22 February 2016, 1 pm
Now we have brought the poor, disorientated Japanese attorneys to one of the Inns of Court so that they can see what it is really like working in the law in Great Britain and why the British are not particularly impressed when it comes to the EU courts of justice. We treat them to a charming buffet lunch, which is largely curry, to show that the British need not worry about the EU anyway because we are truly cosmopolitan, having spent much of our history colonising the rest of the world and the last century watching them monopolise our takeaway industry. The Japanese return the compliment by giving me a ceremonial Japanese fan. I suggest to Mr Davies that somebody should be employed to stand beside the President at all times, wielding the ceremonial fan. He explains the number of levels on which this is a bad idea. The trouble is, there is also a large throne in the lobby of the Inn of Court and I am beginning to think that surely it is not too much to ask for the CIPA Pee to have a throne of her own and a tiara and a somebody to stand beside her wielding a ceremonial fan. Surely now, is it? 22 February 2016, 2 pm The afternoon is a CPD seminar. Now it is the turn of the Japanese attorneys to tell us a thing or two about developments in Japanese IP laws and procedures. It is humbling, how well the speakers handle our language. Not only is it a foreign language; it is also inconsiderately expressed using a different character set, which though limited to a mere 26 symbols nevertheless manages to use them in such an illogical range of combinations that not even the natives can pronounce, let alone spell, all of them. In addition to speaking excellent English, our visitors also seem to know the EPO Guidelines better than we do. And the EPO Guidelines are not just written using a different character set, they are also written using a completely alien, some might say imaginary, set of logical constructs. Yet still the Japanese understand them and we do not. After the seminar, there are drinks and canapés. The EyeEllSee have planned every last detail of these canapés, so it is important that we like them. They include miniature fish and chips and miniature roast beef and Yorkshire puddings, to show our visitors that the British have wonderful food of their own but can also make it as dainty as patisserie when they want to. Personally I do not hold with miniaturised Sunday dinners. A one-inch high paper cone containing two chips and a cubic centimetre of battered fish, which is hardly worth the effort of battering anyway, is neither a canapé nor a meal, it is an insult. It is doll’s house fare. It is hamster food. It is someone in the kitchen having a laugh at my expense. A President should not have to eat such apologetic miserableness. Somebody should be wielding the ceremonial Japanese fan at my side, placing the ceremonial tiara on my head and spoon-feeding me caviar. On second thoughts, not caviar, because that is miniaturised eggs; perhaps caramel custard tart instead. I will suggest this at next week’s Council meeting.
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