Today is the Merseyside regional meeting. I had not realised how much stamina they have
in Liverpool. The seminar lasts from
11.30 am until 5.30 pm, which is an awful lot of CPD in anyone’s book. The hotel staff do their best to increase our
suffering, firstly by turning up the heating to gas mark 3 and then by
directing us here, there and everywhere in the refreshment breaks. Those of us who go here when we should have
gone there are firmly admonished. It is
clear that in Liverpool, the concept of the customer always being right – or
indeed of the customer always being welcome – is unheard of.
I have brought my Cowtrackingclangingthingen (aka cow-bells)
from Austria. I use these to herd the
delegates from here, there and everywhere into the only-just-subtropical
meeting room, and also to tell the speakers when to shut up. There are six speakers, and though they have
most fascinating topics to speak on, I would really rather they didn’t exceed
their allotted times or we will still be here at midnight. In between Cowtrackingclangingsounden we hear
about data protection laws (which apparently we are supposed to comply with,
sigh); IP taxation (which apparently we are supposed to know about, sigh); and
excluded subject matter (which apparently we should stop trying to protect
because the IPO are getting frustrated).
Sigh. We also hear the latest on
the UPC, the latest from the courts, and a bit about criminal sanctions for IP pirate
bandit criminals.
The most entertaining talk of the day is by a bailiff, who
insists he is not a bailiff but a court enforcement officer. His job is to get money off people who have
shown little inclination to pay despite niceties such as invoices, solicitors’
letters, writs and County Court judgments.
He says there are basically two types of debtors: Can’t-pay
and Won’t-pay. Can’t-pay has six
children in a one-bedroomed flat, boarded-up windows and very little furniture
left after the last time the bailiffs I mean court enforcement officers
visited. Won’t-pay has electric gates
and a Porsche®. The speaker has
photographs of these two types of debtors, and of how he managed to put wheel
clamps on the Porsches despite everyone’s best efforts. He says that his success often depends on the
“twitcher” next door. The twitcher is
that most neighbourly of neighbourhood watchers, who keeps an eye on things
through jumpy net curtains and is always happy to give away information if
pressed sufficiently firmly for instance with a cup of tea. The twitcher will tell you where the Porsche
is hidden, and whether the owner is really out or only pretending to be, not to
mention who he is sleeping with and how often his wife gets a delivery from Oddbins®.
In my experience, there are several other shades of debtor
too:
- Never intended to pay
- Can only pay in turnips
- Thinks you were joking.
Never-intended-to-pay gives a contact address that turns out
to be a public convenience. This makes
the “know your client” procedures distinctly unpleasant. Can-only-pay-in-turnips is protected by a
moat of mud and cow pats, a raging bull, six hungry sheep dogs and eleven very
feral farm cats. And a tractor with
man-mincing jaws.
Thinks-you-were-joking shows up with a fiver and expresses
dissatisfaction about your use of decimal points.
No comments:
Post a Comment