His name's Kent! Kent! I said that's not a name it's a cricket team!

Has anyone else considered that Nicole Kidman's baby naming is a little ill-conceived? Apart from being the usual celeb-whack choice, eschewing convention in favour of bizarre, it's terribly close to being Sunday Roast.

If it was intentional and Nicole likes a nice meat and two veg on the day of rest, then may I suggest Friday Fish for the next one.

I also read today that not only is Christie Brinkley 54 - fifty-four!! - but she has a 10 year old son called Sailor. Hello Sailor!

God his life's gonna be shit! Apart from all the money - she's just been granted 18 homes across the world in a divorce battle.

Mr Smith

Mr Smith,
originally uploaded by Mr Kenneth.

Hang on! Twenty-six planets? Innumerable Daleks? I make that Pimm's O' Clock!

A five hour drive on badly tarmac'd B-roads might not be everyone's cup of tea

This is a test post to see how easy it is to post videos to a blog

So I'm joining a convent in Smethwick on Friday

God decided everyone had suffered enough and as the bad solicitors began to muddle through the necessary paperwork to register the little flat correctly with the Land Registry, he sent a zephyr which whipped through the gloomy Norbury offices of the bad solicitors, completed the forms and carried them off the Land Registry, where it put them into the hands of a registering operative who immediately got to work.

This surprised the bad solicitors and pleased them as they were able to get back to Jeremy Kyle, who was shouting at an Elizabeth Duke loyalty card holder as usual. Normal service having resumed, the bad solicitors were, as usual, completely stretched by the simple question the good solicitor put to them some time later; 'Have they cleared the property then?' he asked, as Mr & Mrs Vendor had been extremely slow in achieving this, the week prior.
'I don't know', said the bad solicitor wiping donut sugar from around his mouth, 'I've been a bit busy.'
'Well are the Vendors ready to complete the sale tomorrow, now the property's been registered?' asked the good solicitor?
'I don't know' said the bad solicitor, starting to sound like a Speak & Spell from Texas Instruments. 'There're are a few things to do, I think, before we can complete. I'm not sure if Mr & Mrs Vendor are ready'
'What things?' asked the good solicitor.
'Well their mortgage will have to be redeemed' posed the bad solicitor.
'They haven't got one!' exclaimed the good solicitor, 'It's clear possession. The flat only cost them fifty-three pence! They bought it from the council because of Margaret Thatcher!'
'Oh' said the bad solicitor. His attention distracted by the television screen. A woman in velour had launched herself at another woman, pulling her hair, as men with shirts labelled, 'SECURITY' tried to remove her from the set.
The good solictor waited for his opponent to speak for a second before asking: 'So are you going to do anything about completing this transaction tomorrow? My eager client has been waiting months!'
'I don't know', said the bad solicitor one final time as he absent mindedly hung up the phone and shouted, 'Geewaaaaan! Give 'er a slap!' at the television.

Updated by the good solicitor, the eager client determinedly called the handsome estate agent, who was once again disturbed at the extent of the bad solicitor's ineptitude. He in turn called Mrs Vendor and swiftly relayed this fact-finding conversation back to the eager client; 'Mrs Vendor was perplexed as to why I was calling her', said the handsome estate agent. 'She said her solicitor called her early today and asked if she would go in to their gloomy Norbury office tomorrow to complete and finalise the transaction.'
'So they are ready to complete tomorrow then?' said the eager client, bemused.
'It would seem so.' said the handsome estate agent.
'Then what is the bad solicitor on about?' asked the eager client.
'Your guess is as good as mine' said the handsome estate agent.

So what really is the situation, boys and girls? Has the property been cleared of all furniture? Will Mrs Vendor's visit to the bad solicitors gloomy Norbury office result in full completion of the sale tomorrow? Find out in the next gripping instalment of, The Bad Solicitors of London Town.

So I escaped, I knotted sheets together... to make a moped

Still under the influence of God, or Stephen Fry as he likes to be known these days, the bad solicitors obligingly replied to the good solicitor's fax requesting the occupation under license and agreed to the terms, but God couldn't influence some of the contents of this fax or the stupidity of another party in this sorry tale, which the contents related.

Earlier, Mr & Mrs Vendor had mumbled hesitantly down the phone to the bad solicitors when they had called to put the good solicitor's occupation under license plan to them. 'What was that you said?' said Barry the stand-in, 'Something about furniture?'
Mr Vendor was looking at his shoes now and Mrs Vendor was nervously twirling her hair around her finger. 'We haven't moved our furniture out yet.' murmured Mr Vendor.
Barry the stand-in's sense of shame and anxiety, which God had freshly installed in him upon his involvement in the tale, intensified and he felt a flush creep across his face, as he considered how he was going to report back to the good solicitor, that although they as the vending parties had been working together towards a completion date of Friday 21st September for over two weeks, the property was not actually ready for the eager purchasing client to take possession.
'We could have it cleared for Monday, suggested Mrs Vendor.
'Oh dear' said Dave the stand-in, who was listening into the conversation. 'The good solicitor isn't going to be happy and neither is his client.'

The good solicitor stared at the fax and took in yet another tale of incompetence and disorganisation from the bad solicitors and began to weep. Knowing his eager client had taken the day off work to move on Friday 21st and that a friend had done likewise and travelled across from Gloucester (the provinces) to assist on 'Moving Day', he picked up the phone and dialled the eager client's number.

