The Reading Year 2021

2020 was a year. I got married. My wife and I found out we are having a baby. I suffered throughout from chronic depression. The world was locked down. At some point, I might have breathed.

Perhaps it's unsurprising, then, that I read more than normal. Time was one commodity that did exist in the first half of the year, moreso than in other years. In total, I completed 100 books, many of which were towards my personal target of reading more books either by people of colour, or about different cultures around the world. If you can't go out and experience the wider world, the least you can do is understand the experiences of others.

2021 is starting with something similar: A Corner of a Foreign Field is a book on cricket in India. But that isn't all: it's a book about Indian social and political history since about 1850. It's another book to help me understand another culture - or, I should probably be honest about this, about the many different cultures of India. Let's remember, the modern nation of India is a product of a colonial past, far more than it would have been if let to its own devices.

India promises to feature heavily in this year's reading. For Christmas, my wife bought me William Dalrymple's The Anarchy, a history of the East India Company and its corporate colonisation of the subcontinent. I also intend to read Michael Wood's The Story of India. A few new ideas will keep me going.

But other than that, do I intend to set targets? Not really. Setting myself targets, partly for my own self-improvement, probably puts me under more pressure than I strictly speaking need to put on myself. My only target is this:

ENJOY WHAT I READ.

This means a return to science fiction. This means completing those series which have been sat on the Kindle for months, or (in some cases) years (perhaps that means the Joe Abercrombie sitting in the background). It means reading Ann Leckie, Adrian Tchaikovsky, RJ Barker. It means returning to old faithfuls after years away. It means Foundation and The Farseer Trilogy. It means revisiting the Norman Conquest and spending time in Anglo-Saxon England.

Life is too short to read things I don't enjoy. May 2021 bring enjoyment.

The King in the North

 Sometimes a student will ask me what the point of history is. Normally, they'll be being a pain - and deliberately so - and they get a quick one-liner back. Sometimes, they'll be serious. History doesn't play a part in their life; they live in a present dictated by immediate need and want. Mum and dad work jobs that don't require an understanding of the past. It's the future that matters, not the past, surely?

I admit, this is a question I sometimes struggle with. No such struggle exists with my other specialism: law is the fabric that binds our society and manages acceptable behaviours. It imposes both obligations and entitlements. You study law to understand those rules and regulations, to understand how society can come to define itself by its values. You study it to understand the institutions of politics and power. You study it to reach an informed viewpoint on the absolute mess the government has made this week. It is easy to define law as the now, rather than the then. These are the rules, these are how and why they exist, this is what it means for you.

And then sometimes you read something that reminds you exactly why history is relevant, and exactly why every person should understand it. Max Adams' The King in the North is such a book.

'Hang on,' I hear you cry, 'this is a book about the seventh century AD. Surely it cannot contain anything of relevance to a world in the twenty-first? This is a time when England didn't even exist, except as a series of warring kingdoms where some of the greater kings competed for primacy for a spell. Christianity was on the fringes of people's understanding. How can such a book and such a time hold any kind of insight into modern problems?'

Oh, ye of little faith. A lesson in history is not a lesson just in fables and moral lessons; it never has been. History (somewhat ironically) teaches us that. It isn't a lesson in good triumphing over evil, of absolutism that can give us a good sit down and talking to in relation to just what Oswiu did in 658 that we need to carry forward in life - it certainly doesn't help us to become a hairdresser (as one of my students proudly proclaimed a few weeks ago). And no: we don't become a better person for knowing that there was a royal foundation at Dewsbury that was burned down, rebuilt, and then burned down again (although there are some who would claim some kind of grandeur by association - these people are idiots).

What we get is an understanding. We are citizens. We are expected to play an active role in our society - that society governed by the law that is so easy to define - and to do this we must understand both the rules and regulations that dictate our onw behaviours, but also understand how these rules and regulations came to be and to understand the values of our nation and the influences over them, as well as the interests of our nation, our class, and those around us based on the past.

And it doesn't stop there. History is about understanding motivation. And this is something Max Adams does brilliantly. The seventh century is not a time blessed with a deluge of primary sources; what little exists to illuminate the lives of those who lived then must be floodlit by cross-reference with archaeology, geography, deduction and, at times, good old-fashioned supposition. This is a book that reminds us of something: while the historical and geographical contexts change, basic human psychology and motivation does not.

It is because of this that, despite the lack of sources beyond the Venerable Bede (who is leaned on to such an extent it's a wonder The Ecclesiastical History doesn't break except where needed), the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Annals of Ulster, Adams has been able to craft a remarkable history. Bede is dissected (or, at least, his most famous work is; it's quite clear in the book that the only people being dissected are Oswald, the titular king in the north himself, and Saint Cuthbert, along with hundreds of nameless Northumbrian, Mercian and Anglian warriors of the Dark Ages) and analysed, his motivations in his narrative unpicked and compared to other, less well-known narratives. He is placed in the context of the clash between British and Roman Christianity, along with his geographical and historical location in the ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. What comes from this judicious and critical use of sources is a truly wonderful work of history of relevance to us today, not only as a work of scholarship but as a reminder that Britain does not stand alone.

It's an odd lesson to take from the narrative of a king who reigned for only eight years, and that before the near-legendary Synod of Whitby. He reigned over only a small (relatively, at any rate) section of what is now England. Although Oswald became an overlord of other British kings to an extent, his overlordship crumbled on his death; it was his brother, Oswiu, who secured Oswald's legacy. What must be remembered is that Oswald was more than just his life, and this is brought home by Adams, who spends perhaps four chapters in total of the twenty in the book on the life of his subject. There is far more dedicated to the legacy of Oswald and the far-reaching influence that he had.

Born in around 604, Oswald was a scion of one of the habitual ruling houses of Bernicia, the more northerly of the two kingdoms that would later become Northumbria. His early life is obscure, but we do know that he was in exile in what is now western Scotland, at Iona, following the death of his father in battle and the assumption of the throne of the first Northumbrian Christian monarch, Edwin. As much time is spent on Edwin as Oswald, and with good reason: Edwin was at least as influential as Oswald in normalising Christianity. Perhaps without Edwin, there would have been no lasting Christian influence, no opportunity for Oswald to lay the foundations of the monastery on Lindisfarne (although, given Oswald's own Irish Christianity, I'd say that's pretty unlikely considering that Oswald's Christianity was more than the politically expedient skin-deep version worn by Edwin). What is certainly the case is that Edwin's rule laid the foundations for Oswald's, with only a brief diversion into paganism in between the two rulers after Edwin's defeat at the hands of Mercia in 632.

