Obiter is regularly in receipt of generous invitations to dine at the venerable Inns of Court. Readers will be well aware that the barristers' side of the legal world is the only profession that likes to fatten up its prospective members before admitting - or, indeed, calling - them to full-time practice. This involves the highly modern requirement that some 12 meals get wolfed down in the company of prospective and practising barristers in the draughty, wood-panelled halls of the inns. Occasionally, the benchers like to liven things up a bit for the young'uns, and recently one of the four inns laid on a live popular music combo. It was a hot ticket, to say the least, with one of Obiter's contacts being turned down in a late bid to bag a couple of seats. 'How about if we come along after the dinner just to hear the music,' he pleaded with the inn secretary. 'Sir,' came the frosty response, 'this is not the Hammersmith Palais.' No kidding. When Obiter's contact finally did wangle a dinner ticket the next week, it was for a more sedate affair in which new benchers were announced and welcomed. Normal service resumed, with one telling the appreciative audience that he knew he wanted to be a barrister from the age of nine because he 'liked making speeches'. He must have been a laugh on the football pitch. And of course political correctness reigns supreme at these events. One member of the inn commenting on the induction as a bencher of a prominent family law barrister said: 'I always thought big money family law cases meant taking large amounts of money from very successful men and giving it to even more successful women.'