Supreme Court art: unbottling the spider

A good day to bury a bad king.

Lord Neuberger reads today's judgment in Court 1, where there is a wooden carving of Richard III, Shakespeare's 'bottled spider'. His alleged remains are being buried today in Leicester, arguably the last place on earth where he'd want to end up. The Times Literary Supplement tweets excitedly that he is being 'reinterned', an interesting concept.

Meanwhile, as a result of this judgment in R (on the application of Evans) and another v Attorney General, we will learn just how interesting or otherwise are the confidential 'black spider' memos penned by the Prince of Wales to government ministers. I blogged about the hearing here.





After the judgment I sit in on Starbucks (HK) Limited and another v British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC and others. It's about the use of a trademark; Christopher Wadlow is repeatedly cited as an authority.

At the launch of his book The Law of Passing-off some 25 years ago, I was given a glittery brooch from Simmons & Simmons' black museum of passing off - I never established whether it was real or fake.

He will forgive me for saying that on launch day he was keyed up about giving an interview on Radio 4 and, after a moment's carelessness, the ink in his fountain pen stained his shirt so he had to pop out to buy a new one. Watching paint dry (a comparison sometimes unfairly made with the Supreme Court) is not as much fun as watching ink spread, or watercolour. My new toy in court today, the Kuretake Little Red Gift Set, keeps paints and water carefully contained - no need for a new shirt.

As today's appellant is Starbucks, readers may visualise the coffee shop logo, even though it's a different company. The legal profession itself has no satisfactory logo. A gavel? Not if you're referring to England, where it has no place. I am worryingly pleased to be a spotter for http://inappropriategavels.tumblr.com

More pictures if you scroll down. There is currently an exhibition of my Supreme Court drawings at Pinsent Masons' Broadgate office.

Shibari rehearsal at The Violet Crab

Shibari stars Nina Russ and Bruce Esinem kindly agree to tie the legs of my gallant little sewing table, a rescue job from Portobello.

I cleared out the rusty pins under its floral lining, and now it holds the art clobber which I need for drawing-the-cabaret-as-part-of-the-cabaret. This isn't strictly speaking bondage - it doesn't change the shape of the table or restrict its movement.



We are at The Violet Crab, the cabaret-themed exhibition at the David Roberts Art Foundation in Camden. Nina is rehearsing with Ayumi LaNoire.

As they are not performing to amplified music, I hear for the first time the sound of bondage rope being played over bamboo. It is like breathing.

The Violet Crab at DRAF, Part 3

I forget to put the memory card into my camera so these snaps are taken in low light with the steampunk BlackBerry.

I'm drawing the progress of The Violet Crab, a cabaret-themed exhibition at the David Roberts Art Foundation in Camden directed by Than Hussein Clark.

Multi-tasking is on the cabaret agenda here but I draw the line at playing the piano, even though it's an easy Minkus transcription with some mildly amusing wrong notes printed in the first online version I find. I can't take the stress, I say. I'm stressing about whether the lines of my thermal underwear will be visible under my cabaret dress. I'm aiming to look like the mysterious essence of the Venetian lagoon, not something corrugated.

The poet CAConrad reading on the main stage

The bag I'm into