You can call me Al

Strange goings-on in the marketing department of Edwards Geldard, which has sent us this picture of Derby-based partner Ian Williams (right) with Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore to mark Mr Williams' appointment as co-chairman of the American Bankruptcy Institute's (ABI) international committee.

It has, a bemused Mr Williams tells Obiter, absolutely nothing to do with the ABI, but was a snap taken - mainly for the benefit of Mr Williams's mother - at a reception in April 2001 in Chicago for people who had helped with Mr Gore's campaign.

Mr Williams, we should add, did not work for Mr Gore but crashed the party at the invite of a lawyer he had met while in the US for an ABI event (so there is a link of sorts).

'He was remarkably upbeat,' Mr Williams recalls.

'I would've been really pissed off.' Perhaps the marketing bods were making a really subtle comment on the bankruptcy of American politics, but somehow we doubt it.