Adams paints the picture of the life of Oswald with consummate skill. This is no dry read; it is an absorbing book, written by a master of balance. Discussion of sources is lively and erudite. Human details are fleshed out with real insight into human nature and historical context. There are times when events and locations are obscured by the paucity of sources and Adams has to stray into supposition, but this only serves to enhance the book, just as the frequent diversions into descriptions of the landscape of Oswald's world add to the experience. It's a rare book that can have me referring to OS maps while reading, to get a real idea of the geography of events and to back up Adams' arguments. The use of modern landmarks also does nothing to detract from the history; these were real events that happened in real, identifiable (well, for the most part) places that remain unaltered, with the exception of the odd A road. The history of 1300 years ago is closer than we think.

The final thing that becomes clearer and clearer is the growth and interconnectedness of the world of ancient Northumbria. We can look at the obvious to start with: the union of Northumbria, as forged by Edwin, Oswald and Oswiu over the space of half a century or more created the first power of Anglo-Saxon England, before the primacy of Mercia in the eighth century, the conquest of the Vikings and the subsequent primacy of Wessex from the ninth century onwards. But this is more than just a local tale: Oswald received his education in the monastery at Iona, before earning his reputation in charge of a warband in Scotland. He became overlord of places as far afield as Anglesea and the Isle of Man. His death was on a battlefield a long way from his homeland, quite possibly in Wales, at Oswestry. In his lifetime trading networks continued to develop, shown by the suffix wic that can be found in places like Ipswich, Alnwick and other modern towns. These trading posts, impromptu since the fall of Rome, became more permanent, particularly around the coast as the North Sea Basin became more and more crucial to trade between continent and island.

This interconnectedness finds its most compelling evidence in the growth and consolidation of Christianity. We see the growing influence of the Roman Church. We see how the British Christians become more isolated, playing an at-best secondary role to the increasing rivalry between Irish and Roman Churches following the mission of Augustine in 597. We see the last hurrah - in this epoch, at least - of British paganism in the form of the Mercian Penda. And finally and most tellingly, we see how expedience leads to the Synod of Whitby and the political acceptance of the primacy of Rome over the Church of Ireland and the sidelining of the parochial in favour of the international. The arguments produced by Bede - in the early eighth century - could be applied to the twenty-first century almost without changing the wording. A small world, therefore, became larger and more enlightened by what can only be referred to as global connections. Oswald himself took on a European character after his death, with his martyrdom on the battlefield leading to a cult that took root as far afield as Switzerland.

I was engrossed and delighted by Adams' book. It has reconnected me with history in a way that was timely and much-needed, on both a personal and wider level. A book which had me captivated from the very first page has delivered a real treat. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

The Three-Body Problem and the Problem with Hard SF

Were this set in Glasgow, the three-body problem would undoubtedly involve a grizzled detective telling all and sundry that 'There's been a murder.' At least, it would provided the eponymous detective hadn't died and had the series continue without him.

As it is, The Three-Body Problem is mostly based in China and surrounds a problem in physics. That isn't to say there isn't a grizzled detective - there is - or that there aren't multiple bodies - there are - it just happens that the three bodies of the title are astral bodies, stars, and not mutilated corpses left by the River Tay for the police to get their teeth into.

When it was first translated into English, Cixin Liu's novel took the science fiction world by storm. It won the Hugo for best novel in 2015. It has swiftly found its way into the SF canon for its modern approach to hard SF, dealing with physics and maths on a theoretical level in a way that has fallen out of fashion in all but niche circles since the millennium. Outside of Kim Stanley Robinson and Stephen Baxter, it's been a while since I've seen hard SF enter the (relative) mainstream.

The problem is that hard SF relies on the science itself, which restricts it to a niche readership. My scientific knowledge is workable. I couldn't launch a rocket into space, but I have a working knowledge of the physics involved in doing it. Equally, I can suspend my disbelief when it comes to scientific concepts and ideas; if a writer can make it believable, I can believe it. It does, however, mean that hard SF that makes the science the very core of its being - and I'm thinking of Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio here, for the first time in a long time - can leave me cold. Another example is Fred Pohl's collaboration with Arthur C. Clarke for The Last Theorem. A working knowledge of Fermat's Last Theorem was needed to access the book. Although most people have a reasonable working knowledge of science at a basic level, I doubt too many have the breadth of theoretical knowledge of maths and physics to access books like those.

This isn't to criticise hard SF too much: I write as someone who has read and loved the subgenre for years. A quick glance behind me reveals Clarke, Asimov, Baxter, Anderson, Aldiss among less well-known authors. No, it's highlighting where it can fall down. The pitfalls that a writer can become trapped by - quite easily, when even masters have done it - are easier to avoid where they are known.

The best hard SF isn't SF where science is the main character. Science plays a critical, central role in hard SF, that's true, but it isn't the whole point of it. The point of the best hard SF is what happens around the science. Take The Last Theorem. It's a sadly clunky read by two grandmasters of science fiction, where the main character's obsession with Fermat leads him to being caught up in a global mission. The problem is that the drive of the plot is lost behind the explanations of what the theorem is and how it may be solved. The maths replaces the plot. Now compare to The Three-Body Problem.

I can't claim that The Three-Body Problem is the best science fiction book ever, although it is very good. This last few days have seen me spending more and more time with it as I've become more and more caught up with the story's momentum. Yes, the main character lacks agency and exists mostly for the reader to see the story through his eyes. Yes, there probably has been something lost in translation from the original Chinese (although Ken Liu has done a superb job in making this a very readable novel). And finally, yes, the narrative structure leaves a little to be desired. But, when all's said and done, the premise combined with the events in the plot make for a compelling tale.

