The Dickens of a case

摘要

Do you remember mr bumble, the beadle in Oliver Twist? I thought of him when reading the story in the adjudication case of Gens vs CNIM. Two top-class barristers and two top-class firms of solicitors appeared before one top-class construction industry High Court judge to find out what an adjudicator intended should happen. Why think of Mr Bumble? Well, daft as it sounds, I couldn't help musing on the idea of someone picking up the phone and simply asking the adjudicator what he meant. Heavens, the judge could have popped around the corner to see him, robes, wig and all. He might even have stood him lunch. But: "If the law supposes you can do that," Bumble states, in what has become one of the most quoted lines in Dickens, "the law is a ass - a idiot".