Pause for tort
Sir: Reading Sir David Tang’s diary last week, in which he recounts the story of me ‘Googling’ him on a train, made me reflect on how recollections of events can differ between honest witnesses. My own diary for that day read as follows: ‘Am sitting on the train trying to work when a businessman in a tweed jacket arrives with a substantial retinue. This man is clearly important. He sits opposite me and discusses the day’s pheasant shooting with his companions. It sounds extraordinarily productive (unless you are a pheasant). I gather that he has slept in Lord Lambton’s bed (minus Lord Lambton, it becomes clear). His plane has broken down. He lives in Hong Kong. Conversation subsides and his eye catches the law book on the table: Clerk & Lindsell on Torts. Suddenly animated, he leans over and asks me to remind him of the name of the case about the snail in the bottle of ginger beer. From Donoghue v. Stevenson the conversation leads on to his next stop: Blenheim Palace for dinner (where snails are only served with garlic, one assumes). Who is this man?? On his bag is a label in enormous capital letters: TANG. One of his companions calls him David. Google does the rest and he is gratifyingly startled when I quote his last Spectator diary to him. It must be fascinating to live like that. But at least one thing is certain — he will never write about me!’ Mark Simpson
London SW15
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