At its heart is the three-body problem itself, a physics problem relating to the interaction between three sources of gravity. The interaction of those bodies makes it impossible to predict the movement of the three bodies and how they will interact with each other. This physical problem is dealt with in no small part through an ingenius fashion: a VR game called Three Body. Wang, our protagonist, finds himself involved with it, along with various attempts by other players to solve the problem and stabilise the atmosphere of a planet in a triple star system.

This on its own is ingenius. This, combined with the rest of the plot, makes for compelling reading, although there are some elements that don't make sense. Wang is a nanoscientist who finds himself embroiled in a global conspiracy which centres in China. It's a curious book, packed with original takes on familiar tropes. Perhaps it's the influence of the communist regime in China itself; this is very much a book that couldn't be written by a Western writer, and it's refreshing for it. That isn't to say it's unquestioning of the Chinese regime: there are clear criticisms present within Cixin's writing.

The science of The Three-Body Problem is a driving force, but it is the other events which make this a good book, not the science. We have theoretical physics, yes, but explained and applied on a level that don't make this book an indecipherable instruction manual. Hard as the science is, it is applied to the plot in a way that means it compels rather than repels the reader.

And this is how it should be. Science front and centre, but also within. The point is what happens using the science, not the science itself. It's a lesson most writers have taken to heart and used well, but it's also a fine balancing act. Even masters have got it wrong, by either hiding their science too much or by relegating events to a secondary role.

I look forward to reading The Dark Forest. It's been a pleasure reading hard SF with a really solid storytelling core. Long may it continue.

A Little Short for a Stormtrooper

 "I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you."

The title of the episode was a clue. The final instalment of season 2 of The Mandalorian, 'The Rescue', was a suggestion of more than just a mission to save Grogu from the clutches of the Imperial Remnant led by Moff Gideon. It was a chance to see the one and only Luke Skywalker back in action.

As cameos go, it was dramatic. The Jedi Master's assault on the Empire's Dark Troopers (there are far too many capital letters here; Lucasfilm should go easy on the proper nouns) was reminiscent of Darth Vader in Rogue One, a figure cloaked in black cutting a swathe through fearsome enemies made into little more than tin cans by the power of a Force-wielding master. There was even a nice little nod to Vader's action in crushing the throat of one rebel when Luke used the Force to crush an entire Dark Trooper. As demonstrations of power go, it was pretty awe-inspiring. Here, we see the power of a true Jedi for the first time in The Mandalorian. As good as Ahsoka's appearance earlier in the season was, she didn't quite have that raw power of Luke's appearance.

Plus, as viewers of The Clone Wars and Rebels know, she's not really a Jedi. She's a Force-wielder for the light side, but she's disaligned from the Jedi Order following events of season 5 of The Clone Wars (although her use in season 7 may suggest she's back in the fold, even if Rebels suggests she isn't quite, despite mentoring Kanan Jarrus and the still-missing Ezra Bridger). Luke Skywalker most definitely is aligned with the Jedi Order; as he says in Return of the Jedi: "I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

Twitter wasted little time in using this genuinely brilliant cameo to bash Rian Johnson and The Last Jedi. This, they suggested, was the real Luke: using his powers to reduce dread enemies of mere mortals to so much scrap, no doubt about the rightness of his mission to train new Jedi as he took Grogu away from Din Djarin. All hail Favreau and Filoni, saviours of Star Wars! If only, if only they had been in charge of the sequel trilogy.

They're entitled to their opinion, even if it's completely wrong.

The real Luke Skywalker is the idealist in A New Hope. He retains that idealism throughout the original trilogy. That spark of hope and determination not to let it go fuels him throughout and leads to him redeeming Darth Vader, by grasping hold of the good that is Anakin Skywalker and refusing to let go. But the real Luke Skywalker is also the embittered man of The Last Jedi, a recluse who has failed entirely to end the evil in the galaxy far, far away. The two are not incompatible; in fact, the one leads directly to the other and the Luke we see in The Mandalorian - powerful, confident in that power, unwavering in his mission - provides a critical bridge between the two.

Just to deal with the elephant in the room: I like The Last Jedi. I think it's a genuinely good piece of Star Wars media precisely because it doesn't go in for fanservice. It redefines much of what Star Wars has been about, and acts as a paradigm shift in the storytelling of The Force Awakens in the same way The Empire Strikes Back acted as a paradigm shift for the storytelling of A New Hope. You think you know this universe? Well, you don't. It's a bigger, subtler thing than you ever imagined, and things aren't going to go the way you think. The big problem with The Last Jedi is The Rise of Skywalker, which ripped up much of what had been set up to do something different to appease the moaning fans, and managed to make a bit of a hash of finishing the sequel trilogy.

One big thing we get from The Last Jedi is that our heroes are human (apart from Chewbacca, but that's because he's a wookiee). For all his chosen one powers, Luke is still a person and not a superman. He has the same psychological weaknesses and strengths as us all. There is no doubting his ability to make X-Wings levitate and read the future using the Force, just as there's no doubt about my ability to sit in front of a computer and annoy fandom. Where Luke fell down was nothing to do with his ability as a Jedi. It was entirely to do with that most human of all failings: overconfidence. Emperor Palpatine would laugh at this after Luke's rebuke in Return of the Jedi, particularly as it led to him forsaking his friends in favour of solitude.

The Luke we see in The Mandalorian is a Luke not long after those events. It has only been five years since the destruction of the second Death Star over the Forest Moon of Endor (again, that issue with proper nouns, Lucasfilm). Canonically, Luke is about 29/30 years of age. He is in his physical prime as well as growing as a Jedi. It is his mission to rebuild the Jedi Order for the good of the galaxy. When he appears on Gideon's cruiser, searching for Grogu, it is to fulfil this goal. So far as he is concerned, the big threat to the galaxy is gone; it's telling that we don't see him pay any attention whatsoever to Moff Gideon, the big bad of The Mandalorian, because so far as Luke is concerned Gideon just isn't a threat in any way, shape, or form. The man who has been the cause of so many problems for Din Djarin, Bo-Katan and company simply doesn't register on the radar of a Jedi Master, because he is so inconsequential. After all, the threat to Din has been swatted aside without really breaking any kind of sweat. We saw how Din struggled with one while Luke dispatched an entire platoon.

