The Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, gave a very jolly speech at Lincoln's Inn last night, which you can read here. He pointed out that Sir Thomas Cromwell was the only Master of the Rolls to have been executed "so far".

Cromwell is not, of course, to be confused with Sir Thomas More, executed five years earlier, who was the only Lord Chancellor to have been made a saint - again, so far.

Last night's speech, though drafted by his legal secretary, the indefatigable John Sorabji, conveys something of Lord Neuberger's dry wit. But Lord Justice Moses, sitting with the Master of the Rolls (and Lord Justice Munby) at the moment to decide when a litigant can take advantage of papers stolen from another litigant, is equally sharp with the sotto voce one-liners. Law does not have to be dry or boring.