Thursday 5 April 2012

Friday on Thursday.

Hi everyone,

Posting this a bit late tonight.  Sorry.

It's been an interesting day.  I woke before my alarm (vanishingly rare for this to happen) and was in the office at a reasonable time.  I had another matter to arrange urgent surveillance on, as well as (theoretically) conducting negotiations by remote control in this morning's Magistrates Court hearing.  Unfortunately, negotiations were derailed by counsel for the plaintiff being brainlessly aggressive and insisting we capitulate or start the proceeding.  There's almost never a good time to act like that, especially as he should have known we were willing to discuss settlement with him.  We had a good juridictional point to take which stood to stop the claim in its tracks and stall it off for about 6 months, but had no intention of using it if a settlement could be achieved.  So, as they were insisting on all the chest-beating we took the point.  Fine.  You wanted to show off in front of your client?  Now you can explain to him why his matter won't be dealt with until October.

The afternoon was a blaze of activity connected with next week's hearings, punctuated by a send off for one of our colleagues who is going to another firm, and also a couple of case reviews and a whole-firm update.  Hectic.  The office shots here are of my office at the time I left.  Yes, I have about 1.5 square feet of desk to actually work on.

We had after-work drinks whereafter some of us went out for further drinks with the departing colleague.  The night-time pictures are from Slate, the bar where we hung out most of the evening.  I was drinking water as it's still Lent, which made for an interesting experience.  Being the only sober one as my colleagues got drunker and drunker, I saw their underlying personalities came into sharper focus.  This actually made them seem even nicer people than they usually do - variously sweeter, gentler, more studied, more alive, more pressing, more curious.  I must try the "designated driver" thing more often!

We finished up eating McDonalds on Collins Street at about 12:30am, and then three of us shared a cab to the Brunswick area.  So I've now had a shower and I'll turn in after I blog this.

The Easter long weekend kicks off tomorrow, and I should be spending a big whack of it up at Shepparton with Dad and Michael.  I'll try and post another update before I go, but if I'm offline for a couple of days, that's why.

Hope all your Easters are great!

See you soon.

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