Counsel: Your name is Mrs Norah Smallgrass?
Defendant: It is. And your name is...?
Counsel: My name is immaterial.
Defendant: Well, Mr Immaterial...
Counsel: Very funny, Mrs Smallgrass. But I am not on trial here. There is no need to know my name. It is you who are on trial.
Defendant: That is as may be. But I know the judge's name and he is not on trial. I know my solicitor's name and he is not on trial. I know...
Judge: Oh, for heaven's sake, Mr Short, just tell her your name and let's get on with it.
Counsel: My name, since it seems to be of some trifling importance to you, not that I can see why, is...
Defendant: Mr Short. I know. The judge just told me. So your name is Short, is it?
Counsel: It is.
Defendant: No further questions.
Counsel: Thank you. Now, I believe you live at a house called The Elms in a village in Sussex.
Defendant: I do.
Counsel: May I ask why it is called The Elms?
Defendant: Because when it was built, and named by the original owners, it was beautified by a small grove of elm trees. It is not uncommon for a house to be named after a nearby feature.
Counsel: Exactly so. We all know of houses that are called Hillcrest or Old School House. They describe the nature of the house.
Defendant: They do.
Counsel: But not in your case.
Defendant: Alas, no. Ever since Dutch elm disease, there have been no elms in our area.
Counsel: And therefore your house name is now misleading, inaccurate and, let us not pretend otherwise, dishonest.
Defendant: To that extent, yes.
Counsel: The present Government is very conscious that unless we can all be honest with ourselves in modern life, the fabric of society is endangered, and therefore has embarked on a campaign to clean up public nomenclature. It no longer wishes advertisements to be misleading, or weights to be inaccurate, or lists of ingredients to be faulty.
Defendant: Fair enough.
Counsel: Or names to be unrepresentative.
Defendant: Hold on a minute! You slipped that one in as if it were equivalent. Is this a measure that came from Whitehall?
Counsel: Yes, I believe...
Defendant: Where is the White Hall?
Counsel: I am sorry?
Defendant: The main avenue of government in London is called Whitehall. If my house is not to be called The Elms, why should Whitehall be called Whitehall? There has been no White Hall there for hundreds of years.
Counsel: Yes, but...
Defendant: How tall are you?
Counsel: I don't understand.
Defendant: It's a simple question. How tall are you? What exactly don't you understand?
Counsel: What I do not understand, Mrs Smallgrass, is why you should ask the question at all.
Defendant: I ask it because your name is Mr Short. It strikes me that you are a good height, nearly six foot, and therefore not short at all.
Counsel: I am 5ft 11in.
Defendant: What is that in metres?
Counsel: I do not know.
Defendant: We have officially gone over to metric measures. It is now illegal to offer dimensions in Imperial measures. And yet you, a leading barrister, do not know how to measure your own height in metric! You, Mr Short, do not know how short or tall you are in modern measures!
Counsel: [To Judge] M'lord, I feel I have to protest against this line of questioning!
Judge: And a fat lot of good it will do you. Mrs Smallgrass has got you by the short and curlies, if you ask me. Carry on, Mrs Smallgrass. We are all enjoying this.
