1. This year, in countries that use the Gregorian Calendar, Chanukah begins on the evening of 24 December 2016 and ends on evening of January 1 2017. There's probably something poignant, something humorous, and something that combines both that can be said about the first coincidence. The floor - meaning this blog's comments section - is yours.
I'll leave comments about the last until coincidence until after January 1.
2. My list of things I so far haven't yet been able to find in Oxford and related thoughts. This isn't the full list of either, yet; however, the number of the latter may wane as my internal quantity of Christmas and other spirits grows. I tend to add and subtract at will, regardless of the state of my ... searching. (Relative sobriety is a given.)
- An invisible Chanukah bush - emperor's quality - new or otherwise. Think about it. I'm working on this one. I still have time.
- related to #1, above, an electric menorah for purchase in a "bricks and mortar" location. Using advanced search techniques - Google supported by DuckDuckGo - I'd identified a possible location given that its web site lists "Chanukah Menorah £1.50" as one of the items for purchase. (The price should have alerted me to the fact that it wasn't going to be electric, as should some of the particulars related to the location of the "store").*
- Another item a few lines up on the list of the store's available items to purchase might require some explanation that I'm not going to exactly provide, other than noting that it's not a listing for a good Hawaii'an punch or a mid-range shot of single malt, or of some unusual Eastern European Jewish form of martial arts: "Shabbos belt £3.99".
- * Unfortunately, I subsequently determined (as I should have suspected) that the location in issue sells only menorahs for which candles are obligatory. I was told that I could also get small candles which likely lasted for no more than .5 hours. I declined. A lit unwatched candle doesn't care about its age. So, will I have one more plausible option, the better recourse now probably online. I should have suspected because the location is related to an Orthodox Jewish organization which is orthodox enough that electric menorahs "just won't do". And, besides, if one can't work on the Sabbath - working includes turning on electricity: i.e., flicking a switch - an electric menorah isn't going to do any good for those Chanukah days that overlap the Sabbath.
- No, I'm not observant. I need an electric menorah to go with my invisible Chanukah bush. Think about it some more.
- The 4th edition of Sopinka, Lederman & Bryant, The Law of Evidence in Canada (LexisNexis etc). I'm going to have to have a wee talk with the Law Bod PtB in the New Year. There are, after all, a few Canadian law types in Oxford who, for some reason, occasionally need to look at the leading text on the Canadian law of evidence when considering what Canadian judges should understand and lawyers might understand.
- But only because I haven't yet physically put my hands on it, because I now know it's here, the 3rd ed of Angela Swan - ahem: the book, not the person; note the pronouns, please - Canadian Contract Law (LexisNexis etc). I know the book is in Oxford because I asked the PtB in the Law Bod to order it, they did, and I've been told it's here. I need it because, not unusually for a law researcher, I need to know what those people who usually do know the better answer to many questions have said about some of those questions. I brought only my copy of the 1st edition with me. (She signed it.)
- Yes, I could have asked Angela, but see "law researcher".
3. On the purpose of law texts. While Swan, Canadian Contract Law, is also a "go-to" Canadian text - I'd argue at least one of "the" such texts - for current and former barrister (litigator) types who need to know what the law is, and ought to be, for dispute resolution purposes, that isn't its primary purpose. Rather, the text is written from the perspective of the transactional lawyer on the premise that at least one of the common desires, expectations, hopes, intentions, what-have-yous, of the parties is that the transaction to which the contract relates won't end up in the hands of ... people who occupy a role such as the one that I used to occupy: one's lawyers because something has gone wrong.
- Those of you who intend to become transactional lawyers, even if you leave Canada to practice law in another jurisdiction that uses an English based model, will do well to consider whether that form of contract text is the first you should consult, once you're in practice, if you decide you need to consult a text.
- A premise of the text is that transaction lawyers should focus on keeping their client's business issues, to the extent practical, out of the hands of litigators. Sounds reasonable, doesn't? (Well, except perhaps to litigators looking to buy their next house in the ritzier parts of ...).
- If a person in business has, on retainer, a lawyer-acquaintance in the dispute resolution side of the legal profession who, when asked to give his card to someone who does not yet need him or her, DOES NOT say, "contact me if you need be BUT I hope you never need me" then the former should consider finding a different lawyer-acquaintance in the dispute resolution side of the legal profession to keep on retainer.
- I need a bigger magnifying glass. Or I may have to trade in my i(diot)Pad mini for the full size model of a (doubles usefully for a Windoze mouse-pad when one is sitting in a cross-legged position on a hotel bed, with one's Windoze variety laptop on one's lap, and one needs to use a mouse) i(diot)Pad. The camera function on the tablet is usually good enough for print that's too small for my current set of naturally-grown eyeballs.
4. It's 12/12/2016 today, which means I'll get the date right if it's written numerically no matter the order.
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