Record breakers

If you wanna be the best, if you wanna beat the rest, wo-wo, be a law firm acting on a world record bid - as the song could have gone.

Obiter last week received two law firm announcements about work on world record attempts (a world record in itself, we should add).

First up was Manchester firm Halliwell Landau, which has been named as legal adviser to the British team trying to recapture the world water speed record.

The 3 million super-boat Quicksilver - pictured below in computer-generated form - is scheduled for completion in time for a world record bid on Coniston Water next October; the current record, held by Australia, is 317.6mph.

Meanwhile, City firm Nicholson Graham & Jones is acting for Flying Pictures, apparently the world's leading operator of commercial hot air balloons, which is going for the world manned balloon altitude record, currently a dizzyingly precise 113,739.9 feet above sea level.