To the Supreme Court, then veering away

Lord Sumption 
from afar

Fry's Five Boys was a chocolate bar which offended me when I was a child. There was only one grimacing infant, photographed five times. Bar and wrapper said: Desperation, Pacification, Expectation, Acclamation, Realization - "It's Fry's". 

I learned from it that life was about some foolish grown-up imposing the wrong words in the wrong order. It was discontinued when the Sex Pistols arrived. There is nothing of the chocolate bar about the five law lords but I have an atavistic moment. 

Lord Hope

I'm sitting at the back, unable to see faces clearly, miles away across the tundra. 


British Airways plc v Williams and others is about pilots' holiday pay. QCs are hurling the kitchen sink at the issues. 'Habitats Directive'...'dredging rights'...'complicated Dutch competition case'... Three people notice that they are being sketched from afar. Each puts a hand up to his face. 

Lord Mance

At lunchtime I clean charcoal off my hands, face and shoulders. I eat a prawn sandwich and a Kit Kat in the basement cafe. The leading QC is asked, 'Still or sparkling?' He comments to his colleague that sparkling is a bad choice when you're on your feet. 


I meet a friend who has come from the volunteer Olympic drivers' Park Lane operations room. Things there are tense: it's the phoney war. Her Swatch Olympic watch, designed not to set off security alarms, sets off the Supreme Court security alarm. 

Lord Walker

Out in the sun we spot shiny Olympic BMWs being driven round Parliament Square en route to the stadium. Their Munich-controlled satnav has a left-leaning tendency. You can tell which drivers give the satnav credence: they are the ones who suddenly barge to the right (desperation) to avoid being swept up to Trafalgar Square and ignominy. 


I am off topic. But the volunteer Olympic drivers have each been issued with a time-killing 'game' (pacification) of such crassness that I reproduce the first page here: