bestowed the name “Whorwood” by Richard III in 1484 in recognition of his family’s ownership of a popular “Whoring Forest” near Kinver. Under the Foliatus Laws in the 1400s, whoring in England was legal only in forests and other dense woodlands, due to the lingering druidic belief that one would be safe from contracting venereal disease or the sweating sickness if one did one’s business in and around native deciduous foliage, preferably that of the European Beech. After the introduction of these laws, intrepid entrepreneurs such as John Whorwood quickly snapped up most of England’s European Beech forests and charged merrymakers a hefty price for entry.

Wentwood Forest in South Wales, though technically a dense woodland, was a popular "forest of ill-repute" in 16th Century Britain.

Upon his father’s passing, the stable cash-flows provided to Sir William from his Whoring Forest allowed him the security to concentrate on his legal studies. Sir William took to the law with relish and his fantastic success as a lawman saw him become a man of great means. Sir William ultimately bought the manor of Kinver with Stourton as well as the rectory impropriate, quite a step up from the tree-house bordello his father had once occupied!

Sir William was survived by two (2) daughters:

a) Anne who married a man named Ambrose Dudley who was almost certainly a West Indian fast bowler; and

b) Margaret, who married Thomas Throckmorton, with whom we deal with in chapter 7.

Artist's impression of Ambrose Dudley

Law Society of NSW - Council Elections

Lawmen of New South Wales,

Commeth the hour, commeth the man. I am writing to you by electronic transmission to ask your support as I seek election for the Large Firm position at this year’s Law Society Council elections. This email is unrelated to any I may have previously sent to your in your capacity as a potential conduit of Nigerian financing opportunities. For the avoidance of doubt, those offers remain open.

At literally any moment now you will receive your ballot papers from the NSW Law Society. Here is what I will stand for when I am elected to the Law Society Council:

a) The wholesale repeal of CLERP 7, in all of its insidious guises.
b) The appointment of Wyatt Roy and Justin Bieber to the Juvenile Justice Sub-Committee of the Law Society of NSW.
c) Using the corporations power to overcome the High Court’s lamentable Octaviar decision.
d) Convening a citizens’ assembly to resolve once and for all whether there is a fifth category in Masters v Cameron.
e) Outlawing severability clauses.
f) Stopping jurisprudential waste and turning back the boats.

For those of you that are unaware of my many, many distinguished years as a Lawman, I have set out below a brief ‘snap shot’ of career highlights:

· Career victories against Sir Garfield Barwick: 2

· Golden Gavel winner, 1945

· Internationally renowned authority on the training and discipline of hounds

· Author of Whitelocke: On Lawmanship 3rd Edition and countless other learned texts, including ‘Mary Sidney Herbert: A Winsome Spinster’ and ‘The Separation of Canon and Common Law: Eight (8) Centuries of Legal Madness’

In short, I will bring erudition, accountability, dignity and a detailed knowledge of the training of hounds to the role of large Firm Member, which for too long has been dominated by the vested interests of solicitors who work for large firms.

If you agree that these ideas are right for our time, then please vote for me in the Law Society Council elections.

A faint heart never won a fair maiden. Be brave and vote.

Kind regards,

Bullstrode Whitelocke K.C.
Knight of the Thistle, Order of the Companions of Honour, Knight of the Hutt River Province, President of the Australian Chapter of the Stone Masons, 18 times Heraclitus Society Man of the Year, The Leverhulme Medal for the application of Heraclitus to Chemistry, The Royal Guelphic Order, Knight Grand Commander of The Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, Kaisar-I-Hind Medal, Officer of the Order of Australia, Australian Antarctic Medal, Champion Shots Medal.
Albert Bathurst Piddington Chambers

Eden-Monaro Decides: An Open Letter to the People of Eden-Monaro

Citizens of Eden-Monaro,

Tomorrow is a very important day for our fledgling democracy. If you are anything like me, you will wake up at approximately 4am, have a glass of riesling then hunt local birdlife until dawn. It is two hours after this most symbolic of dawns, when polls open, that I ask you to write down my name. In that poll booth, whether in the Berridale Community Centre, the Cobargo school of Arts or the Queanbeyan District Hospital, you will have the choice to meekly continue down a path that leads us all to certain ruin, or to take a sharp right and boldly stride into a glorious new future.