And this is where Luke's downfall can be found. His confidence that very little can touch him other than his great fear of the dark side leads to hubris. For a time, the dark side appears to be defeated. Nothing can prevent the rebuilding of the Jedi Order. Until, of course, the rise of Snoke and the seduction of Ben Solo.

Luke is not infallible, and that's the lesson he never learned. He had never needed to feel doubt in his mission because it never existed. Once the Empire had been defeated at the Battle of Endor, the dark side was no longer a threat and Luke could sit, safe and sound, in the knowledge that he was now the greatest power in the galaxy. He could gather Force-sensitive children, just as the Jedi had before the rise of the Empire. He could rebuild and train and preserve peace.

One thing that The Last Jedi makes explicit is that Luke has studied the original fall of the Jedi Order and found that it was entirely because of their hubris. What we see in The Mandalorian is the failure of Luke Skywalker to apply the same lessons to himself. Applying retrospective logic, he's also failed to heed Obi-Wan Kenobi's lessons about training Jedi.

What all of this means, when put together, is that Luke's characterisation in The Last Jedi is close to perfect. It is only after his discussion with Yoda's Force ghost that he begins to realise his own mistakes, not only in training the new generation of (now deceased at the point of a lightsaber) Jedi, but in his retreat from the galaxy. He does retain that idealism, but it's been hidden behind a cloud of mistakes and doubt about his mission. Like anyone who has never failed, Luke doesn't know how to deal with it when Ben Solo turns to the dark side. He sees the fault as his own and sees himself as the danger, learning from the previous fall of the Jedi that the Jedi themselves cannot be trusted because of their arrogance and hubris. It's this we see in The Mandalorian: all-powerful, assured in that power, ready for a fall.

As much as seeing Luke in all-powerful awesome mode is fantastic, it actually makes his character arc all the more believable and all the more compelling. Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau have not stuck two fingers up at Rian Johnson at all; instead, they have added a layer to an increasingly complex character who is much more human for his failings, and a much better character for it.

Fake Law

The famous discussion between Sir Thomas More and William Roper from A Man For All Seasons is something I'm familiar with. Every day I went to university I was confronted with it, printed in large letters on the glass barrier on the mezzanine above the campus canteen. After a while, its meaning sticks: the law is not a defence for the devil; it is a defence for you from the devil.

We are all entitled to the protections of the law, be we fresh in the cradle or seconds from the grave. It doesn't matter whether we are hardened criminals, innocent bystanders, sacked employees, black, white, disabled, straight, gay, etc. This is the rule of law: we are all protected by it and it applies to us all. Nobody is above the law and nobody should have it applied differently unless the provisions already exist within the law. We are all entitled to access to justice, which will be applied with neither fear nor favour.

Lord Bingham wrote of this in his 2010 polemic The Rule of Law. I can add nothing to his analysis - obviously, for he was Lord Chief Justice and I am unlikely ever to be so; his abilities as a lawyer and judge outstripped many even of his contemporaties in the House of Lords (now Supreme Court). It's a brilliant and seminal book. Although it isn't an easy read - particularly in the later chapters, when it tears the government to shreds over its treatment of terrorists - it is a vital one in understanding what the rule of law looks like in the modern world.

At its heart is a foundational principle: the protection of the law applies to all. Equal treatment before the eyes of the law protects those who may fall foul of it, whether they are innocent or guilty. Why, I hear you ask, should the law protect the guilty? And that would be a popular sentiment: the hang 'em and flog 'em brigade are getting increased traction.

It is into this environment that we have seen a recent glut of books for popular consumption released. The Secret Barrister's first book, Tales of the Law and How it's Broken, is just one of them, but it is the one that gained the most attention. Perhaps its the fact that it was an angry, justified polemic railing against the very serious problems faced by the justice system. Perhaps its the fact that the Secret Barrister is an unknown whistleblower. Perhaps it's the fact that on Twitter the Secret Barrister's avatar is a bewigged and gowned rabbit. Whatever it was, it was a book that raised issues in the mainstream for the first time, beyond the lesser-read online bits of the Guardian.

It's a book that I devoured. Years of work in the law meant that nothing within its pages was new, but it was refreshing to see it written down. I'd experienced the cuts to legal aid first hand, albeit in civil law. I was aware of the 'Innocence Tax'. I saw each and every day the incompetent malignance of Chris Grayling's reign at the Ministry of Justice, ensuring that justice was harder and harder to come by for the most vulnerable in society.

One thing still stands out: the idea of fixed fees for lawyers in complex criminal cases. Regardless of the work done, a firm will only get a certain sum for handling a case. Imagine, for a second, that you're accused of an offence that you know you haven't committed. Let's say, for the sake of argument, you bought a laptop secondhand online and, when you took it to an expert for cleaning and calibrating - knowing little beyond the on and off buttons - they found a number of child abuse images. They call the police. You're arrested. You want a lawyer to not be worrying about the amount of work they have to do if you plead not guilty - as you are, for you've never even turned the laptop on - and the losses that the company will take. From the lawyer's perspective, the best thing is to get the case disposed of quickly: after all, you seem bang to rights to the casual observer. It's your laptop. The images are there. The offence is made out. Pleading a defence of 'lack of awareness' (in this case, this kind of ignorance actually is a defence) would be a time-consuming, money-costing exercise to a cynical lawyer. An unscrupulous solicitor might just be persuading you to plead guilty to get it over with. And with a guilty plea comes a potential sentence of imprisonment, registration as a sex offender, the loss of your family, the loss of your job, and the loss of your home.

Criminal justice relies on certain principles. Innocent until proven guilty. The equality of arms. Guilty beyond reasonable doubt. It's obvious in this case that the fact the lawyer is getting paid £1,200 regardless of the work they're doing is not going to be helpful to any of those. So far as the laywer is concerned, he gets paid more for less work with a guilty plea. A lawyer with an eye on a guilty plea isn't going to be scrupulously analysing the evidence of Facebook messages, dates of download and building a case in forensic detail and put himself in a position to successfully defend a case - particularly if time limited because of costs, as many decent lawyers are, for to do so is to cost the firm money that many hard-pressed legal aid firms can't afford to lose. And although we see reasonably doubt on the facts presented, a lawyer isn't going to be in a position to say so when the above is all true.

