Dog Day Afternoon
Over the break I dropped in for a day of musical mayhem at the annual Falls Music & Arts Festival at Byron Bay. There was loads of good music on offer, plenty of deep-fried food, some cool pop-up bars and, as the advertising blurbs promised, “loads of other awesomeness.” I quickly noticed however that the fun-filled affair was not necessarily so awesome for all involved. As I arrived at the gates I witnessed the all-too-familiar sight of a shirtless festival raver, bailed up by police, with two sniffer dogs crawling all over his pants.
Santa Ban
It seems like people can always find something to fight about, even at Christmas time. I guess that’s why most lawyers love January so much. After a week or so of full-on festivity, soaking up the ho-ho-ho’s in the sweltering summer sun, cooped up with the ever-loving spouse and those dear sweet visiting in-laws, eating too much, drinking too much, staying up too late and waking up too early, if folk can’t find a good reason to consult a lawyer first thing in the new year, chances are they never will.
The Genteel Silence
The complaint this week from would-be patrons of a popular Adelaide hotel that they were refused entry on racial grounds, has reopened some old wounds, and focused attention on sadly unfinished business. Claims by aboriginal woman Taylor Power-Smith and her indigenous friends Peter Miller Koncz and his wife Kahlia that they were turned away from the Palais Hotel because of their aboriginality, raised more than a few ghosts of our often shameful past.
Selective Amnesia
Remember that awesome pub-crawl you went on in first year uni, the one organised by your student social association, where you started on shooters, then learned how to play beer pong, the whole hilarious process captured on your mobile phones, got absolutely legless, and ended up dancing on the tables? Those were the days, right? Well the good news is, now you’re all grown up and considering applying for pre-selection in conservative politics, you can still revisit those good old days any time you want. The bad news is, so can everyone else. All they have to do is Google “beer pong,” and there you are, pitching ping-pong balls, belting back beers and head-bopping with the band.
The Man On The Clapham Omnibus
Lawyers are well acquainted with the Reasonable Man. After all, he’s each and every one of us, although in truth none of us at all. He’s everyone and no one, the theoretical mean of human mores, the universal yardstick of all that’s fair and reasonable.
Schoolies, Lockout Laws And Jelly Shots
With Schoolies 2016 and the Christmas silly season soon upon us, licensed premises owners, staff and patrons will need to brush up on Queensland’s new liquor laws if they don’t want to wind up on the wrong end of a hefty fine.
The Education Of Amasa
The Bible tells us that the sinner Saul was struck down on the road to Damascus. In a sudden flash of light from heaven, he experienced a divine, life-changing epiphany. For most of us the getting of wisdom follows an infinitely more gradual and circuitous path.
Racy Behaviour
This weekend’s Castrol Gold Coast 600 is yet another reminder that some people just seem to be a whole lot happier when someone gets their gear off.
Send In The Clowns
The circus is in town. A crazy new phenomenon is sweeping across the US, Europe, and now even Australia. It trumps the Trump, it’s scarier than Ruddy’s run at the UN, and it’s so weird it even out-weirds planking, if that’s actually possible. Scary killer clowns have taken to lurking on our streets, hiding in the shadows and around corners, waiting to maniacally leap out and scare the living socks off us.
Attack Of The Drones
With the currently almost endemic proliferation in Australian society of audio- and video-recording mobile phones, and the recent announcement by CASA of the relaxation of laws and regulations around the use of surveillance drones in Australian airspace, perhaps it’s time we all sat down to have a good hard rethink about some of our rules around privacy in this country.
Bringing Up Baby
When couples are separating, and negotiating who gets what from the joint property pool, pets (most frequently dogs and cats) are often front and centre in the equation. Usually, the parties are able to negotiate an informal, mutually-acceptable agreement as to custody of their four-legged friends. But it’s not always the case. Sometimes formal orders or agreements are needed to lock down precisely who gets Poochie and on what terms. Dedicating court time to determining the custody of cats and dogs may be thought by some to be an inefficient use of valuable resources, but the fact is family pets often have a profound emotional value to their owners, and that just can’t be ignored.
Stool Pigeons & G Men
G men love stoolies. It’s a fact of life.
Over the centuries, the one thing that has most frustrated the work of ‘government guys’ – the regulators of all shapes and sizes, the G men, the Jacks, the fuzz, the heat, the traps, the Johnny Hoppers, federalies, wallopers, flatfoots, boys in blue, whatever you want to call them – the one thing that has most frustrated their valiant efforts to rein in the miscreant criminal milieu has been the unshakeable conspiracy of silence that has long existed between partners in crime.