Although you need no reminding, here are some of my many achievements which make me uniquely qualified to govern Eden-Monaro and which should help you make that brave and necessary decision:

i) I have received countless personal awards, including but not limited to the Knight of the Thistle, Order of the Companions of Honour, Knight of the Hutt River Province, 18 times Heraclitus Society man of the Year, The Leverhulme Medal for the application of Heraclitus to Chemistry, The Royal Guelphic Order, Knight Grand Commander of The Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, Kaisar-I-Hind Medal, Officer of the Order of Australia, Australian Antarctic Medal, Champion Shots Medal;

ii) I invented the after-dinner filibuster to avoid awkward conversations and masterminded the 1975 dismissal;

iii) I am close personal friends with German Chancellor Angela Merkel as well as cricket luminaries Sir Vivian Richards and Paul “Blocker” Wilson;

iv) I introduced both the Crown of Thorns Starfish and the European Carp into Australasian Waters;

v) I am, by some distance, the oldest candidate ever to run for the House of Representatives; and

vi) I have shot 3 Asiatic bears, 2 of which fatally.

But enough about me, tomorrow is about you and your future. I trust you will make the right decision.

My fondest wishes to you all,

Bullstrode Whitelocke K.C.
(by electronic transmission)

Eden-Monaro Decides - Free Sauce? Not on my watch!

I cannot sit idly by while the Labor Party wastes the Howard Government’s surplus, first on stimulus payments for electronic poker machine usage and now on free tomato sauce:
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-election/gillard-commits-to-a-free-shake-of-the-sauce-bottle-20100817-127fg.html

As a famous food author*my commitment to proper diet and table manners is known the world over. For example, the first question I ask a prospective Reader during my gruelling twelve day interview process is as follows:

Assembled before you are fourteen (14) forks of varying length. If served a terrine of Queensland spanner crab with radicchio, confit eschallots, paysanne of root vegetables and beurre noisette emulsion, which three (3) forks would be required to complete the meal successfully?

If the plucky youngster answers that question correctly I then make them eat a whole copy of Meagher, Gummow and Lehane – just to give them an introduction to the bitter-sweet taste of Equity.

In order to impose these high standards on my electorate, I am hereby announcing that the following foodstuffs will be banned in Eden-Monaro if I am successful on Saturday:

a) Meat Pies and/or Sauce;

b) Intentionally left blank; and

c) All forms of Fish & Chips (except where the fish used is European Carp).


*See “Cooking with Hiraclitus” or “Uncle Bulli's Comfort Food for a Rainy Day spent Drafting”

The Whitelocke Anthology: "Cooking with Heraclitus"

Below is an extract from my popular historical cook book "Cooking with Heraclitus". This recipe comes from Part 3, entitled "Marinades for Balearic Island Cave Goat, Sardinian Giant Shrew, Tarpan and other red meats"

Grilled Mutton
As explained in great length in the chapters on goat, sardine and monk seal, the key to cooking in the style of Heraclitus is preparing uniquely ancient Grecian dishes while strictly complying with his confusing and often contradictory philosophies.

While eating red meat was almost unknown in Heraclitan times, the "Weeping Philosopher" has a lot to teach us on its preparation. Interestingly, his take on the famous Greek dish of marinated mutton is gamey and heavily salted. While in modern Greek cookery you might expect to see the involvement of Greek oregano (rigani), tomatoes and lemon in this type of dish, under the Heraclitan recipe the only ingredients in the marinade are vinegar and blood. If you must, you can substitute lamb for mutton in this recipe but, at all costs, avoid Hogget.

Ingredients
Mutton
Salt
Blood
Vinegar

Preparation
Firstly prepare the marinade. This will involve mixing 4 cups of sheep's blood with 2 cups of vinegar in a cast iron pot.

Heraclitus famously maintained "You cannot step twice into the same river." Therefore before marinating the meat I always wash it in one, and only one, local river. The Hawkesbury is probably the most convenient for my readers although the Manning and Murrumbidgee also impart good flavour. Washing raw meat in the Parramatta River will almost certainly lead to death. Once washed, the meat should be left in the marinade for at least 14 days.

Heraclitus argued that "the path up and down is one and the same". In cooking the mutton, this will require you to apply additional blood and vinegar marinade in strictly vertical brush strokes while the meat is cooking.

During the entire process, you must at all times remember that "The death of fire is the birth of air, and the death of air is the birth of water." I interpret this to mean that after you have first grilled the mutton over an open flame, you must then blow out the flame and submerge the meat in water at a rolling boil for at least 40 minutes.

Lastly, when eating this dish, it is critical to always follow the ritual of setting aside the gods' share (the fat and bones) to be burnt while the human share is eaten. If you are concerned you are not giving the gods a large enough share, the most prudent approach is often to burn the entire meal.