Of course, I hear the cry from the Daily Mail comments section, this isn't true. Fat cat lawyers make squillions. Plus, the police made the arrest - he must be guilty. People in the courts system are guilty - no smoke without fire. And he's a nonce - hang him!

It's this attitude that means the new Secret Barrister book, Fake Law: The Truth About Justice in an Age of Lies, is so important. It explodes the myths presented by the likes of the Daily Mail in an impassioned defence of the rule of law for popular consumption. Dominant media narratives are analysed and pulled apart. What you are told is not true: certain media sources (yes, the Daily Mail; yes, the Sun) are shifting the narrative and undermining the rule of law. The Secret Barrister acts as a corrective.

Just take legal aid as an example. We are told by the government and press that we have the most expensive legal aid system in the world, costing £2.2 billion in 2010. As part of government austerity it is essential, we are told, that savings are made. This is why Chris Grayling came in to cut a whopping £350m from that bill by taking legal aid away from the undeserving. Taxpayer money saved. Achievement unlocked. Platinum trophy awarded to the balding one.

Of course, closer examination shows that the justifications presented by the government fall apart at the most superficial investigation. And this is what Fake Law is so good at, and why it is so important. It's a vital corrective to the media myths that have undermined access to justice. As we are not only having our rights undermined; we are being actively told to applaud this undermining.

Who can argue that Shemima Begum, for example, deserves the protections of British justice? Or the killers of James Bulger? Closer examination, however, shows just how important the application of the rule of law is: if these people do not have rights, then neither do we. What happens if we are falsely accused, or find ourselves in need of a lawyer to support our legal rights but are denied access?

The Secret Barrister covers all kinds of legal myths, from employment law to crime to personal injury, to one final section on the importance of the rule of law to democracy and the democratic process through the separation of powers. It's an angry book. But it's also a call for education, and one I wholeheartedly support. I have become tired and jaded from correcting the misconceptions people get from their reading of certain media sources - no, that legal aid payment wasn't made to the accused to spend on hookers and coke; no, I can't tell the court someone is not guilty if they told me they did it; no, I wasn't on a six-figure salary when I worked in the law (although if you want to donate that, feel free) - and if this kind of book leads to a greater level of legal education in the general population, that can only be a good thing.

This is an important, must-read book. Not only for the legal education you will get from it - after all, knowing the ins and outs of a personal injury claim or what constitutes unfair dismissal might come in handy for any one of us - but also as a political statement. Successive governments have played a role in undermining the rule of law, and this book makes a serious go at reclaiming it for the common man. For, as I alluded to in the first paragraph, the law is for all of us. If we burn down the law in pursuit of the devil, we lose its protections. This must not be allowed to happen.

A Fistful of Shells

 

My other half has been playing Animal Crossing lately. The value of this to a book review of a history that re-evaluates West Africa over the longe duree might not seem obvious at first, but I noticed after a while that she was traipsing up and down a beach, collecting cowries for sale in exchange for hard cash. That I was reading Toby Green's recent book at the same time struck a chord; here was a point in action, how value changes hands.

OK, so it isn't that simple, but the central argument of this magnificent book is. Ignore the detail for a moment. Ignore the way in which Green rehistoricises Africa. Ignore the dense economic arguments against just for a moment. West Africa has been rendered one of the poorest areas on earth as a result of several factors: the differeing values between traders of Europe and Africa; the shift of surplus labour through the slave trades of the Sahara and the Atlantic; and the unrest caused by the above.

I have oversimplified there, in my way. The story as a whole is much more complex, and yet it is not. European traders arrived in the fifteenth century and traded in various currencies - including cowries - in exchange for gold. Surplus capital accumulated in Europe, moving away from Africa. Imports to Africa of European cloth undermined the African economy, which valued things based on utility rather than capital value. As the economy was undermined, with locally-made goods being replaced by traded European goods, the thing with the greatest capital value was the labour of local men and women - who all too often found themselves captured and enslaved.

Add to that, many West African societies used a wide range of currencies not based on gold, as the dominant economic system in use today does. Cowries were valuable, as were strips of cloth and bars of iron and copper. Those bars of iron and copper could then be worked into something of practical use. Their value, once again, was in utility and not capital. Almost by accident, Europe accumulated the capital that would allow it to set the agenda on an economic level in the centuries following these trades.

Green's work is both accessible and acadamic. He builds these arguments over almost 500 pages, but he rarely forgets another of his central arguments: Africa has been largely made ahistorical by Western historians. In the introcution, his disdain for such thinking is made clear. Africa has been ignored by mainstream Western historians for years; these are people who have often seen Africa as an unchanging place, dominated by the same forces in 1800 as it was in 1000. What Green does is show decisively the shifts in political, social and economic fabrics that make up Africa, showing both the diversity of West Africa and the region-wide forces that acted on its history, from the Islam-influenced Senegambian region to the south of the area, the growing polities of Dahomey (as a result, in no small part, of the transatlantic slave trade) and Benin.

It's rare that a book truly broadens or challenges my own understanding, but like most white British people I know - or knew - very little of the historical forces that came to create modern West Africa, left it impoverished by a lack of economic capital due to the differing values with the European traders who took advantage of this difference, and who would in time subject it to the evils and depradations of the slave trade.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. A Fistful of Shells is a single-volume masterwork of modern history that can act both as a primer for the uninitiated, and as a compelling argument for someone who may have a little more knowledge. It is a challenge to the Western world to consider more than just European history, and it successfully re-historicises an Africa that had been lost in the mists of our own ignorance.

In the House of Reason - part 4

This project was never about producing great fiction - which is lucky. It was about perservering to a conclusion even when the words weren't flowing, when the story wasn't great, and the writing wasn't of a great quality. There's always a chance to return after the end to edit, redraft, and change direction.

There's a lesson in this for me: plan your work. I started with a vague concept, and it ended being both different and weaker. The plot lost momentum, characters started to act in ways I didn't intend at first, and this caused problems. With some planning, there's something here. Without it, it's an unstructured mess.

Presented for your enjoyment, the final part of In the House of Reason. I hope you enjoy.

