The Government says its new system for the regulation of lawyers will mean that getting legal advice is as easy as buying a tin of beans. I intended to write something here that was very witty along the lines of that'll be a cold day in hell before my learned friends in wigs would allow the simplicity of the English legal ststem into any transaction they would regard as 'Trade'. However, my man Oliver Pritchett had the same thought. I bow before the master!!
Actually, I still remember being a first-time buyer of a tin of beans and the whole process was pleasingly straightforward. It began with a letter from Hardy Smollett & Galsworthy, a reputable firm of certified comestible acquisition agents. The letter was headed "Re your proposed purchase of beans" and it enclosed a pretty simple document.
"For the purposes of this contract, 'beans' will be taken to mean a quantity of pulses of the haricot variety, or similar, which have undergone the process of baking and are drenched in a sauce claiming, avowing or purporting to be of a tomato flavour, and wholly contained in a tin," it said.
It went on to stipulate that, in exchange for certain monies, the supermarket chain, the grocer or his appointed agent would covenant to assign or surrender the demised tin of beans to me. Then all I had to do was sign the document, with two witnesses, and send Hardy Smollett & Galsworthy a preliminary cheque for £1,600 to show I agreed to their terms.
Things moved pretty fast after that. The customary "search", in which they carefully check that apparent grocers' shops are not in fact gunsmiths, vets' practices or petrol stations, took the usual six weeks and I was well on course. My tin of beans was looking like a piece of cake.
Two months later I heard from the comestible acquisition agents (who had been in lengthy correspondence with the grocers' chartered provisions retailing advisers) that my request for a tin of beans was "going to shop". This is a technical term meaning there would be a special hearing in a supermarket where a qualified CC (Customer Counsel) would plead on my behalf for the purchase of the beans. This can be particularly useful when two potential customers are going for the same tin. A date was set for the following autumn and we retained a brilliant CC for £10,000 a day. We also hired the best tin opener in the country.
We hit a snag when the day for the hearing arrived. It turned out that our CC specialised in those tins of baked beans that have the little lumps of slimy sausage in them. The rules of his profession say that lumps of sausage men cannot take part in non-sausage cases. It was really my fault for not being specific at the outset.
It turned out for the best, really, because we then retained an even more brilliant, and slightly more expensive, CC named Sir Geoffrey Bullingdon. Sir Geoffrey was noted for his eloquence; the clerk at my comestible acquisition agents told me: "That man could charm the bean tins off the shelves."
After half a dozen quite normal delays, the case came to the supermarket hearing and Sir Geoffrey arrived looking magnificent and followed by four juniors pushing trolleys. I felt quite nervous giving my testimony as he fixed me with his pale blue eyes, held up a piece of paper and said: "Can you tell the members of the tinned vegetable aisle, is this your shopping list? And will you tell the aisle, in your own words, what items appear on this shopping list?"
It was a complicated case and it lasted three and a half weeks. I seem to remember the legal fees in the end amounted to more than £750,000. It all hinged on an important retailing principle, known to the experts as tesco in propria asda, and there was a crucial precedent concerning the question of how small an instant coffee granule has to be before it is considered a powder.
It was agony hanging round in the supermarket car park waiting for the decision on my beans. At last Sir Geoffrey and his whole brilliant team came out to give me the fantastic news that I had been awarded a tin of spaghetti hoops.
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