Leandro De Itaquera

They do have one thing in common - they are both obsessed by the telephone. I've been audio- typing as much as possible to drown out their voices, but you can't stay plugged into headphones all day.Maybe it's a case of work expanding to fill the time available. They both look down on me, obviously, because I am the temp, but they also feel the same about each other. Fiona looks down on Kyra because she comes from Basildon and goes to the toilet.

You wouldn't have immediately picked them as friends - Fiona is a straight-faced, straight- haired, straitlaced 30-year-old Sloane Ranger who wears a lot of navy blue, and Kyra is 18 with a frizzy perm and white shoes - but the wheels of most offices are oiled by the grease of social levelling.Not here. They sit back to back and don't communicate - they just pass bits of paper over with phrases such as "I think this is yours, actually". My tongue would atrophy if I stayed here.Not that Kyra and Fiona have anything to talk to each other about. I type in silence, eat lunch in silence, smile when Kyra and Fiona leave, pack up at six and walk to the Tube in silence. Every day, I laugh politely and pretend that this is the first time I have heard either joke. I might as well not bother with these niceties, because these are the only words they address to me from one day's end to the other, apart from the occasional "Can you get that?" or "I'm going to lunch now". We work on a staggered shift - Kyra and Fiona nine to five and me 10 to six - but no one seems to have told them this.

I haven't been forgiven for waiting in the wrong room for an hour last week. Every morning, as I arrive, Kyra looks up, pulls an exaggerated face of surprise and goes "Ooh, you haven't got lost, then", and Fiona goes "Good afternoon". The magistrate could and should have taken judicial notice of that fact.. This is definitely an accountant's office, and, to my relief, my stint here lasts only a fortnight. Temping has disadvantages, but the good thing is that if you really hate a place, you don't have to stay long I'm counting the days Hours, actually. By their very design in this way they betray the purpose for which they were madeand that the conclusion that a flick knife was necessarily made for use for causing injury to the person was matter of which judicial notice could be taken.Just as the courts had taken judicial notice of the fact that flick knives were offensive weapons, butterfly knives should also be so treated, because it was clear that they were essentially the same weapon involving the same features of concealment, speed and surprise.

to be concealed conveniently in the hand or in the pocket and there concealed to be brought into use with the minimum delay to the assailant and the minimum of warning to the victim. The conclusion in that case, which mutatis mutandis could be extended to butterfly knives, was that a flick knife was a dangerous weapon per se.That case was considered in R v Simpson (1983) 78 Cr App R 114, in which the Court of Appeal found that such weapons wereplainly designed. They had submitted that as section 141 forbade, inter alia, the selling or hiring or lending of butterfly knives, it was appropriate to infer that a butterfly knife was a dangerous article as defined in section 4 of the Aviation Security Act 1982.The magistrate was not persuaded, and had posed the following question for the court:Whether, on the facts found, I was correct in holding, as a point of law, that evidence or further evidence was required to establish that a butterfly knife was an article made oradapted for use for causing injury toor incapacitating a person?The starting point for the legal analysis was R v Williamson (1978) 67 Cr App R 35, in which Lord Lane CJ had emphasised the three categories of dangerous or offensive weapons wrapped up in the statutory language, and that it was a matter of fact for the jury whether the weapon fell into any and if so which of those categories.The similarity between a flick knife and a butterfly knife was clear from Gibson v Wales (1983) 76 Cr App R 60. The articles to which that section applied included those "made or adapted for use for causing injury to or incapacitating a person or intended. for such use".The issue was whether the knife was made for causing injury to the person.The Crown had sought to prove that simply by producing the knife and referring the magistrate to section 141 of the 1988 Act and the statutory instrument made thereunder. It did not, however, cover the offence with which the respondent had been charged, simple possession of "certain dangerous articles" under section 4 of the Aviation Security Act 1982.

Section 141 provided that any person who manufactured, sold, hired, lent or imported such a weapon was guilty of an offence. Director of Public Prosecutions v Hynde; Queen's Bench Divisional Court (Lord Justice Henry and Mr Justice Gage) 3 July 1997 A butterfly knife was a dangerous weapon per se, being made for the purpose of causing injury to the person. The Divisional Court allowed the Director of Public Prosecution's appeal by way of case stated against the decision of the Stipendiary Magistrate at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court, dismissing a charge that the respondent, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, had with her in an aerodrome in the United Kingdom (Heathrow) an article, namely a butterfly knife, made or adapted for causing injury contrary to section 4(4) of the Aviation Security Act 1982.Nicholas Coleman (CPS) for the Director of Public Prosecutions; the respondent did not appear and was not represented.Lord Justice Henry said that knife in the present case fitted the description in the Schedule to the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988 (SI 1988/2019), to which section 141 of the Act applied. Significantly, during this last part of his life his thoughts turned again to Greek and he took up and revised the 1937 thesis on the Iliad which was finely published in a limited edition by the Hillside Press in 1987.Philip Frank Butler, French scholar: born London 1 May 1913; Professor of French, University of Wales, Cardiff 1966-73; Professor of French, Wisconsin University, Madison 1972-81; married Elena D'Ancona (died 1984); died London 20 June 1997.. Later, when the US economy dipped a little, he was unpleasantly surprised to have to teach some beginners' classes.When Philip Butler retired, he and Elena moved to Siena and when she died in 1984 he returned to London, to live within the proverbial stone's throw from the place of his birth. It may well be that the frustration thus engendered weighed heavily in his decision after only four years in post to accept the chance to succeed Vinaver as Visiting Professor at Wisconsin University and then to accept a permanent appointment there, from which he retired in 1981.The Madison campus with its 40,000 students had a friendly atmosphere, where he and his wife were made welcome and for the first few years at least Butler's work was almost exclusively with postgraduate students, whose energy and enthusiasm he found stimulating. Butler found many aspects of the job irksome, and did his best to avoid them as unhelpful to scholarship. He was a demanding teacher but never discourteous or lacking in compassion.In those days "the Chair" meant Headship of the department, membership of Senate and possible involvement in a host of other committees.