In the House of Reason

Part Four

When Father Nichol first came to the village, young Goodall said, my pen scratching notes rapidly, he was an outcast and an outsider. He came from another parish not too far away, and whispers had been heard that he was not an earthly man. Some suggestion of scandal had followed, too, but rumour had ever had a habit of running away with itself, until the story and the reality were entirely divorced from each other. Rumour also had a habit of following outsiders even when it was not deserved. As a Catholic coming into an establishment village, Father Nichol was always a potential social pariah.

Mr Goodall, for all his faults, was an inclusive man with a wide range of eclectic interests, and he welcomed the Catholic priest into the village, even holding an afternoon tea party in welcome. It was not too much of an expense, Mr Goodall had said. Hospitality goes a long way. Once Mr Goodall had welcomed Father Nichol into the community, he seemed to gain a little acceptance. People would tip their hat in the street, or pass the time of day with the man, but this did nothing to reduce the impression people got that Father Nichol was distinctly odd. More than once Father Nichol denounced people in the street for what he perceived to be ungodly acts, whether he had borne witness to them or not. Some began to avoid him.

The housekeeper, Mrs Jones, did little to help matters. When she went to the shop she would spend her time gossiping about her work in low voices, passing scandal from home to market. At first, she would often find Father Nichol slumped in his chair, asleep, when she arrived to complete her tasks on a morning, letting herself in with a key left for her. She suspected drink and wasted no time in telling others of her suspicions while denouncing the evils of whiskey, brandy and all other drink she could think of, normally over a gin in the village pub. When she could not discern the ready smell of alcohol after a while, she paid more attention to his surroundings.

Mrs Jones left the house spotless. She was proud of her work and would tell anyone who listened, presumably in an attempt to find more gainful and stimulating employment than cleaning up after a man many believed to be out of the ordinary. Even the bookshelves, decrepit and tattered as they were, were organised and tidy, but she began to notice the regularity with which she had to reorganise and tidy the books. It was as though Father Nichol went through them in a frenzy when she was not there, pulling books out and only replacing them roughly to try to hide what he had been doing. Quite why he would do this, Mrs Jones did not know, but she started to pay more attention to the books being pulled from the shelves. When Father Nichol wasn’t looking she would check titles and contents, but not understanding the finer points of theology would quickly replace the books in confusion. This changed when she found Father Nichol asleep one morning just before the fallout with old Mr Goodall.

It was Father Nichol’s custom to sleep in his chair rather than in his bed. Normally, he would simply be asleep there, but when Mrs Jones came in that morning she found he had fallen asleep reading. A book lay splayed on the floor beside the chair in which the priest slept, a page still marked. What she saw made her heart leap to her throat, for it was discussing demons, exorcisms and the dark rites of the Catholic Church. That morning, she did not wake Father Nichol as she normally did, but tidied quietly around him and let herself back out without him stirring. She quickly made a beeline for the village pub where, over a large gin, she regaled the regulars of the story. Whispers of the occult quickly started to go around the village and people who ordinarily would cross the road when seeing Father Nichol instead began to turn around and walk the other way to avoid him. The taint of the supernatural was too much for the ordinary people.

“We are establishment people,” young Goodall explained as I took the notes. “Many had sympathy for Father Nichol and his treatment until this rumour went around. Mrs Jones may be a gossip, but she is an honest gossip and few had ever had any reason to doubt her.”

“How do you know this story?” I asked, my pen flying over the page. I knew I had asked the question before, but now Goodall was in his flow I felt there was more chance of him disclosing the source of his knowledge.

“My father and sister’s letters,” Goodall said.

“Did they approve of Father Nichol?” I asked.

Goodall stroked his moustache with two fingers. “I would not say approve,” he said. “To understand my father’s reaction you need to know what he was doing and how people saw him. It is perhaps why Father Nichol and my father became friends.”

Old Mr Goodall, he told me, was a man of eclectic interests. One of the big jobs that had to be done after his death was removing the articles of his various interests. There was a model Da Vinci flying machine created when Mr Goodall had gone through a period of manic invention. A butterfly collection had been left unfinished and gathering dust. Notebooks half-filled containing indecipherable handwriting were burned. Canvases covered in amateurish sketches were removed. A camera and its plates were briefly examined before being discarded. Mr Goodall spent little time on any of his pursuits and interests, with him finding that they were unable to sustain him for any great period of time.

Only his children maintained his interest. Young William Goodall had to take a moment as he spoke to me, and the impression of an angry man melted away. It is a mistake many make, to confuse anger and care; what Goodall seemed to have was care: for his father’s memory, for his sister, for his childhood home. My pen stalled as I watched him struggle for words for a few seconds. I softened my face into an expression of pity and sympathy.

“What you have to understand,” Goodall said eventually, “is that my sister is delicate.”

“I had heard something.”

Anger flared for the briefest of moments again in Goodall’s features. “Whatever that man has told you, you may forget. His idea of delicate is not what a man of reason would think, and for the most part whatever we have been in this house, it has normally been a house of reason, and thought, and logic. If my father drifted into superstition it was only out of love.”

“Is this why you are so keen to protect your sister?”

Goodall nodded. “Yes. It is… an open secret in the village. They know that for all she can be normal, there is something wrong with her and it is necessary to keep her safe and protected. Rumour would ruin her.”

“Ruin? Do you mean…?” I left the question hanging. I was not nervous about broaching the subject; I was simply sensitive to how Goodall may react if it was put into words.

“Nothing like that,” he said. “Not until Father Nichol came, anyway.”

“He was indiscreet?”

“In his way. I suppose it comes down to my father, but what my father did was from love.”

The family was establishment and orthodox, almost strictly so. The reason old Mr Goodall never went to St Luke’s was because he was a Church of England man, attending every Sunday without fail. Vicars came and went, but he was a stalwart of the Church. It amazed young Goodall that Father Nichol could think that his father was a Catholic and that somehow his wishes had been circumvented when he got a plot in the churchyard and a Church of England funeral. This was just another example of Father Nichol’s failure in the realms of reality.

