The semester starts soon, and against my better judgement I have decided to study towards a third university degree, the "LLB" (Bachelor in Law), or rather, a post-graduate equivalent. Without 'bleating' or ranting about the cost (which is not the university's fault, but the government's, since they slashed 84% of all Higher Education funding back in 2016, which naturally does not affect the already avariciously rich nobs, but only the ordinary hard working God fearing honest people of this once great nation), I have been looking at how much I am going to have to fork out. It's a lot of money (over one and a half grand per course ['module'], meaning it will probably cost me somewhere in the region of eight thousand pounds, and then some). The university have been very kind in approving my application for further study and I am looking forward to having a purpose again.
I have, however, been rather ill this morning. Someone at work was ill all day yesterday, and I perhaps caught it from them. It was bloody awful, the whole morning. Were it not for little Ronulus Latrator I would surely have felt much worse. It is said that dogs can sense people's emotions and read people's faces much better than many other species of animal. I even read recently that a study in Japan proved that dogs actually cry when they see their owners after being separated from them for some time. Little Ronulus Latrator is the best dog in the world, a weight of support in trying times, a thoroughly good chap.
Back to law. Naturally, instead of reading about modern law, I have instead been reading (translating) Cicero's De Legibus. I dimly recall that somewhere in the writings of Ammianus Marcellinus there was a brief paragraph explaining the different approaches ancient lawyers took to tackling cases, which again may be instrumental. I also recently bought a copy of Isaeus' works. This was an Attic orator that specialised in inheritance law. His speeches are excellent, because many of them are brief.
The first course ('module') is about Public Law, with a focus on the Constitution. I have only three books which are relevant to that particular subject (two of them are merely pdfs downloaded from the university's library when I was still a student). One is really quite excellent, a hard copy, and all three are from Cambridge University. Law in Context: The British Government and the Constitution by Turpin and Tomkins. It is the only one I have yet read, and I am still only two thirds of the way through it. The other two will no doubt be just as good. They are both Cambridge Companions. One focuses on Comparative Constitutional Law and the other Public Law. These are the 'break you in gently' law books. The study of the law is really quite involved, and unless one enjoys evidence based analysis and quibbling over miniscule minutiae, one would have no aptitude for such a subject.
I will, of course, tow the line. This is not the first time I have studied... Therefore, the best thing to do is simply regurgitate what the university shove down your throat. As Noam Chomsky said, education is all about jumping through hoops. There is no independent thought, no original research, nothing. It's much like the Malvina Reynolds' song Little Boxes. You do as your told, like a soldier. There are some things which I will have that perhaps not many other of my colleagues will when I begin studying in 3 weeks time: a classical education. It is curious, but just about any branch of study is also applicable to law. If one has studied psychology or psychiatry, both these disciplines are relevant. Moreover, forensic evidence is also very important, so if one were a biologist then that is also relevant. Therefore, I know enough to know that my educational background only extends so far. There is one thing which a classical studies specialist has which neither psychologists, psychiatrists or biologists don't have: the actual business of constructing, orating and winning cases. If anyone thinks that lawyers today are more eloquent, charismatic and shrewd than the lawyers of ancient Greece and Rome, they had best think again. Besides doctors and soldiers, they were all law men, all of them. Even Ovid studied law (before he decided to become a poet). I am looking forward to having some kind of purpose again in my life. Besides, even if I cannot (finally) scrape a decent living here with three degrees, one of which in law, I certainly will be able to elsewhere in the world. Fortunately, having worked under Bligh, I don't flinch as I once did at someone approaching me in a violent manner, being utterly fearless now, indomitable. Armed with a solid work ethic, being very industrious indeed, I can move myself, and all my books, elsewhere in the world, should I wish to, somewhere that there is more opportunity than the lowest most basest slave, being ordered about by ill-mannered and brutish foreigners.
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