Not one of ours

Despite strong efforts by the Bar Council to stamp out snobbery within its branch of the legal profession, deep-seated sentiments occasionally rush to the surface.

For example, last week at the Bar's annual garden party held in the Temple, the great and the good gathered for champagne and canapes.

It was a warm evening - just what the organisers would have hoped for - and as the bubbly flowed freely, one esteemed and well-known member of her majesty's legal press corps decided to slip off his jacket, cooling down in his shirt-sleeves.

Spotting this, a prominent member of the Bar asked another: 'Who is that chap without a jacket?' Responded his companion: 'I can't imagine; must be a clerk.'