The only place where Mr Goodall was not orthodox was when it came to his daughter. Young Mr Goodall had grown up happy and balanced, even after the death of his mother. As a young man he went to Cambridge, then went into practice as a London solicitor. He married, started a family, and settled down as a scion of the Goodall family, successful and well-off, having no real need of his father’s support as he went through life but always grateful of his presence. Olivia, on the other hand, had no such fortune. As a child she had fallen ill and become pale and sickly throughout her youth. Illness seemed to haunt her in both body and mind. As she matured she seemed to become imbalanced, being sweet much of the time but occasionally ill-tempered and violent. There was an illness present that stopped her from being a normal young lady.

This was a cause of great pain to Mr Goodall. For all the pride he took in her, he lived in constant fear of not being able to protect her. He feared that she would be known as mad. For that reason, he limited the amount she could leave the house. He swore the servants to secrecy, for all the good it would do, knowing how they did like to gossip. He knew that the secret of Olivia’s rages was dependant upon keeping the staff’s loyalty, and he knew that before long the story of her mad spells would be out in the village. So he took it upon himself to find a cure and find a solution.

“Did he ever consult a doctor?” I asked, breaking in. “In London I hear there are marvellous men who can put a mind at ease.”

“He did, but the local quacks could do very little, and he was loath to send my sister away from him,” Goodall said. His shoulders were slumped and he no longer looked like he had any anger. “I offered her a place to stay, but my father feared the rumours of a young woman being sent away to London. It’s a fine place for a man, but for a woman… People in places like this think London is the home to all kinds of immorality.”

“So what did your father do, when medicine could not help him?”

Goodall fixed me again with his eye. “I do not say this lightly, Doctor Kincaid, but in a house where reason has always been king the step my father took was remarkable. It led to a fall-out with the Church of England and I have no doubt that it led to my father’s closeness with Father Nichol. My father turned to spiritualism.”

There was no obvious reason for the distemper in Olivia’s spirit. She did blame herself for her mother’s death and she had melancholy fits alongside her rages. But when medicine seemingly failed old Mr Goodall began to read widely, looking at spirits and ghosts. He became convinced that Olivia harboured the ghost of his deceased wife, that the spirit of the dead woman had passed into her daughter at birth, and that the cause of his daughter’s unhappiness was two warring souls. He was encouraged in his belief by Father Nichol, who told old Mr Goodall about the worlds of spirits and demons. Gradually, Mr Goodall’s belief in the rational world eroded. His letters to his son became more erratic, speaking more of worlds beyond the physical plane than of events taking place in reality. What started as an interest became an obsession.

Young Goodall wrote regularly, imploring his father to see sense. Olivia’s problems were in her mind, not in her soul. She needed help and she needed to go to London. The room in his house was still ready for her, and rumours be damned. She needed to be away from Halfhill House and the malign influence of Father Nichol. Her letters spoke of how the priest would take her away and counsel her in quiet rooms, how she felt she could not escape. Her father did not know; neither, thankfully, did the servants. Their wagging tongues, had they known, would have ruined Olivia and the Goodall name, all because of the actions of one deluded priest.

It was the stresses of looking after her father, of keeping secrets, and fear of the priest that caused Olivia’s rages to become more common. Her letters to her brother intimated as much. As their regularity increased, the harder it became to keep things secret. The harder it became to keep servants happy; once Olivia had thrown a full tea tray across a room at a serving girl the village open secret began to be discussed. Even as a robust man, old Mr Goodall finally felt the effects of his daughter’s illness. Pleas from Goodall to his father to let him help still fell on deaf ears, but letters from Halfhill House became more reasoned. As those letters became more reasoned, Olivia’s letters became more concerned; it was clear that old Mr Goodall was feeling the stresses of his mistakes.

“He was shouting for my mother at night.” Goodall’s face had fallen. “He muttered and shouted and screamed. At times my sister thought he was back in the Crimea in his mind. Back in the war, and in the hospital. I started to make my arrangements to pause my business in London and come back here to help.”

“You did not arrange to bring your own family.” I made it a statement, but Goodall understood the question I was implying.

“I did not want my family to see my father like he was. I did not want to put my children in harm’s way. My sister, I could manage in my own house. My wife is a capable woman, and has been a good friend to Olivia, and she would ensure that my children came to no harm. Besides, in a less stressful place Olivia would find the chance to be herself, away from anyone who would cause her any suffering.”

It could hardly be said that at last the full picture was forming in my mind; I had been working on the investigation for less than a day and I still had one key witness to speak to, but I had an idea of how things had played out over the summer. I felt disgust for Father Nichol and resolved to find somewhere else to stay overnight, if I needed to. All would depend on the final witness, even though I still had to finish this statement. I glanced at my notes for a final time, pitying the secretary who would ensure they were legible.

I saw no need to make further inquiries into the cause of Mr Goodall’s death once I had a death certificate; all that remained was to establish the veracity of Father Nichol’s account so I could dismiss his concerns.

“Can you tell me what happened the night your father died?” I asked.

He had been ill for some time. The situation with Olivia and the fall-out with Father Nichol over his move away from spiritual beliefs had taken its toll, and at long last his mind and body had given out. The last days were spent in bed, slowly drifting. Young Goodall had travelled down from London, alone, to be with his father when he died. That Father Nichol was told of events was no doubt down to one of the servants, who still had a soft spot for the priest. When young Goodall found out of his admittance, he flew into a rage of his own.

“I am not proud of it. I do not claim to be a calm man, but Nichol brings out the worst of me. I came from here to where my father rested, to find Nichol with an arm around my sister, her trying to pull away, and it took all the strength I could muster to not raise a fist to him.”

I nodded, understanding. The more I learned of the priest, the more vile he became. “Nobody could blame you for defending your sister.”

“I said some things in anger. He is not welcome here, Doctor Kincaid,” he added. “He is not welcome here. This is not a place for him. If I did not trust the house staff I would not even have allowed him to remain here while I spoke with you. I still hope that he has left before you go, so I do not have to see him.”

“I will be as brief as I can.” What had promised to be a difficult interview had become much more amenable. “I do not think I have anything further for you, other than to ask whether you are satisfied with the death certificate finding your father died of a fever brought on by his advanced years?”

“Quite satisfied.”

I stowed my notes away and leaned across the desk to shake young Goodall’s hand. It was a much warmer handshake than I would have expected just an hour ago. “I do need to speak with your sister before I leave, but I will be as brief as I can be.”

