Lifestyle

Pension freedom

Andrew Johnston explains how the temporary pension relaxations under the Finance Act 2014 – which close on 5 April 2015 – apply to soon-to-be retirees.

Looking back to December 2002, HM Treasury and the Inland Revenue (now HM Revenue & Customs) issued the consultation document Simplifying the taxation of pensions, increasing choice and flexibility for all.

Easy does it

Going it alone: for the barrister with a book inside them, author Mark McCrum offers a guide to self-publishing.

I’ve written nine books under my own name, seven under other people’s – all traditionally published. So why did I decide to go it alone and publish my novel Fest myself?

The Kalisher Event

David Wurtzel reviews this year’s Kalisher event, a production of Witness for the Prosecution in Middle Temple Hall in May.

There can be few better causes than the Kalisher Trust, founded in 1996 for the purpose of helping talented students and young barristers with limited means who want to practice in criminal law.

A splendid beginning

Andrew Clarke QC reviews the Bar Choral Society’s inaugural concert.

On 23 June, the Bar Choral Society (BSC) gave its inaugural concert in Temple Church. It is idle to speculate as to why it has taken the Bar so long to have a choir of its own.

Summer Reading

The Bar Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Vice Chairman-Elect with their favourite books for the summer.

Summer is designed for cricket, and it is a truth universally acknowledged that the best book about cricket is Beyond a Boundary by CLR James. The book takes in race, class, colonialism and so much more, as befits the Leninist, Trinidadian nationalist author of the line: “What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?”

Diving in

Zoe Saunders on how she makes the most of her time away from court and unwinds.

As I was leaving court recently, one of the local district judges said to me: “I understand you’ve taken up some kind of extreme sport, sky diving or something.” As someone who is terrified of heights and not much of an extreme sports fan I had no idea what he was talking about; after some discussion of other extreme sports that I would never contemplate, I tentatively offered “Do you mean freediving, Judge?” To which he replied, “oh yes, that’s the one".

Judging images

The 2005 and 2013 legal reporting reforms have given rise to initiatives and new images which feed into a new Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project: Judging Images: the making, management and consumption of judicial images. Leslie J Moran reflects upon this project and on Isobel Williams’s work.

Isobel Williams is not so much a courtroom artist, commissioned to produce court pictures for an image hungry media, but an artist interpreting her courtroom experiences in words and pictures. Her licence to draw in the Supreme Court is indicative of a new relationship between courts and visual media.

Picture-blogging in the Supreme Court

Blogging artist Isobel Williams on her work in the highest court in the land.

Since July 2012 I have been an occasional blogger-with-a-difference in the Supreme Court, with the court’s permission. The difference is that I illustrate my blog with drawings which I do on the spot; I rarely embellish them afterwards.

Please put a penny in the old man’s hat

Sean Jones QC and Professor Dominic Regan give Counsel a tour of the wine around this Christmas

There is an enormous range of bottles out there this year. Here are some that we think you will be glad to have bought.

Grand Masters

Nicolas Bragge outlines highlights of the colourful life of Master Richard Wakeford VC whose photograph is one of many past Masters on show at the Rolls Building.

The Chancery Masters, together with other judiciary, moved to the Rolls Building from the Thomas More Building two years ago; more recently, photographs of past and current Masters have been displayed there for public view. It is hoped that this has been welcomed as a source of interest by those who appear before us.

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