Football is more important than life and death. I think it was Ken Dodd who said that.
Well, you got that right Doddy and in court it’s just the same.

Take one defendant from last week. Please. I suppose I should have been paying more attention, but my mind was wandering and I was thinking: Where do these criminals get their ideas from? Heartbeat? The Jeremy Kyle Show? These are questions that keep me awake at night and often during the day when I have better things to do.

Sleep is all important to important court people like me. You never know when you need to have your wits about you. I often whistle in order to keep my wits about me at all times, even at night which used to be a crime until 1968 along with burglary and growing hay in your kitchen.

One such bird brain – I mean legal eagle - caused a minor stir this week, by behaving like Bunsen Honeydew on crystal meth. We were all awaiting a jury’s return so they could be sent home for the day. The air was heavy with tension. I was especially engaged. In my crossword.

Picture the scene, court fans. All is silent, the expectation palpable. The High Court judge on the bench looking down at the court staff, counsel, the defendants and the packed public gallery. Suddenly, the sound of Everton’s anthem Z Cars starts playing from the pocket of a solicitor. Let’s called him Agent Orange and not embarrass him. The poor soul cringed and ran out of the court with his mobile still ringing and everyone (including the judge) was chuckling. A few seconds later, Agent O sheepishly came back in after answering the call and then said on his way out: “Typical - it was the wife!” I’m not sure which is more embarrassing - everyone knowing your wife's checking up on you at work or letting the world know you’re an Evertonian.

Talking of making a schmuck of yourself in public, seminal TV show X-Factor leaked out again this week and in court we were all glued to our sets as well as our seats. Glue everywhere. As Bertrand Russell cleverly put it in one of his treatises, glue is a very sticky business. Now I am of course used to being a judge, so it makes a nice change to see Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh and Ozzy Osbourne in the decision-making hot seat, just like yours truly, before a procession of bloated ego and talentless groveling wannabes – that’s barristers for you. Often I watch them and want to say: “Its a ‘no’ from me. Next!”

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