As Nick Holmes and Family Lore have noted, the Times Law blog appears to have unceremoniously vanished, 404ing without even so much as a goodbye. I hope that something new is planned, although in retrospect the difference between the blog and the Times law online pages was never entirely clear – was the blog for news, gossip, insider views, comment, polemics or what?

I was once asked if I’d like to send some trial contributions to the Law blog. I assume many people were (although the contributors list remained noticably the same). This did give me a head scratching moment or two trying to work out what a Times law blog piece might be like, because it wasn’t particularly clear. Therein, perhaps, lay its problem.

Obviously I got it wrong as my one or two spec submissions didn’t make it. And then work got in the way of doing anything more than this blog. But, being a rather sad person, I had been thoroughly entertained by the prospect of appearing on some page with the Times header and had even readied a post celebrating the occasion should it arrive. As it will never be used now, I’ve dug it out of a dusty corner of my hard drive and stuck it here, as a memorial to the Times Law Blog.

As my youth was spent getting through the 1980s, my formative moral values were those of a rather puritanical leftism, with an emphasis on personal rectitude. In particular, one did not sell out to the Establishment, as the slightest compromise meant damnation (of a secular sort).

Naturally, as with all moral taboos, the despised act gains a half buried, denied fascination. So it was that ever since the early 80s, I have awaited the corrupting touch of the Establishment with much the same mix of fear and desire as an 18th century virgin on her wedding night.

Alas, the Establishment declined to ravish me and despoil my moral sensibilities. I resigned myself to being more George Eliot than Vanity Fair.

Until this (link to putative post).

Hoorah. Loosen my stays and call me Clarissa.