'I went to a university where I was taught law'

Lord Chief Justice watchers will be interested to know that this year marks the 50th anniversary of Lord Woolf's graduation from the law faculty at University College London. We know this because Lord Woolf (below) has been recruited by his alma mater to spearhead a campaign aimed at taking the college into the 21st century as a 'global' law faculty. At a Middle Temple Hall dinner to launch a US-style fund-raising campaign, Lord Woolf reminisced fondly of his time as an undergraduate in the early 1950s (when of course all UCL students wore bowler hats, black jackets and striped trousers). 'Others went to universities where they read law,' he told an audience of alumni, in a reference to those ancient universities that shall not be named. 'But I went to a university where I was taught law.' The thing about becoming Lord Chief Justice is that you can get away with inscrutable remarks like that.