It is, fortunately, no longer general to find the idea of progress to be a given. Undoubtedly some do believe in progress, but they do not imply it is the general context in which to understand or view events.

An equivalent idea is the idea that everything comes, or will come, out finally. An idea like this is a faith, or part of a faith. It, or the idea of progress, like all faiths, is very powerful.

It does not bear examination, although it is difficult to refute.

It is useless, for example, to uncover cases of previously unknown “things�. All such revelations prove the very proposition they are intended to deny.

The reason it does not stand up to scrutiny is that it assumes the regular dichotomy is between the known and the unknown, whereas it is actually between the perceived and the “not perceived� and perception is hugely socially conditioned.

We colloquially refer to this fact by asking why nobody is acknowledging “the elephant in the room�. We often, in fact, conspire to ignore some things.

People of a conventional cast of mind are, by definition, most at home in such circumstances. Consequently, we favour those people when we seek to have “truths� suppressed or ignored. They are the ideal candidates for appointment to be judges, for instance.

Presently, the new Chairman of the Bar Council will be known.
So what; who cares?

To be the Chairman of the Bar Council is to rise to obscurity, excepting the possibility of judicial preferment later, on the strength of its occupation.

Yes, indeed, few people care, excepting the candidates and, possibly, their partners. The Bar Council of Ireland makes no reference to the Chairman on its website, unlike the Bar of England and Wales. That website gives at least one clue to explain this; it says the Attorney General is the Leader of the Bar.

The mind boggles, or should.

The Attorney General is the lawyer to the Government and anomalously has a role, under the Constitution, representing the State.

The Chairman has no chance against the Attorney General in a straight contest, or even in a not so straight contest.

It should not be so. The bar claims it is independent. If that is not a claim to be independent of the Government, to what is it a reference? The Bar of Ireland should not be led by the Attorney General. He is, or ought to be seen as, the opponent of the members of the bar, possibly as the opponent of their personal interests.

Apparently, the choice of at least one barrister in casting his vote for the candidates for chairman, will be decided by his view of the candidates’ field of work. He is reported to have declared that the Bar Council needs a chairman with “blue chip briefs�.

It’s a pity this is not a reference to underwear. It’s a euphemism for being dependent on the larger firms of solicitors for work.

Now, there is great merit in this situation, if you have just been called to the Bar. You need work; you need an income. Indeed, you need to develop some skill of use to your clients or their solicitors. Blue chip briefs deliver all this, at a price.

The price is an absence of any claim to a broad social function.

Maybe that’s the way it should be. There is little evidence that the representative bodies of the Irish legal profession perform a broad social function, but has the world collapsed as a consequence? No; but it’s not improved either.

The representative bodies of the legal profession are a part of civil society. They should not simply express the financial interests of their members, especially a clique element of their members. Even less should they express or discharge, the interests of the Government or even the State.

If you have sold the pass on these points you have no difficulty choosing your lead representative on the basis that he is a huckster with attitude.

It pays to be the Chinese Space Agency (or whatever it is called).

It launched a moon probe and published a photo of the moon.

Readers noticed the photo resembled one from NASA, issued in 2005. It not only resembled it; it appeared identical. That, if the photo is the NASA one, is plagiarism. Plagiarism is the passing off of the work of another as one’s own.

What will happen to the Chinese Space Agency? Nothing, probably. Firstly, it claims, the resemblance is a coincidence arising from the use of the same vantage point by the two cameras (is there a moon viewing point?); secondly, new craters in the Chinese photo indicate it is later and recent, they say.

The position of Raj Persaud, psychiatrist is not so easy. He presents BBC Radio 4’s programme “All in the Mind�. Apparently he quoted, in writing, from the work of others without identifying the source. He is now being investigated by the Fitness to Practice committee of the UK General Medical Council. Confusingly, the GMC confirms he did not attempt to pass off the work of others as his own, simply that he did not identify them.

This is worrying. Many bloggers, it seems, are eliding the authorship of others, or otherwise exploiting their work, in linking to other sites. Some, like Eoin O’Dell of TCD (the Heston Blumenthal of Irish bloggers) often incorporate the logo of the body, the subject of the post, in their blog.

Of course, we might comfort ourselves with the reflection that we don’t mind if the British GMC seeks to foil any intention we have to practice medicine in the UK, there being, generally, none.

More appropriately, we might wonder why the GMC thinks this issue has anything to do with the practice of medicine and why they might not recognise the possible existence of envy towards Dr. Persaud.

Finally, what is the proper utility of a copyright? Certainly to protect the income of the author, but for how long? A lifetime and 70 years, as at present?

According to Rufus Pollack of Cambridge University, 15 years.