Twas a rough night! 

July 19, 2025 –Macbeth

Etiquette changes over the years and varies from culture to culture. There is, however, one general rule (unless you are Pharaoh) which is never to say in polite conversation ‘I had a funny/awful/weird dream last night.’

No-one else’s dreams are remotely interesting. I discovered part of the reason why when travelling from Paddington to Oxford after going to one of my compulsory dining nights at the Inn when a student. I had been fascinated by one of my companions in the little mess of four which we had to have back then. We exchanged names and he said his surname was Rylands. He then stared at me and said ‘Rylands of Rylands and Fletcher.’ He was a descendant of the original Rylands, whose contractors had negligently flooded poor Fletcher’s land. It is easily done and they both at least had the consolation of becoming a leading case in tort. The Californian lady who lived above me in my younger days at the Bar had a similar problem with her family carwash in Pasadena where all the chemicals used to clean the dusty Fords and Buicks had leeched on to a neighbouring farmer’s fields and poisoned his livestock. She didn’t take up my invitation to meet Mr Rylands junior.

So, I fell into my train carriage that night dog-tired. I had been teaching at a crammer in Oxford at that time, interspersed with tutorials for Bar Finals and some dining nights. Just as I sat down, the carriage lights all fused and I hadn’t the energy to crawl into another one. Through the window a full moon gave an eerie half-light and I fell asleep. Except I didn’t, quite. The noise of the train kept me awake but my mind had switched to dream mode. I had never before (and, indeed, have never since) had the experience of being asleep while also awake. I realised then that dreams are not linear narratives, as they sound when we try to relate them to bored friends in the morning, but are more like one thought provoking another and yet another in crab-like fashion.

I had a most strange dream last night – allowing for all the caveats above. In the narrative version preferred by my conscious memory, I was attending a hearing which needed to resolve a serious complaint against some CEO. It was being held in the open-air and supervised by the solicitor registrar, who bore a remarkable resemblance to my senior clerk. Unlike solicitor registrars in the real world, who are among the most competent lawyers one will ever meet, this one, looking like Andrew, was getting into a bigger and bigger mess. Many people wished to be witnesses. He insisted on all of them swearing the oath or making the affirmation before we commenced the proceedings. He was hunting them all down in the al fresco surroundings and trying to force them to make their solemn promises with or without a Holy Book as appropriate. I, meanwhile, for some reason dressed in a surplice, was increasingly taking over the proceedings and trying to get time estimates for the hearing which no one would give. I then became very ill tempered and started lecturing them about backlogs and case management.

I awoke in a terrible sweat (the heatwave) feeling slightly queasy (the Somerset Blaster Mature Cheddar I had consumed earlier) and with a certain guilt that I might know the meaning of the dream, as with Joseph and Pharaoh.

My breakfast companion was an old college friend using my sofa to avoid hotel costs – a feature of advancing years. When I told him of my nocturnal disturbance, he gave me the ‘not a dream story’ look but then perked up. He was a medievalist at university and found that the answer lay back then.

‘Any royal events coming up?’ he asked. I said I feared it next might be the sad day in early September when the late Queen had died. ‘General pardon,’ he said. ‘Not the really awful cases, of course. That’s what they did back then. Chucked all the petty criminals out and graciously pardoned most of those awaiting their fate, all to mark some royal event. Start again with a clean sheet. End of problem. Goodbye backlog. No expense involved. It’s royal, which will confuse the hangers and floggers.’

I sipped my omeprazole-laced orange juice slowly and realised that he had just provided the perfect solution.