Tips on improving your appearance

Historically, a successful lawman could expect to live a life in the law without any concern for his appearance. When I was first called to the Bar, it was not uncommon for barristers to communicate with clients, instructing solicitors and even their dry cleaners solely in writing, a dignified practice that I maintained well into the 1970s. However, with the increasing proliferation of bi-focal spectacles, a lawman’s appearance has become as important as small feet in the orient.

As a famous flâneur, looking like a distinguished and handsome advocate has always come easily to me, but others must work at it. That being said, I have never been one to rest on my laurels and have stridently worked towards self-improvement. I was lucky enough to begin greying around the temples at age 17, and, indeed, in my halcyon days was known as the “Silver Canetoad” around the Union Club. I am now blessed with probably the thickest head of hair of any septuagenarian in Australia. Rest on my profuse, hoary laurels I do not, however, and through dedication and the constant application of lemon juice and a curling iron, I have managed to train my hair to grow in the colour, texture and style of a judicial wig. This natural hairpiece gives me around-the-clock gravitas, whether I am drafting, hunting or even just visiting the corner store. This style will also facilitate my inevitable elevation to the bench, subject of course to the necessary Constitutional amendments.

But Bullstrode, I hear you ask, are the advertisements correct? Must we cleanse and exfoliate to prevent the seven signs of aging?

This question is misguided on two fronts. First, you must never ever refer to me as Bullstrode, even to your family. I will not say this again. Second, aging is not to be discouraged. I implore you to do what you can to prematurely age your face. Colourful media personality Ian “Molly” Meldrum used to spend long hours in front of industrial grade heaters, periodically basting his face with a tonic of ammonia and basil pesto, to obvious effect. His inexorable rise in the face of a manifest lack of talent and suspected communist sympathies should be all the proof you need. For the junior lawman, I suggest rampant whoring, a well trimmed moustache and a nightly bottle of Harvey’s Bristol cream.


Ian 'Molly' Meldrum - the face that has launched 1000 ships

Bullstrode's Latin Phrase Book: Res Ipsa Loquitur

Res Ipsa Loquitur: This glorious phrase means "the thing itself speaks". In fact, Res Ipsa Loquitur was the original working title for my screen play that ultimately became the moving picture comedy smash “Look Who’s Talking”.

The first reference to this phrase can be found in Cicero's wonderful speech “Pro Milone”, while its use in jurisprudence can be traced back to Baron Pollock’s wildly controversial 1863 judgement Byrne v Boadle.

Unfortunately, the phrase is generally bastardised these days to mean: "the thing speaks for itself." In both recognising and subtly drawing attention to the manifest wrongness of this colloquial usage, I brilliantly used Res Ipsa Loquitur in Whitelocke: On Lawmanship 3rd Edition (it was redacted in the first two editions) when describing a highly successful ruse I use with my good friend Geoffrey Rush to impress spinsters:

[Transcript from a conversation in club in Perth]

Rush: (Loudly) Excuse me, sir, aren’t you that famous barrister who once bested Sir Garfield Barwick in a university debate, not to mention being largely responsible for the extinction of the Eastern Spotted Quoll?

Whitelocke: “Well, sir, I am a wealthy, famous and unmarried barrister and, yes, if I could be so forthright, I did give both old Gary and those pesky quolls such a flogging that each thought themselves to be a prudish cabin boy on the First Fleet.

* * * * * *

The recognition that this ruse afforded me would have been res ipsa loquitur in Sydney or in London, but in the provinces it served me to good effect.

Extract from Journal Article

After briefly mentioning it in a recent “blog”, I have received a number of requests to post my famous article 'When is a dog wild? Semantics again triumph the spirit of the law' TB Whitelocke KC 24 AltCrimJ 7 - 125.’

While, my agreement with the publisher at the Alternative Criminal Law Journal forbids me from reproducing the entire work, I have posted an extract below (pages 84-86) which should sate the ravenous appetites of the countless hordes looking to nuzzle on the teat of my wisdom. For those who, understandably, want more feel free to contact me at Albert Bathurst Piddington Chambers and I will happily recite the entire article to you by heart. You must not take notes and should set aside between four and five hours.

