Unexpected and best Christmas present – a record player!  And not only is it a record player but it’s portable. Imagine – I could take it with me when I have to stay in hotels or go on holiday.  Unlike some people, I still have quite a lot of vinyl and it’s very nice to sit in the kitchen and put on some old favourites.  I’m only sorry I’m not still practising as a barrister – along with the brief and the papers, and notebooks, I could have taken my neat little green case into court.

A couple of bars of ‘I fought the law,’ or even ‘Jailhouse Rock’ could have melted the heart of many a judge. I notice (only now, because he was not in my time) that there is a song by Jackson Browne called ‘Lawyers in Love‘ but that might have been a bit distracting.  But this is the thing, you could get to a tricky point in cross examination, where all seems to be going badly – a not infrequent event – and you could say, ‘Officer, I put it to you that my client is not that bad.  Why, listen to this!’ and slip ‘I shot the sheriff’ on to the turntable.  After a couple of lines you could go back to cross examination.  ‘Officer, don’t you understand, he did not shoot the deputy.’  Verdict – not guilty!  In my dreams.  *

Another surprising and lovely gift was an album by Yo Yo Ma, Sing Me Home, from friend Susan in Yorkshire.  One of the most intriguing tracks, because I have a history with this song, is St James Infirmary Blues, featuring Rhiannon Giddens, Michael Ward-Bergeman & Reylon Yount.

Those of you who watched the BBC documentary Living in ’66 – Pop, pirates and postmen will remember (possibly) that during the section where I walked round Chelmsford I read an extract from my diary describing a day in March 1966 where friend Christine and I went in to Dace’s music shop to buy Lee Dorsey and Lou Christie’s latest singles, but bumped into a couple of pals who were listening to something else and so Christine walked out of the shop with a copy of St James Infirmary by the Graham Bond Organisation.  Very different, but great!

* For more songs that have to do with lawyers look at this website, Abnormal Use