Famous Denning Openings Much has been said about the art of plain English, but the late Lord Denning was certainly a master of it, as these opening passages of his judgments will show:  ‘Broadchalke is one of the most pleasing villages in England. Old Herbert Bundy, the defendant, was a farmer there. His home was at Yew Tree Farm. It went back for 300 years. His family had been there for generations. It was his only asset. But he did a very foolish thing. He mortgaged it to the bank.’ — Lloyds Bank v Bundy [1973] 3 All ER 757.  ‘In summertime village cricket is the delight of everyone. Nearly every village has its own cricket field where the young men play and the old men watch. In the village of Lintz in County Durham they have their own ground, where they have played these last 70 years. They tend it well. The wicket area is well rolled and mown. The outfield is kept short ... [y]et now after these 70 years a judge of the High Court has ordered that they must not play there anymore ... [h]e has done it at the instance of a newcomer who is no lover of cricket.   ‘This newcomer has built ... a house on the edge of the cricket ground which four years ago was a field where cattle grazed. The animals did not mind the cricket.’ — Miller v Jackson (1977) QB 966, 976.  ‘This is a case of a barmaid who was badly bitten by a big dog.’ — Cummings v Granger (1977) 1 All ER 104, 106.

 

Every Bite You Take  With every bite they took, participants, supporters and VIPs at the Closing Dinner of the Bench and Bar Games 2004 held in Kuantan, Pahang, had their meal accompanied by no less than the musical prowess of The Police. Not of the Sting variety, but a band made up of real-life policemen, who played traffic-stopping music with accompanying vocals. And no wonder too that they were aptly named `Roadblock’.   Obiter wonders if being in the presence of these ‘men in blue’ could have also been the reason why the Malaysian team wisely lost out to Singapore at the friendly boat-race event (comprising of each team downing mugs of beer at high speed), historically one of their strongest events?

 

To the Castle Born   We have heard of marriages made in heaven and building castles in the air, but now, couples looking for a romantic location to do a bit of both can get married in a Tudor castle in Cornwall, England.   Clover-shaped St Mawes Castle was granted a licence for civil ceremonies in January this year and is already proving a popular choice. The Tudor castle was built between 1539 and 1545 by Henry VIII as part of a defensive chain of fortresses to protect the south coast of England. It comprises a circular, central bastion with three lower bastions or ‘lunettes’ arranged on the seaward side, like the leaves of a clover.   Licensed wedding areas include the circular gun room, which benefits from the sea views, or the entrance hall, which leads on to an outdoor deck. How’s that for a gunshot wedding?