Quote of the Day (John Mortimer, With Horace Rumpole Harshly Judging a Judge)

“Mr. Justice Graves. What a contradiction in terms! Mr. 'Injustice' Graves, Mr. 'Penal' Graves, Mr. 'Prejudice' Graves, Mr. 'Get into Bed with the Prosecution' Graves, all these titles might be appropriate. But Mr. 'Justice' Graves, so far as I'm concerned, can produce nothing but a hollow laugh. From all this you may deduce that the old darling is not my favorite member of the Judiciary. Now he has been promoted, on some sort of puckish whim of the Lord Chancellor's from Old Bailey Judge to a scarlet and ermine Justice of the Queen's Bench, his power to do harm has been considerably increased….A session before Judge Graves has all the excitement and color of a Wesleyan funeral on a wet day in Wigan. His pale Lordship presides sitting bolt upright as though he had a poker up his backside, his voice is dirge-like and his eyes close in pain if he’s treated with anything less than an obsequious grovel.”— English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter, and novelist Sir John Mortimer (1923-2009), “Rumpole at Sea,” in Rumpole a La Carte (1990)

(The image accompanying this post shows the great character actor Leo McKern in what may be his most famous role: defense barrister Horace Rumpole, in the long-running British TV series Rumpole of the Bailey.)

Quote of the Day (John Mortimer, on a Lawyer Steering Carefully Between Client and Wife)

“Fred has a far from villainous appearance. He is cheerful, a grandfather, and wears the sort of tweed jackets and cavalry twill trousers a bank manager might sport in the pub at weekends. None of the Timsons is first class at their jobs, but in his day Fred was a fair to average safe-blower. Despite his look of respectability, She Who Must Be Obeyed was eyeing one of our best customers with deep suspicion. When I invited Fred to stay for a bite of supper, she announced that she was off for a bridge evening at Lady Featherstone's, where, no doubt, she could keep going on the cheesy bits provided. 'I think it's a little much,' she said as I saw her out of the front door, 'having the criminal classes calling here at all hours!' And although I told her there was absolutely no violence in Fred's record and he was an old sweetie, she didn't seem in the least mollified.”—English novelist, screenwriter and barrister John Mortimer (1923-2009), “Rumpole and the Summer of Discontent,” in Rumpole a la Carte (1990)

(The image accompanying this post shows the great character actor Leo McKern in what may be his most famous role: defense barrister Horace Rumpole, in the long-running British TV series Rumpole of the Bailey. The particular short story I’ve highlighted did, in fact, become an episode of the show.)

Quote of the Day (John Mortimer, on ‘Fashions in Crime’)

“Fashions in crime are as changeable as the length of skirts, popular music or the food in so-called smart restaurants. Every year or so, the government picks a favourite crime, which, so it is said, is likely to rot the foundations of society and cause universal anarchy. It regularly promises to 'crack down' on the offence of the day, even to the extent of mandatory life sentences.  When I was a young whitewig it was frauds on the Post Office and the stealing of stamps, then it was the trashing of telephone kiosks. Later, spraying graffiti on the walls of multistorey car parks and highrise flats was temporarily regarded as worse than manslaughter.  At other moments of recent history it has been mugging, stealing mobile telephones and the theft of expensive cars.”—John Mortimer, “Rumpole and the New Year’s Resolution,” in Rumpole and the Primrose Path (2002)

The image accompanying this post is of the great actor Leo McKern, who embodied John Mortimer’s poetry-quoting attorney for the indefensible,  Horace Rumpole, on British television for years. Although it is a joy to read Mortimer’s droll first-person passages, such as the above, somehow McKern’s basso profundo still resounds in my mind as they sink in.

Quote of the Day (John Mortimer, on Exercise for a British Lawyer)

“My customary exercise consists of a short stroll from the Temple tube to Equity Court, and rising to object to impertinent questions put by prosecuting counsel.”— John Mortimer, Rumpole a la Carte (1990)

The image accompanying this post shows Leo McKern, in perhaps his best-remembered role, as the title character in the British series Rumpole of the Bailey.

TV Quote of the Day (‘Rumpole of the Bailey,’ With a Great Example of Lawyer-Speak)

Daniel Derwent (played by John Wells): [after Rumpole has examined a broken mirror] “Any help to you, is it?”

Horace Rumpole (played by Leo McKern): “Oh, it might be. It's what we lawyers call the locus in quo [scene of the event].”

Daniel: “Do you really? How frightfully campy! It's what we actors call a dressing room.”— Rumpole of the Bailey, Season 2, Episode 3, “Rumpole and the Show Folk,” original air date June 12, 1979, teleplay by John Mortimer, directed by Peter Hammond