Jared Diamond Books

I will admit: watching the start of the latest episode of Jack of All Trades gave me a certain tightness in my throat at first. I’d already seen the ‘next time!’ segment at the end of the last episode, they promised something law-related, and that just didn’t sit well with me. Law is complex, and it’s not like you can stick an amateur in a real courtroom situation and call it good television. Too much is at stake, even with professionals at hand.

So I was pretty relieved when Lady Salt said that the task she set WASN’T that. The entire thing was a mock presentation, with the candidates taking on the role of a commercial law firm. So at least in Melbourne, commercial law firms are not being besmirched. They even had a bit of a segment where the actual law firms were shown doing their thing and being professionals, mostly to show the total contrast as these TV doofs completely mess everything up with their lack of expertise.

To be fair, the task they were given was pretty tough, even for someone with a thorough understanding of property law. A lot of paperwork, a lot of intentional errors, and some really complex documents for the sub-team to sort through. A single error in real life and you can cause some serious legal ramifications.

Of course, as dry as this all sounds, they made it entertaining for the show. The mock clients were a mixed bunch; one team were dealing with a bunch of sneaky money-grubbers, and the others had a hair-trigger temper. Basically everyone was acting, but I think those might have been real tears when Allison mixed up her building permits and got yelled at for six minutes straight.

But hey, that’s the high-pressure world of being a property lawyer. Melbourne is a hip, fast-paced city, and you have to know your stuff. I’m just glad these people aren’t dealing with property in real life.

-Drey

I’ve never needed boat advice before. Guess there’s a first time for everything. In fact, I’ve never been a big fan of water, or the ocean, so this is a new world of aquatic mayhem and terms to remember…which side is starboard? Ahh, there’s that line from Marauders of the Pacific where Elisabeth Goose yells something about the starboard side…I’ll never remember, so I shouldn’t bother. But it was a really good line, and one that I SHOULD look up because I’m now the proud owner of a boat. Yep, a real one and everything.

And now I need real boat catches and anchor winches and all this stuff to make it work. Have ships always been this complicated? I’m pretty sure it used to be a sail and some oars, nice and simple, no fuss. I inherited this boat from my grandfather passing away, which would’ve been a sad experience if I even knew I had a grandfather on that side of the family. Randomly, he left all his boating equipment to me, a grandson he never knew. Or not to my knowledge, anyway. Maybe he knew something about me that I don’t, because as soon as the lawyer will reading person showed me, I had this urge to take it out sailing. But ah, of course it’s not as simple as just a bit of rowing and hoisting the mainsail. Nope, it’s an entire cluster of stuff to remember. What fun indeed. Hoist the mainsail, oil the anchor winch, get those trailer repairs done…and I want to do it, I really do, but I feel like it requires the swallowing of some nautical dictionary. Or you just grow up around boats. I’m fresh out of options on both counts.

Currently, my grand master plan involves mooching around the docks and hoping someone will give me some tips. Sailors are a friendly bunch, so they say in the songs. I’m pretty sure there’s a shanty about Melbourne anchor winch specialists, sailing the high seas…I heard it somewhere…

-Don

There is some truth to the phrase ‘if you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding’. It’s true, truly truthful. Because, and this is thinking really hard about the issue…if you DON’T eat your meat…how CAN you have the aforementioned pudding? Meat comes first, before pudding you see. The conquering of the meat is paramount to progressing towards the pudding.

This is a really deep thought for a Thursday. Maybe I need to roll things back to something a little bit lighter. Like my will! I have this legal will draft that I’ve just been casually chipping away at for a while now, and it’s my primary source of procrastination. That’s probably why I keep having the deep thoughts, you know? I think that I really need to get onto that last will and testament that people think is so important. But that means going through my possessions, and that’s the end of that because I always find something terribly distracting. Just yesterday I dug up my old coin collection. I used to be mad on those things, polished them every day. I was under the delusion that my friends would actually be impressed by this collection of small metal objects. Still, I managed to score a few limited edition ones. One day, those are going to be worth something. But not for a while, so if I’m getting on with making a will, those should go to my grandchildren. Kelvin is so obsessed with shiny things, so I hope that’s going to continue into his adult years. He’s gonna love these coins!

It’s all so much to deal with, lots of trinkets and baubles to sort through. Makes me want to make my will just a matter of writing ‘you all just work it out amongst yourselves, and be civil’. Then my family could just roll with that. But a last will and testament isn’t quite so easy. Back to it, I suppose. Until I’m distracted again…