It was all very well for Rudyard Kipling to bang on about “treating triumph and disaster just the same” but he did not have to return to the clerks room after the High Court rejecting his submissions as raising no arguable point of law. So said David Pannick QC in his Tales of Unimpressive Advocates . But in this podcast we hear from the clerks room itself which is the powerful BACK office in every barristers chambers. Tom Handley was the CEO of Exchange Chambers for 25 years until his retirement in April 2020. Tom collected legal anecdotes like others  collect stamps , butterflies or air miles. He BACK’s the truck up to take us on a journey from Reading jail to Bootle Magistrates’s court and in so doing confirms Lord Diplock’s assertion that the route of the common law is a maze not a motorway and involves regular detours past unexpected sights.