The NEW Family Procedure Rules have been quietly published amidst all the spangle of Christmas – a special gift for anyone with a few hours going spare. At 274 pages and with an in force date of 6 April 2011 I make that about 100 pages a month, or about 3 a day to get through. Stick it in the toilet reading next to Grazia I say. This Tolkien like tome will be a composite set of rules for all family proceedings in all tiers of court, a family version of the CPR.

I will post a summary of them when I have had time to read them myself. Judging from a quick scroll down the ToC it’s a dead cert we are all going to have to ditch and relearn our numeric shorthand (r9.5 guardians etc) and that whilst much may be tranposed pretty much unchanged, there is a lot which has been introduced or expanded, in particular rules concerning the representation of children.