Second Helpings

Treat yourself to Second Helpings and more choice cuts in the style of Simon Brown’s much lauded first volume of memoirs, Playing off the Roof & Other Stories. Exuberantly revisiting his early years in National Service, at Oxford and as a young barrister, Lord Brown recalls matters grave and trivial from his time at the Bar and on the Bench, along the way regaling us with tales of Paddington Bear, Nigel Lawson and Mozart at the Warsaw opera. He also has something to say about the current legal scene and considers such thorny problems as the 2019 prorogation judgment and whether trial by jury might be dispensed with in order to clear a mounting backlog of criminal cases. Drawing witty lessons from a life of trials, Lord Brown finds time to muse on when a judge might choose to change a sentence already imposed, what to say after dinner and why the game of golf is strictly for the birds!This expanded paperback edition includes Last Scrapings, thirteen new pieces written since the first publication of Second Helpings in hardback.