Federal Budget

The Budget was delivered tonight. With our large budget surplus, there’s plenty of spending to go around. Heaps of tax cuts – most grads like myself will have about $10/week extra to play with. Of course there are concerns that the extra cash everyone gets is going to fuel demand in the economy and push up inflation and perhaps interest rates. Luckily, I don’t have a mortgage (and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon).

The two guys finally made it out of the Beaconsfield mine after 14 days. Great end to the story.

  10:53pm (GMT +10.00)  •  Current Affairs  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Disjointed and somewhat random

Site is looking a bit lonely, so I’m going to chuck in a series of disjointed and somewhat random sentences: Got around to watching Firefly. It really is a fantastic series, pity it was cut so short. Getting really cold in the mornings, and it’s not even Winter yet. After five years, I finally tried the Colombian restaurant down the road (La Cumbia), it’s not bad, but I can’t say I’ll be back there anytime soon. Went to paintball on Anzac Day, which is sort of an unpatriotic thing to do because it’s not like you can pretend that your team are the Anzacs storming the beach (if you’re on the winning side). Action Paintball has got a good variety of game scenarios, but I still prefer Heartbreak Ridge. Saw Mission Impossible 3 – thought it was pretty decent, although Maggie Q’s Cantonese is shocking (and that’s coming from me!). Doing Trust Accounting for College of Law – it’s bringing back bad memories of first year Accounting.

The site’s photo album is on the fritz. Was working one moment, gone the next. Pesky hosting company did something to it. I’ll get around to fixing it one day, but as I suspect it requires a complete reinstall, that one day may be some time off. I’ll post on the front page instead. Here’s some photos from Suma’s camera of the aftermath of this year’s Lachs moot. Bit more lively than last year!

  11:14pm (GMT +10.00)  •  Life  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Reader feedback required

It is alleged that there is a hard and fast rule that when you’re in the early stages of dating someone (first couple months, say), it is a dealbreaker for the guy to SMS the girl in substitute for a phone call. Supposedly, this signals either non-interest on the guy’s part, or if that is not true, gross laziness which is to be avoided at all costs. In other words, if such a girl receives an SMS, it is more probable than not that she will terminate the relationship. This was the first any of us three guys tonight had heard of this “rule”. Yet, all three girls were in total agreement over the matter, as if it were a matter of universally known social courtesy. Independent verification is required: do you agree? Comments, please?

  12:19am (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Life  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (14)  • 

Sutton v Hutchison

LORD JUSTICE WARD: The appellant is a lap dancer. I would not, of course, begin to know exactly what that involves. One can guess at it, but could not faithfully describe it. The Judge tantalisingly tells us, at paragraph 21 of his judgment, that the purpose is “to tease but not to satisfy”.

By about the end of 2002, or early in 2003, the appellant seems to have begun to tease the respondent. He, being a rich businessman, sought, no doubt, to enliven his lonely evenings in London by seeking entertainment at the Spearmint Rhino club in Tottenham Court Road where the appellant was then employed. Having been tempted, he managed to obtain her telephone number and invited her to dinner. It was not exactly the traditional boy meets girl, “Let’s have dinner, darling” kind of invitation. It was an invitation which she accepted, but entirely on the basis that she would be there as his escort and, as his escort, she would provide the services of companionship and amusement, but for a consideration. That consideration would amount, according to the judgment, to perhaps about £700 or £800 a night for the pleasure of her company at dinner. But the arrangement was made on a number of occasions and, as they went on, the relationship changed and at some time early in 2003 it is common ground that the services included sexual services, for which even more money was paid as a consideration. Whether or not rule 2 of the Spearmint Rhino club had been breached, requiring that you could get no satisfaction, we do not know and fortunately do not have to decide.

Any judgment that starts like that is worth a read.

  11:06am (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Law  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

College of Law

Civil Litigation exam tomorrow. Suck.

Q: What do these words have in common: pre-trial, status, final, case management, evaluation, trial management?
A: They are all types of conferences that you have to go through before you get a hearing (depending on what court you’re in). Oh yes, fascinating.

  11:05pm (GMT +10.00)  •  Life  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  •