It is good to see the Bar Council defying its stereotype and plunging headlong into the 21st century… BC, that is. Why else would Bar Council chairman Stephen Irwin QC’s column in the barristers’ in-house magazine Counsel bear the pithy headline Ave Atque Vale?

Actually, we’re being a tad unfair, given that the Romans were actually around from the 7th century BC onwards. So the headline is only 2,700 years out of date.