The Seven Stars

My last couple of days in London I revisited some of my stomping grounds from the days when I was trying (somewhat half-heartedly, I fear) to become a lawyer. The friends I made back then, and the places we drank together in, were the best part of the whole experience of those few years.

There are many fine, characterful, quirky pubs around the Inns of Court and Fleet Street - and I was lucky enough to receive a real "insider's" introduction to many of them from my Mooting Partner (mooting being a mock courtroom exercise, debating points of law). I mooted with a number of different people during those years, but my chosen team-mate for the really serious event, the Middle Temple Mooting Competition during our Bar School year, was something special, one of my closest and dearest friends for over a decade now. She still introduces me as "my mooting partner" - at least to her barrister chums - 10 years on. Quite charming, really.

Well, we did go into battle together a number of times rather than just the once, and had to prepare in some detail (I tended to prefer a more seat-of-the-pants style where possible: I once delighted in teasing a different partner of mine, in one of the more informal weekly moots we used to do on our Law Diploma course, by asking her, sotto voce, just as we were about to begin, "Which side are we on again?"); there was quite a bit of pressure on them. In the end, we wuz robbed quite egregiously: we got a particularly pompous and self-important QC judging our semi-final, who had decided the issues before we even began (which is plainly an improper thing to do; and, as it happens, he had decided the key issue wrongly!), and then decided the moot on the basis of the law rather the competitors' performances (which is a nonsense, quite contrary to the rules). So, despite being acclaimed for the best performance, we went down because Sir Haemorrhoid deemed one of the issues on our side to be 'unwinnable'. How sour are those grapes? Pretty darned sour! I was so incensed about it that I did argue the toss - gently - with him about it afterwards.... but it was a hopeless cause: his mind had been made up, the decision given.

That may have been another of the great 'what if' moments in my life. Victory in that competition was reputedly an assurance of multiple offers of pupillage in 'good sets', a springboard to a high-profile and lucrative career. I'm a little sceptical on that. I do however rather regret missing out on an opportunity to take part in the grand final of the competition - which is always held in Middle Temple's magnificent medieval dining hall, in front of numerous senior lawyers and judges.

The Mooting Partner and I sought comfort for our unjust elimination in the fact that the topic for the final was announced to be 'equitable subrogation', which is a thorny problem and a thoroughly daunting phrase - it is, as we still remind each other from time to time, "a very BIG word"! You see, at the time of our defeat, I had just passed on to her a particularly good, particularly gross joke (which I didn't think I'd dare to publish online - but now have) where that phrase featured in the punchline; and to this day we are still able to reduce each other to helpless fits of laughter by dropping the line into our conversation.

Forgive me, I digress. Funny how all of that 'lawyer stuff' comes rushing back when I hang out in the locale for a little while. I had been meaning to tell you about The Mooting Partner, not the moot. She was a Fleet Street gal through and through, having learned the ropes of journalism in the good old, bad old days of 'The Street of Shame' back in the '70s (before Rupert Murdoch broke the back of the print unions and all the national newspapers started moving out to new headquarters in places like Wapping). In her middle years she had grown disillusioned with journalism and was re-training for a new career at the Bar. Journalists, of course, love to drink (a sweeping generalisation, to be sure, but a remarkably fair one); so she knew every nook and cranny of the streets in that part of town, every pub and wine bar, and proved an excellent guide to the neighbourhood, a fine 'leader astray' (not that I've ever really needed one of those!).

Of all those fine bars, my abiding favourite is 'The Seven Stars' on Carey Street (and I'm not sure that I didn't introduce her to that one; or at least popularise it as our default rendezvous), directly opposite the back door of The Royal Courts of Justice on The Strand. It is thus a favoured lawyers' hangout, particularly in the afternoon, when barristers (and solicitors, and their clients) often repair there after the early conclusion of proceedings over the road: a great place for gossip from the legal world. It also boasts one of the best pints of Guinness in London, at least outside of obscure working-class Irish dives (well, it used to any rate: I thought the pour was a bit sloppy there last week...). And one of the best martinis (a huge glug of Bombay Sapphire, straight from the freezer). And some excellent bar snacks. And it still has a stopped clock (it used to be quite a common gag that a pub would have a clock that taunted and teased its customers by perpetually displaying a few minutes before closing time - but that's a quaint old tradition that's rapidly dying out). There are also eclectic displays of legal and other artefacts, and on the walls an amusing selection of vintage cinema posters for classic courtroom films.

Its most disinctive feature, though, is the loo, which is upstairs from the (tiny) bar, and barely distinguishable from the landlady's private accommodation. The staircase is terrifyingly steep and slippery, with very narrow and downward-sloping steps. It was only a few years ago that they finally got around to installing a brass handrail, but that's not really such a great help: it's still a death-trap. I suspect that only the fond support of eminent lawyers and judges amongst its clientele can have saved the pub from the wrath of the health & safety inspectors all these years. But, strangely enough, it presents such a vivid hazard that somehow you always negotiate that staircase with appropriate caution, no matter how pissed you are; I don't think they've ever had any major accidents.

Do go and check this place out the next time you are in London - but be careful on those stairs.