A wonderful thing has happened. Law and Justice have co-incided to the shattering relief of the innocent.

In 1999 Post Office, as we must call it, installed flawed computer software from Fujitsu called Horizon. It made sub-postmasters & -mistresses appear to be defrauding the company through false accounting. Many were prosecuted and jailed. More had their lives stripped of dignity. All will carry the damage for life. On Friday, the Appeal of 39 (from 335) found their convictions to be “an affront to the public conscience” and overturned them. It was professional negligence on an obliterating scale.

We love guddling new words. The Meaning of Liff was the formal accumulation of what millions of us lacked the energy or where-withal to do, namely compile a volume of words with illustrious, riotously fresh&frisky definitions. Written by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, it was published in 1983 as ‘a humorous dictionary of toponymy and etymology’.

Well, yesterday we were delivered of a new compound noun whose grave meaning, alas, is anything but joy-padded enginuity. Rather, it compasses

keeping silent when validating acknowledgement is professionally & empathically required

Protected by the Church and the Cabinet Office, there is a living (sic) embodiment of that description captured above whose compound noun (… or adverb, mebbie?) is

Paula-Vennells

Let us all hope that in virtue of this, no such moral bankruptcy will suffocate others’ lives again.

Nick Wallis, journalist&broadcaster has done heroic work revealing this catastrophic episode, making an astounding contribution to national life through his series of radio programmes, The Great Post Office Trial. Dogged, fearless: remarkable investigative journalism.

☆ To be clear, emotional intelligence demands the courage to be straightforward with the world. Clarity of communication dissolves the need for hiding. When possessed of that resilience, all is brought into the light. Life and Liff : both easier as a result.

madeleinebaird.com/blogos