And still they come, those legal typos. Some bring tears to our eyes, for more reasons than one. Sarah O’Leary of Dobson Solicitors recalls a brief to counsel on a rape case referring to a client undergoing a ‘penile swap’ at the police station. ‘Politicians might see this as an exciting new way to deal with sex offenders,’ she suggests.

Chris Malley of Simon Lacey recalls that while in Articles in the 1960s, he dealt with a statutory declaration in respect of lost deeds: ‘The deeds had been in safe custody with a local bank which had suffered a direct hit by a German bomb during the war. A secretary who had recently joined us from the local hospital produced the following: "and I verily believe that the deeds were destroyed as a result of enema action".’

Sara Sullivan, an in-house lawyer, trained at a private practice where the secretarial support left much to be desired. However, her firm gave trainees a chance to experience life from the other side by putting them through a dictation course in which they had to transcribe a tape punctuated by the eating, coughing and sneezing sounds that solicitors inflict on long-suffering secretaries.

Ian Kay of Wembley, north London recalls some spectacular errors. One temp typed up a couple of dozen letters perfectly, only to end ‘yours faiffully’: ‘She insisted that was what I had dictated.’ And in a personal injury case, ‘Fortunately, your client was not seriously injured’ became ‘Unfortunately, your client was not seriously injured’.

With computers threatening to make the shorthand typist redundant, what future is there for the legal typo? Plenty, says Gabor Kovacs, of Farnham firm Bells: the spell checker continues the tradition. ‘I once rescued a letter to a client named Devaney. The letter began "Dear Mr Deviancy".’

Kovacs also recalls that, while he was in Articles, a plummy-voiced partner’s letter to the county surveyor came back addressed to the Countess of Ayr. All Obiter can say is that, if he was around the first time that one made the rounds, he’s wearing his age very well indeed