The bright side of Sir Hugh Laddie

Friends and family of Prof Sir Hugh Laddie, the former High Court judge who resigned from the Bench and died last year at the age of 62, crowded into Middle Temple Hall tonight for what was described as a service of thanksgiving for his life and work.

Appropriately for a Jew who professed not to believe in God, it was an entirely secular occasion — so secular, in fact, that it ended with a mass whistle of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, from Monty Python’s Life of Brian and Spamalot.

Given that Sir Hugh was the leading intellectual property lawyer of his day, it was not surprising that copies of the lyrics distributed to those present carried a request from the copyright holder that all copies should be destroyed after the singalong. Sir Hugh would have been delighted at the number of guests who unaccountably forgot to comply with this request.

Posted at March 4, 2009 11:28 PM