* * * * *
.....In Hardman v Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) [2003] NSWCA 130 (29 July 2003), it was noted that in McKenzie v Stratton [1971] VR 848 the defendant, who was, like me on so many occasions, charged pursuant to the Summary Offences Act 1966 (Act), although in his case in relation to allegedly being drunk and disorderly in a public place. In that decision, Nelson J commendably found that a person found in a taxicab in a car park was found in a public place, namely, the car park.
I want to make it abundantly clear that I have never shot any animals whilst in a taxi-cab. In fact, I have never been in a taxi-cab at all. Once again, I cannot over-emphasise the fact that I was on horseback and was merely a non-insane automaton, acting without any awareness whatsoever of my own actions. How can a veritable zombie, moved solely by an uncontrollable and primordial desire, be asked to pay ten (10) penalty units? More on that nonsense that later. For now it is appropriate to reflect on the injustice of the fact that this is not the first time I have been charged under this section (in addition to my many many brushes with other sections of the Act, particularly sections 11H: Intimidatory use of vehicles and vessels and 27N: No personal liability for person conducting search under direction of correctional officer) a great many times. Therefore, it is critical that you, the reader, focus on the patent absurdity of this rule, in order to ensure that noble sportsmen in the future who, unlike me on that tragic afternoon, are actually aware of their actions are not held to account by this spurious regulation. By way of background, the actual text of the section I am deemed to have offended is as follows:

28J Offence of hunting on private land
(1) In this section:
"animal" means any vertebrate animal but does not include a fish within the meaning of the Fisheries Management Act 1994 .
"hunt" an animal includes search for, pursue, trail, stalk or drive out the animal in order to capture, trap, harm or kill the animal.
"occupier" and "owner" have the same meanings as they have in the Rural Lands Protection Act 1998 .
"private land" has the same meaning as it has in the Rural Lands Protection Act 1998 .
(2) A person who, without reasonable excuse (proof of which lies on the person) enters private land and hunts for any animal on the land, without the consent of the owner or occupier of the land, is guilty of an offence.
Maximum penalty: 10 penalty units or imprisonment for 12 months, or both.
(3) Without limiting subsection (2), a person is taken to have reasonable excuse for the purposes of that section if:
(a) the person did not know that the land was private land, or
(b) the person is an Aboriginal person:
(i) who is a member, or in the company of a member, of a Local Aboriginal Land Council and who is undertaking traditional cultural hunting within the area of the Council in accordance with a permit issued under section 48 of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 , or
(ii) who enters the land and hunts an animal pursuant to a native title right or interest that is the subject of an approved determination of native title or of a registered native title claim, or
(c) the person enters the land and hunts animals in accordance with a duty imposed on the person under the Rural Lands Protection Act 1998 or the Wild Dog Destruction Act 1921 to suppress and destroy the animals, or
(d) the person is of a class, or enters the land and hunts in the circumstances, prescribed by the regulations.

I will deal with whether the deceased animal was a vertebrate, whether the property had an “occupier” and whether I knew the land was “private” in great detail later. For now, I will concentrate on the unavoidable conclusion that I was under a fiduciary duty to destroy the animal.

In coming to this result, one simply is unable ignore the axiomatic statement of my intellectual forebear Charles Dickens “There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast.” No human breast is more passionate than mine. As I famously said in 1948 (although this quote is often wrongly attributed to my dearly departed friend Ernest Hemmingway) “When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.” The gentle pleasure derived from discharging firearms is not limited only to airborne prey. When you have shot a European Wolf or an African Hunting Dog, that incredible sensation returns every time you shoot any other type of dog, whether it be a Dalmatian or the ever-feisty Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. The pleasure is comes from knowing that you have bested a potentially deadly foe.

These days, people are altogether too comfortable with man’s so called “best friend”. It wasn’t too long ago (in fact as recently as during the reign of James VI) when wolves in Scotland were considered such a threat to the population that special houses called "spittals" were erected on highways for protection. More frighteningly, through the power of the internet I have learned that in Italy between the 15th and 19th centuries, 440 people were killed by wolves in central Padania alone! Modern man must not ignore the lessons of history. Cowardice today in the face of burgeoning dog ownership could lead to a return of the terrors of Padania tomorrow!

I am profoundly aware of when an animal (be it a dog or even man) is wild and therefore a direct threat to human life. My mastery of this concept was never more evident that when I produced and scored a Broadway version of Joseph Moncure March’s work “The Wild Party” with Michael John LaChiusa. I have also translated The Wild Party into Legal French and Swedish. My depth of knowledge of the term “Wild” is beyond the comprehension of most and certainly beyond the criticism of any court constituted by man.

For fullness, I will now speak to be self-defence and the common law doctrine of necessity.....

