Here's what you really should have missed this week.

Naughty boy chews gum in court

Mirza Zukanovic has been sentenced to 30 days in jail. For the dread crime of blowing a bubblegum bubble in court. Magistrate Rodney Crisp was so infuriated by this display of louche bravado that he considered that the court had been "scandalised" by the action. What's more, by "looking in his direction and deliberately blowing and popping the offending bubble", Zukanovic had "challenged [the court's] authority".

 What not to do in the vicinity of Rodney Crisp

Crisp has form. In February, he jailed a young offender for giving him the finger as he was led from the dock. So young Mirza was lucky he didn't immediately reach for the black cap. That would have really burst his bubble.

But not everyone is scandalised by the Rodder's draconian punishments. An unnamed policeman said "if there were more magistrates like this, the city would be a safer place". He then rushed out to arrest some more people on suspicion of deliberately drinking fizzy drinks,egregiously eating in front of the TV and brazenly using the bathroom.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/melbourne-magistrate-jails-man-for-blowing-bubble-in-court/story-e6frf7jo-1225881086569

MJ's kids perfectly normal

A lawyer for the family of the late Michael Jackson has described his three children as "normal as normal can be under pretty extraordinary circumstances".

I reckon that being called Blanket and being dangled form a hotel room window as a baby would be mitigating circumstances for pretty much any kind of behaviour.

http://www.411mania.com/music/news/142951/Jackson-Family-Lawyer-Says-Michael-Jackson%5C%5Cs-Kids-Are-%5C%5CNormal%5C%5C.htm

Mumbai solicitors fail impossibly-hard exam

Failure rates on the LPC are pretty low. And, given that most of it is either an exercise in remedial non-thought or the parrot-like copying of forms, they damn well should be.

But in Mumbai, the recent entrance exam set by the Bombay Incorporate Law Society was passed by only 11 of the 171 candidates. The top mark was a low 373 out of 600, with 360 needed for a pass.

 The new cohort of Mumbai solicitors celebrate their success

The exam has form. In October 2009, only 11 out of 186 passed. A year ago, 14 out of 129 passed - obviously a golden generation.

Here's the rub. To even sit the exam, you have to undertake an articled clerkship of three years - so kind of like an extended training contract. Chief examiner Dawood Mandviwala described the people sitting the exam as "not very good".

http://www.legallyindia.com/201006201000/Law-firms/no-first-timers-pass-latest-bombay-solicitors-exam-could-you-download-the-test-paper

And finally...

The Centre for Science in the Public Interest is suing McDonalds for marketing Happy Meals to children. Supposedly, you get a whole load of plastic crap in each Happy Meal. As well as a toy - which is the problem. 

Stephen Gardner described Maccy D's as "conscripting America's children into an unpaid drone army of word-of-mouth marketers, causing them to nag their parents to bring them to McDonalds".

A drone army. Do I get one of them free in my next Happy Meal?

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MCDONALDS_LAWSUIT_TOYS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT