Author: Catherine Bates

  Televisions lie! I don’t mean as in, all news reports are exaggerated, kind of way (although yes, that too). But in a, that would never happen in real life, kind of way. If things like Eastenders and Coronation Street were representative of real life, everyone would be spending so much time fighting, having affairs, […]

Have you noticed that many professionals have a code. For example, if an estate agent refers to a motivated seller, they often mean that they are desperate! Or if a mechanic or builder takes a sharp intake of breath, you know that means it’s going to be expensive. If your teenage children pay you a […]

When my eldest son was quite young, his way of counting was 1 2 3 a lot!  Everyone else laughed, but I knew that he got his head for figures from me, especially when it comes to how many drinks I’ve had! Which may explain why I chose law, rather than accountancy like my father […]

One of the things I love about my job is the opportunity it has given me to develop long term relationships with a wide variety of people. This morning I had coffee with a fabulous woman who I first met when she was 12 years old and I was helping her mother set up her […]

I often say that age isn’t important. It’s a state of mind. Most days I have to remind myself that I’m not a teenager any more, and that cases I worked on in my early days, or things that were normal practice when I started out, happened before some of my colleagues were born. But […]

Progress is not always a good thing. For example, I love my mobile phone – I cannot believe how I ever lived without it and if it even gets close to running out of charge when I’m not near a charger or back up battery, I show visible signs of stress that are even worse […]

We’re all familiar with the phrase (although these days the wording is slightly more complicated), and yet this is not about criminal law. This is about records and recordings. It is a commonly held misconception that you cannot record what someone else is saying without their permission. People also assume that you certainly can’t record something […]

It’s an old story, and almost certainly (!) untrue, but it still makes me laugh. However, allegedly (!!) there was a transcript of a radio conversation from a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in 1995. Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision. […]

Probably the thing I say most often to my children! And the dog! And possibly some members of my football team!!!! But, if someone is doing something wrong, should they carry on doing it if they think they won’t get caught? I was at a networking event a while back, where I made an offer […]

Yes, I know, you want the winning lottery ticket for this weekend, your football team to win every tournament and trophy going, to be able to eat anything and everything and never put on a pound and an unlimited supply of alcohol. Or is that just me???? However, even if you have a genie to […]