The joke is at the bottom. Scroll down. Trust me, I'm a lawyer.

This is my (Steven Carrigan's) home page but it will also be the host of my novel, Divorcing Reality, if the worm does not eat it. This is a work in progress and readers will be able to comment upon and make suggestions about it as it is completed. Reader's comments will influence the direction in which the novel goes and therefore its final outcome.

It is intended there will be much else on the site including, for instance, free games, a blog including legal commentary, jokes with a legal slant (I am a lawyer, after all) and many other wonderful things. So, if you trip over this under construction page please check back in the future to see how near to completion the first edition is.

The present anticipated release date is 21st August 2006. Having represented parties to construction disputes I am fully aware that such estimates are subject to slippage! However, I have a gang of slave pixies, gnomes, fairies and the occasional human helping me on this (all of them illegal immigrants, of course, and who will therefore be working for me forever to pay off their legal fees). Here are some of my team:

Some of the workers may look lazy (in particular, my rather indecisive foreman) and I certainly do not trust the guy on left (he seems more interested in pulling than digging) but the lady in blue might be able to inspire them (and, with any luck, the coffee break will end soon too). There may be a gremlin though:

I do not know what he is going to do but the small wizard seems to have a big nasty wand and his trustworthiness is in some doubt..

I am also stuck with a building manager who I definitely do not trust and he looks like a bit of a joker or possibly a communist:

So I may need my praying fairy's help to meet the deadline:

And everyone in the meantime has to contend with these characters running around every where:

So I hope you will forgive me if the deadline changes.

With wizards and fairies on both sides of the line, everything is rather unpredictable.

The Red Squirrel Lawyer Joke:

See, I told you there was a joke at the bottom of the page. You have now been magically transformed into one of that small minority of people whose lawyer has kept a promise.

That's not the joke. The joke is:

A client challenged his lawyer's costs and demanded an itemised bill. It included the following two items:

"I was walking down the street and saw you on the other side. I walked to the corner to cross at the zebra crossing, I crossed the street and walked quickly to catch up with you. I got close and saw it wasn't you: £150 for wasted time (including 50% uplift for extra exertion involved in walking faster than I am accustomed to walking)."

"In toilet thinking about your case. £100."

The same lawyer died and arrived at the pearly gates (heaven knows why). To his dismay, there were thousands of people ahead of him in line to see St. Peter. But, to his surprise, St. Peter left his desk at the gate and came down to where the lawyer was standing. St. Peter greeted him warmly. Then St. Peter took the lawyer by the hand and guided him to a comfortable chair by his desk.

The lawyer said, "Why am I getting special treatment?"

St. Peter replied, "Well, I've added up all the hours for which you billed your clients, and by my calculation you must be about 307 years old!"

The lawyer slumped, knowing he couldn't defend himself on this one, and accepted reincarnation as a red lawyer squirrel as preferable to an heavenly ASBO or other community service order (which might have included cleaning out the angels' latrines) or, indeed, the prospect of being sent down to the other place.

Two little grey squirrels were walking along in the forest. The first one spied a nut and cried out, "Oh, look! A nut!" The second squirrel jumped on it and said, "It's my nut!"

The first grey squirrel said, "That's not fair! I saw it first!"

"Well, you may have seen it, but I have it," argued the second.

At that point, the red lawyer squirrel came up and said, "You shouldn't quarrel. Let me resolve this dispute."

The two grey squirrels agreed that alternative dispute resolution was appropriate, and the red lawyer squirrel said, "Now, give me the nut."

He broke the nut in half, and handed half to each squirrel, saying, "See? It was foolish of you to fight. Now the dispute is resolved."

Then he reached over and said, "And for my fee, I'll take the contents of both halves of the nut."