The legal world was rocked by last week’s revelation that High Court judge Mr Justice Laddie would be standing down because he was, it seems, bored with his job.

Talk like that is heresy in legal circles, but TS can well believe it, having previously sat before plain old Sir Hugh Laddie, as he will soon be known.

It was Laddie who presided over the dispute between Accountancy Age, the JDS and Deloitte .TS found the proceedings rivetting (well, we did win) but, in hindsight, all the signs were there that Laddie was trying to liven up proceedings.

Drawing on a famous media intrusion case, he asked at one point: ‘Was it for the better good of the world to disclose that Naomi Campbell had had a spliff or two?’ Later he raised an eyebrow at the JDS website. ‘Castigator,’ he said. ‘That certainly gets the message across.’