As has often been mentioned in this blog, one of the great legal journo treats is cracking open fresh edition of Legal Business. LB is strictly for the classy, senior end of the market, like that magazine Rio Ferdinand publishes for idiot footballers. Previously, I've always enjoyed the high-quality, extra close-up photography (especially of a pile of Manc sick). The magazine is so posh that the aroma from its freshly-printed pages stinks out RoF Towers. It's the smell of success.

But how do they pay for all this sheen and monthly hard copy? The high-quality paper and glorious ludus of top legal hacks? It's the advertising, innit. And LB attracts a fine selection of branding.

Even the bread-and-butter job ads are posh. No 1PQE real estate assistants in Scunthorpe for LB, no siree. It's all partners in big firms on Tevez-like salaries. The big firms like a bit of the glossy action too. How much, for instance, did Norton Rose pay for their inside cover splash about their "new frontiers" in Canada, Latin America and - most excitingly of all - Kazakhstan?

With an international readership, no surprise that some of the firms throwing money at the mag are pretty exotic. Some are household names (although only if you're part of David Cheyne's family). But most are new - Ilyashev & Partners, Andreas Neocleous, SNR Denton. Who knew there was a firm in Mozambique called Ferreira Rocha (with this information, Legal Business is really spoiling us).

You can see why a full-pager in a smart monthly represents a good bit of business. But how to make yourself stand out? Tricky. Most go for a snap of the globe or a cog ripped from a up-market collection of stock photography accompanied by focus-grouped, alliterative text about Values, Quality and Innovation. Snore.

So far, so vanilla. Investec win a point for a funny picture of a zebra, but the prize for best advert (November 2011) goes to leading Portuguese firm (with offices in all former colonies thereof) Miranda Correia Amendoeira & Associados for its tortured and inexplicable metaphor about rally driving. No fancy logos here, just a stark NOTICE that the firm exists.

But I'm not a rally driver. Will they still act for me?

If you're lucky enough - or wealthy enough - to be a LB subscriber, you're in for a treat this month. Not only is there an inexplicable - and hence extraordinary - Singing in the Rain style oil portrait of Orrick's Ralph Baxter, but in top legal hackette Becky Pritchard's piece on Clyde's takeover of BLG, the arty devils have done some awful photoshopping with poor blameless Peter Hasson's face and teeth. And that's before you get to the cheetas savaging an antelope on page 64. Terrifying. Well done to all involved.

Excitingly, LB has - to great fanfare - finally discovered 1996 and gone online. Although, Murdochian bastards, they've kept all the good stuff behind a devillish firewall. So I'm downgrading their great fanfare to just an old man playing Land of Hope and Glory on the spoons.