twitter - courtesy of Rosaura Ochoa on flickr

Welcome to Blawg Review #290 which hails this week from Blighty, where we offer a warm welcome to the libel tourist and the would-be-wealthy divorcee alike. In a week of exploding aircraft and travel chaos there has been much said on twitter (#twitterjoketrial and #iamspartacus) and across the blawgosphere about the conviction of Paul Chambers for making a joke about exploding airports and travel chaos on twitter. Even ex-poet laureate Betjeman has offered his posthumerous support and no doubt David Allen Green (Chamber’s own solicitor, who has acted pro bono throughout) will add his two penn’orth in due course either via his Jack of Kent blog or whilst wearing his New Statesman hat (UPDATE: he now has). Comment on the conviction of Chambers for so-called ‘menacing’ remarks from both blawggers and bloggers (and pupil blawgers and more bloggers) alike has been pretty much universally condemned as a sorry indicator of the corrosive effect of terrorism on our approach to civil liberties. The judge has yet to tweet a response but no doubt it will simply be a matter of time. Other examples of crap jokes gone nuclear, resulting in arrest or legal action and a social media song and dance abound.

Also this past week we celebrated the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, “the greatest constitutional document of all times – the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot”,  and the 50th anniversary of the first judgment handed down by the European Court of Human Rights. It seems only right therefore to take as my theme this week “the trouble people get into for saying stuff”. Funny stuff can turn out to be dead serious and vice versa The ironic collision of both anniversary and verdict is not lost on Charon QC, but then not much gets past him, other than ducks. Continue Reading…