RayL wrote:In the 1960s when judges were even more out of touch with popular culture than they are now, there was a judge who supposedly asked "Who are The Beatles"? . The Defending Council replied "They are a popular beat combo, M'lud" and I've always thought that Popular Beat Combo (could be shortened to PBC) would be a great name for a band.
Ray
A popular
misconception, Ray, not that that means that satirists will not seize upon the comic possibilities.
Judges need to ensure that the court record is clear and comprehensible for anyone reading at a later date. In 1963, that might well have required the judge to ask a leading question about a reference to popular culture in order that the question does not stay "begged" and that the official record would record the answer - even if the judge already knows it (which in most cases, he would).
With The Beatles, hindsight lends a faintly surrealistic air to such question, but consider a hypothetical dangerous 1963 driving charge in which a pedestrian has been injured on his way home from a concert. A reference to Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers might require a judicial intervention in order to make it clear that "jaywalker" was a reference to a group of entertainers and not an uncontested reference to the victim's behaviour. The judge might even be a fan (perhaps unlikely in 1963); he asks the question not for his own edification but in order that the meaning of what it said in the court record is clear, maybe fifty years later, when PJ et al are but a distant memory known only to aficionados of the Joe Meek Society.
Yes, I made that one up, but it illustrates a point!
JN
Posted: 19 Jul 2012, 20:13