Goodall’s hand stiffened for a moment, and then relaxed in my grasp. He gave me a weak smile. “I will see what can be done now. I have not seen Olivia this morning, and I hope you understand that if she cannot be interviewed on this day I have no wish to press this additional stress on her. She has been quite improved while we have made our preparations to move to London, and revisiting this pain may send her out of temper.”

“I will not cause her any great stress,” I said, letting go of Goodall’s hand. “You have my word.”

“In that case…” Goodall stood, and motioned for me to leave the study. “I shall ask the house staff to find her. Sometimes she may be found in the gardens on a lunchtime. She finds solace in them.”

“The gardens?” I asked. I found myself stiffening, and saw that Goodall had had the same realisation.

“Where is Father Nichol?” Goodall asked. The silence hung between us for a moment, and then we both rushed for the door.

                                                                           *    *    *

The priest was nowhere to be found near the waiting cab. Goodall grasped me in panic, and I could see the concern writ large across his features. He suddenly looked like a wild man, far from the rational man who had been so composed in his interview with me. Whatever he was, he was a man of passion and cares, his sister among them.

“Where is he?”

“I do not know,” I said. I too was looking around, Goodall’s panic infecting me. “Shout. Call your sister. Perhaps he has simply begun the walk back to his vicarage.”

“I hope you’re right.” Goodall rushed away, lurching around the side of the house before re-emerging to run to the other end of the building.

The silence was broken by a scream.

“Olivia.” Goodall had gone white. He had aged ten years, lines deepening on his face with worry. After a moment where he lost all composure and certainty, he took off in the direction of the scream, running as fast as he could. I had at least fifteen years on the young man, and I struggled to keep up through a rose garden and kitchen garden, before they gave way to lawns and woods.

Father Nichol stood over Olivia just inside a small copse of trees, his arms wide, his cassock flapping so he looked like a dread bird. She was unconscious; a trickle of blood at her pale temple very red against her skin. Only the rise and fall of her breast gave a hint that she was alive. I looked around wildly for the instrument used to strike her as Goodall lurched off his feet to tackle the priest around the waist.

"What are you doing?” Goodall raised a fist and sank it down into Father Nichol’s face. Knuckles connected with the priest’s face with a sharp crack. “What are you doing?”

I knelt down and put two fingers to Olivia’s throat, checking for a pulse. Two beats later, I lifted my hand from her neck and stood up to see Goodall dragging Father Nichol from the ground. A cut was blossoming across the priest’s face, and he wore a curious expression, halfway between fear and rapture.

“She must be cleansed!”

Goodall raised his hand again; he was a stronger man than he looked, dragging Father Nichol in one hand while threatening him with the other. “She doesn’t need cleansing or exorcising. She needs help!”

“This is help. Her soul is tainted with the damned. Her father had it and now she is afflicted.”

Before I could stop him, Goodall had punched Father Nichol again, this time in the nose. Blood burst out. The priest’s eyes crossed and as his head rolled back became unfocussed. “She doesn’t need you and your evil superstitions!”

“Goodall, your sister!” I knelt back down as Olivia moved her head. Goodall released the priest, who dropped to his knees before slumping backwards, half-conscious. “She’s coming round.”

“What happened?” I could see that Goodall was resisting the urge to shake her awake, as though she was coming round from a long sleep. “Olivia, what happened?”

“Give her space.”

“She needs to have her soul cleansed so she is not corrupted. She needs to be with me!” Father Nichol slurred his words; I found myself impressed by Goodall’s strength. As Goodall knelt by his sister, I stood to make way. A few feet away, Father Nichol tried to stand and I moved quickly to push him back onto his backside.

“You have some explaining to do, Father.”

“She is afflicted by demons.”

“The only demon she has to deal with is you.”

Three servants had come to see what the disturbance was all about, and it was with their help that we managed to take Olivia back to the house. She was groggy, but no more so than Father Nichol, who was frogmarched between myself and another servant. Whatever respectability he had was dissolved. There was a madness behind the chaos. I could see now the danger that he posed; I could see how his twisted view had turned his mind until he believed in the unbelievable, and could influence people with his own certainty.

“Get the constabulary,” Goodall ordered as we crossed the threshold. “I want this man arrested before he can leave. Lock the doors.”

I nodded my agreement as the servants laid Olivia on a couch. She was coming around, gradually, but she was gazing round in panic. I moved others away from her to give her space to recover and come to terms with the shock she had suffered. When I spoke, it was with a soft voice.

“I am Doctor Kincaid, and I am here to help.”

“You can help my head?” She spoke with a whisper.

“Yes.” I looked at the cut on her temple. It was not too serious, having grazed without any real depth. What couldn’t be doubted was that whatever Father Nichol had used, he had hit her hard. She would feel the aftereffects for several days. “I’m a qualified doctor. I’m also a coroner. I came to help.”

“What was the meaning of that, Nichol?” Behind me, Goodall had got to grips with Father Nichol again.

“She must be exorcised. The devil lives within her.” His speech was still slurred. I eased myself between the two men again. The priest flopped bonelessly onto a spare seat, his legs giving way.

“Goodall, he’s not well,” I said. I had no intention of excusing the priest’s actions, but if Goodall was a man of reason he would see that what he said about his sister could also be true of his adversary.

“He’s not fit to be a man of the Church.”

“I do not disagree.” I took Goodall aside. “I will write my report. It is essential that we understand him and I will ask for him to be detained in an asylum for observation. Your sister…” I hesitated. “Your sister should go with you.”

                                                                            *    *    *

There is little else to report.

Father Nichol found himself defrocked. Previous scandal had seen him moved from parish to parish and eventually even the Catholic Church found him too much trouble. His obsession with the darker elements of his own personal faith alienated too many from him, and when he needed allies he had none. He faced secular justice for his assault on Olivia Goodall, and last I heard he was spending his time in gaol.

Olivia Goodall is living in London with her brother. He stayed in touch and from what he tells me, they are happy. She is no longer subject to her rages, having seen a doctor able to reconcile her with her unwarranted guilt.

As for myself, I continue as a coroner. This was an unusual case, but I trust I will have many more in the days to come.