Today I am busy being regal around Liverpool. I am not sure Liverpool is quite ready for
this. But still.
I visit two firms of patent attorneys. One is in a swanky new building that is
Liverpool’s answer to The Shard. The
other is in a swanky historic building that is Liverpool’s answer to St Paul’s
Cathedral. The two buildings are
directly opposite one another, which is Liverpool’s answer to not being as big
as London.
I have visited CIPA members now in a diverse range of
buildings, from the scruffy-but-cosy to the space-age-with-smoked-glass-coffee-tables. I have visited a former county gaol and I
have visited the Actual Shard. I have
been quizzed and vetted by all manner of security officials and struggled with
all manner of pin-on visitor badges that are only designed to be pinned on men. I have seen many different corporate colour
schemes, and my posh suits have clashed with most of them.
But there is something that is the same wherever I go: when
I ask CIPA members why they continue to pay their membership fees, they don’t know. They think it is because they always have
done. They think there might be a rule
about it somewhere. Some of them would
rather walk under a ladder on Friday 13th with a black cat in one
arm and a dead magpie in the other than risk not paying their CIPA fees.
Afterwards, I take a taxi back to the station. Regal though I am attempting to look, the driver
soon susses that I am from the Wess Curntry.
He therefore tells me the tale of his own visit to the Wess Curntry,
which involved a stay at Butlins®, a flagon or two of scrumpy, a midnight
streak across the holiday camp of which he claims to remember nothing, and
eviction from the camp with his clothes and quite a bit of accompanying Wess
Curntry agriculture in a laundry bag. He
tells this story in an accusing kind of tone, as though it were my fault that
Wess Curntry scrumpy masquerades as apple juice until reaching your
bloodstream, and then metabolises into absolute ethanol.
This is why I drink gin and whisky. Gin and whisky are lightweights compared to
scrumpy.
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