‘Work’: Desperate Need for Legal PR

March 24, 2009

bartleby2.jpg

What, no songs about office life? Yes, this would appear to be true, for as the FT has it – reporting on last week’s Guardian list of the 1,000 best pop songs ever written – there was virtually nothing on the joys of sitting behind a desk, talking on the phone, attending board meetings, going to conferences and commuting back and forth with hundreds of thousands of fellow sufferers.

Why is this, we wonder? Is it because pop singers have negligible experience of office life, and so cannot translate its highs and lows into song? Or, if we agree that songs are akin to poetry (at their best, anyway), is it because there isn’t a huge amount of poetry in office life?

Perhaps Herman Melville’s immortal office clerk, Bartleby, embodies the unfortunate lack of inspiration to be found in an office. Connoiseurs of American literature will recall that Bartleby the Scrivener is hired by a lawyer to help with general office duties, not least proofreading. However, to this, and every task he is asked to perform, he merely says: “I would prefer not to.” Bartleby prefers not to do anything, even to relocate when the lawyer, exasperated by his seeming inability to do other than stare forlornly at the brick wall outside his window, moves offices. Instead, he remains in his employer’s former dwelling, haunting its hallways, preferring not to leave. Eventually he is forcibly removed and imprisoned, but the lawyer, somewhat atypically in literary fiction, is a kindly man. He bribes the prison guards to ensure that Bartleby is well fed, only to find, when he visits the prison a few days later, that Bartleby is dead. Why? Because, when given his sumptuous food, he said: “I would prefer not to.”

Pop singers, it would seem, prefer not to write songs about office life. However, it’s not all bad, and Bartleby was not only an extreme creation but he was, at the end of the day, a work of fiction. In the real world, that dread four-letter word – work – needs some positive PR.  Perhaps, given the story’s lawyerly backdrop, this is one for legal PRs?

Image courtesy of Cornell University Library

 

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Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.

Not so right said Fred

February 2, 2012
fred hat

So Farewell, then, Sir Fred Goodwin.

Now you are just Fred.

Not Right Said Fred, but plain Fred.

The Forfeiture Committee did for you.

No one had heard of it before,

But Dave said it had to act, and it did.

Trouble is that no one knows what to think.

Is it ‘Alas, poor Fred‘,

Or ‘Hurray! Sir Fred is dead!’?

We don’t know.

Do you?

By A. Mob, aged 1,378 and a half.

London Goes AWOL

January 31, 2012
CNN

STOP PRESS:

Fed up with being stuck on the Thames in south-east England, London yesterday decided to move. In a dramatic gesture which augurs ill for the Olympics, the city upped sticks and relocated to East Anglia.

Lawyers were not consulted about the move, and the city’s precise motivation remains unclear. However, financiers fear that London’s decision is a sign that it wishes to downsize. Moreover, a source from London said: “We no longer want to be Britain’s seat of power. If the Scots can deregulate, why can’t we? East Anglia is a nice place where nothing happens. It’s time for a quiet life. Please respect our right to privacy.”

Elsewhere, Birmingham did not do anything, but Manchester was seen to be packing its bags. “There’s an opportunity for us,” said Manchester. “We can become London.”

East Anglia said: “We don’t mind. It’ll be refreshing to be associated with something other than fens and flatness.”

A cartologist at CNN, which broke the extraordinary news, was later fired.