Goodness Gracious Me

It used to be ‘Your Lordship’ or ‘My Lord’ here. It still is, in the United Kingdom, and now ‘Your Ladyship’, too. Down Under, they say ‘Your Worship’. In Singapore, it is ‘Your Honour’. We know of no other equivalent. At least not until a recent witness in the Singapore High Court took matters further than required. After a series of pointed questions from the Bench, he stammered out his answer, ending with ‘Your Highness’.

We know it is the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, but still … .
 

Not Pulling any Punches

The phrase ‘assault and battery’ is being given a whole new meaning at this street-side cafeteria. We are not sure if they are paying for them or delivering them for payment.

Free Flow CLE in the Land of Plenty

The United States of America may be the Land of the Free, but you only get what you pay for. At the recent 125th Annual ABA Conference in Washington DC, foreign delegates (including our President of the Law Society of Singapore, Mr Palakrishnan, SC), who thought they could sneak into the some 1,800 over seminars, not all of which their conference package had covered, got the doors ceremoniously shut on them.

Not one to take matters lying down, Mr Palakrishnan protested against the same, and the organisers, welcoming the feedback, have now confirmed that foreign delegates will be admitted to these seminars at next year’s Conference in San Francisco. Hurray for the hallmark of the Singaporean abroad — superior bargaining skills for freebies!

As for this year’s Conference, some intrepid ones still managed to sneak in after the event, to pick up the leftovers — handouts and materials, that is!

Parkinson’s Disease?

Big may not necessarily be better. Organisations, that is.

At least not according to Cyril Parkinson, whose law, known as ‘Parkinson’s Law’, states ‘Work expands to fill the time available for its completion’. He later devised a second law, ‘Expenditure rises to meet income’.

Parkinson based his comments regarding the nature of bureaucracy on his experiences as a British army staff officer during World War II. Administrators make work for each other, he said, so that they can multiply the number of their subordinates and enhance their prestige. His second law was intended as a jibe at government functionaries, who he thought were inclined to expand their own ranks indefinitely so long as taxes could be raised. Other laws formulated by Parkinson:

• Expansion means complexity, and complexity decay.
• Policies designed to increase production increase employment; policies designed to increase employment do everything but.
• Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
• The matters most debated in a deliberative body tend to be the minor ones where everybody understands the issues.
• Deliberative bodies become decreasingly effective after they pass five to eight members.

Food for thought for some organisations you know, perhaps?