The Whitelocke Anthology: "Mary Sidney Herbert: A Winsome Spinster"

Below is an extract from my popular historical work "Mary Sidney Herbert: A Winsome Spinster". This snippet comes from chapter 14, entitled "Mary dips a toe in the pond and becomes the mother of modern America":

History records that Mary Sidney demonstrated a great deal of interest in the actions of her famous brother, Sir Philip Sidney. Whiling away the days with Sir Phillip, this most winsome and flirtatious of vixens would dream about founding of a Protestant empire, the great jewel of which was to be the Americas, considered by Mary to be the last great refuge from Papery. To this end it is widely believed that Mary Sidney offered a great deal of support to a Mr Frobisher whom she believed would be essential in discovering and settling the protestant wonderland.

It is unclear, however, to which of the following famous North American statesmen of that name the references to this Frobisher character (which largely come from Gary Waller's seminal work Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke: A Critical Study of Her Writings and Literary Milieu. Salzburg: University of Salzburg Press, 1979) actually relate:

a) Benjamin Joseph Frobisher (1782 – 1821) a noted seal clubber and sworn enemy of Hudson's Bay Company in Southern Canada;



b) Sir Martin Frobisher (1535 – 1594) an explorer noted for his many failed attempts to find the Northwest Passage but great success in defending England from the Spanish Armada; or



c) Arthur Frobisher, (undisclosed) a successful industrialist and carouser but unsuccessful class action defendant.

Timeline of Lawmanship: excerpt from 'On Lawmanship 3rd Ed.'

Gentle reader, today an excerpt from my ground-breaking instructional manual 'On Lawmanship 3rd Edition', described by prominent legal commentator Rodney 'Rod' Kafer as 'the next Gatley on Libel and Slander':

'A Timeline of Lawmanship (1606 - 1858)

1606: The Duyfken, out of Holland and captained by the famously scorbutic Willem Janszoon, charted the western coast of Cape York and its crew made the first recorded landfall by Europeans on Australian soil. Bless’dly neither Janszoon, nor his compatriots Hartog, Carstensz and Tasman who came later, had any success, despite their ferocious efforts to enshrine Civil Law and an Inquisitorial Judicature in Australia. Perhaps one of the few times one can be happy that someone hadn’t read Whitelocke: On Lawmanship 3rd Edition!

1788: Arthur Phillip lands the first fleet in Australia and founds a new civilisation in Sydney Cove. Unfortunately Phillip lacked the advocacy skills to encourage the natives to give up their land gratefully and to resist small pox.

1804-1808: A period of social upheaval in Australia, bookended by the second Battle of Vinegar Hill and the infamous Rum Rebellion. The violence and disorder in these times was caused in part due to the poor advocacy skills of colonial leaders, tragically born 150 years too early to benefit from my teaching, and in part due to the practice of blending vinegar with rum to enable the early incarnation of the practice of “chroming”.

1829: After the efforts of brave explorers such as Matthew Flinders, Edward Eyre and Ludwig Leichardt the whole of Australia was pronounced free of any form of native papery and was finally claimed as a British territory.

1850: My alma-mata, the University of Sydney was founded. At first the only subjects taught at the Barrumatta Road campus were phrenology, physiognomy and the studies of the habits of Giglioli’s Whale however by the time I graduated one could study anything from crystal healing, iridology, the Bates method to the teachings of Erich von Daniken. This centre of learning, while poor by world standards, has increased the erudition of Australians no end and has produced a number of Australia’s finest intellects and champions of social justice: myself, John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull, Ray Martin and John Kerr.

Unfortunately a number of my sworn enemies also attended Sydney University: Gough Whitlam, Nick Farr-Jones, Anthony Mason, Glen Stevens, Garfield Barwick, Roden Cutler, Neville Wran, Dyson Heydon, Michael Kirby, Murray Gleeson, William McMahon, Phil Waugh, Sir Douglas Mawson, Geoffrey Robertson and most of all Sir Mungo William MacCallum.

It is also claimed I have been romantically involved with the following graduates of Sydney University: Clover Moore, Susan Crennan, Dame Joan Sutherlad, Ros Kelly, Jane Campion, Jenny George and Dame Leonie Kramer.

1854: Sir Charles Hotham and Robert Rede demonstrate that development of Australian advocacy and persuasion at the Eureka Stockade.

1858: Sydney and Melbourne were linked by electric telegraph. This was the beginning of the encroachment of internets of various guises into human life and the first shot fired on the Australian front in the war between man and computers.'

For more, you can buy 'On Lawmanship 3rd Edition' here, for $20 plus postage.