The eager client wasn't happy, but remained sanguine and resigned himself to yet another week of waiting, as he advised the good solicitor that Monday was no good to him as a moving day due to him having a job to go to and that his life was not entirely dedicated to the simple act of acquiring and moving to a new flat. No, it would have to be the following weekend and another week at work would have to pass before he could finally begin the process of taking occupation of the flat he so longed for.

But will the week pass without further incident? Will the flat be cleared for occupation by the following weekend, finally permitting an exchange of contracts? Will the process of living under licence take place and run smoothly until all registrations are complete and the property is transferred to the eager client's control? All will be revealed as we continue the saga of, The Bad Solicitors of London Town.

When are they taking the pins out? ...They're not

When the lease didn't arrive on the third day, the good solicitor, asked God to smite the bad solicitor. God didn't agree to this, preferring a less energetic solution.

God instead forced the stand-ins to answer the telephone and finally tell the truth. 'Actually', said Dave the stand-in, looking at his shoes and kicking the floor, 'there isn't a lease.' The good solicitor was astounded. 'What do you mean there isn't a lease?' he asked, eyebrows raised so far they nearly tipped backwards and fell of the back of his head.
'Well', said the bad solicitor stand-in. 'When Mr & Mrs Vendor bought the flat five years ago -' he paused and looked up at God through his eye-lashes in a way reminiscent of a certain dead princess, 'we didn't register the lease with the Land Registry.'
'What?', said the good solicitor, his eyebrows desperately clinging onto the top of his head.
'Well there was a season of Murder She Wrote reruns on TV at the time and we sort of watched them back to back and erm, forgot' admitted Dave the stand-in.
'You can't possibly mean that the current owners have lived in the property for five whole years without being registered as the owners!' barked the good solicitor.
'Yes', said the Dave the stand-in.
'And in all the five years you never got around to completing the registration, as you are required to do in your role as conveyancers?'
'No' said Dave the stand-in, now very red in the face. 'But our knowledge of the adventures of Jessica Fletcher is second to none!'
'I don't care about that!' exclaimed the good solicitor. 'What am I going to tell my eager client? He's expecting to move in tomorrow and this could take another four weeks!'
'I don't know', said Dave the stand-in. 'He can have our Diagnosis Murder DVDs if he likes.'

The good solicitor devastated, hung up the phone and immediately started hatching a plan to allow the poor beleagured client a solution. 'I know', he thought, 'I'll get my client occupation of the property under license until this registration is sorted out. We'll exchange contracts, subject to the registration and he can move in. It'll mean he'll have to pay Mr & Mrs Vendor some money as a kind of rent for the first few weeks, but at least he'll be in there as he wishes. Then, when the registration is complete, I can complete the sale and request mortgage funds.' Then he laughed to himself as he wondered how the bad solicitors were going to explain to Mr & Mrs Vendor that they were unable to complete the sale because they forgot to register the property to them all those years ago and they technically do not own it at the moment. 'Ha ha! I wouldn't like to be in his shoes!' laughed the good solicitor, as he sat down to work on his proposed solution to make sure it happened as he planned.

But will Mr & Mrs Vendor allow the eager client to live in the flat before completion? Will they accept the meagre £100 per week fee suggested for permitting the eager client to live in the flat? You'll find out in the next instalment of, The Bad Solicitors of London Town.

Well you might as well wait for Maurice Chevalier

After a short time, the handsome estate agent confirmed that there was indeed a lease knocking around in the bad solicitor's office. Indeed the good solicitor was promised by Barry the stand-in at the bad solicitor's office, (Dave was at the doctor's having his impetigo checked) that the document would be put in the special legal document exchange system and sent overnight to the good solicitor's bright and tidy office in Brixton.

However, Barry the stand-in had to pop out towards the end of the day to buy a tubi-grip bandage for his leg ulcers and clean forgot about putting the lease into the document exchange system.

Barry the stand-in came into the dark and dingy Norbury office the next morning and joined his colleague Dave in ignoring the telephone ringing, preferring instead to read a copy of Top Santé he had bought at the chemist. The phone rang all through an interesting article about Gloria Hunniford's battle with grief and through the topical searchword which was quite difficult today - a lot of words on the diagonal and running back to front; it was two hours before he actually found the word colostomy nestling in the bottom right hand corner, using the m from thalidomide.

The phone rang again whilst he was making his morning coffee and seemed to ring unabated all through his lunch-hours as it was still ringing when he got back from Norbury's finest tavern and settled down with a Dick Francis.

Meanwhile, having realised that the copy of the lease was not going to arrive as promised, the good solicitor decided that there was no point in waiting to receive the Office Copy Entries from the bad solicitor's office and requested his own from the Land Registry. The cost of £6.00 to do this was more than worth it, he thought, rather than put his eager client through more delays. After all, the Office Copy Entries, should always be scrutinised to ensure that no CCJs are listed against the little flat, or that there are not multiple mortgages registered against the address.

The good solicitor's client having been informed of another day's inactivity in Norbury was further angered and worried, but simply began to pray that Barry the stand-in would remember before Friday to prove to the good solicitors that the property is indeed legally available for sale, by sending the lease across to the good solicitor's office in Brixton.

But will he, children? That's the question I put you to bed with tonight. Now settle down, you've got your glass of water. I'll leave the night light on.
Sweet dreams...