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The Diary: Benchmark

RETIRED Glasgow Sheriff J Irvine Smith has often featured in the Diary, so we are pleased to discover in his just-published autobiography, Law, Life and Laughter, that he did indeed once tell a felon, when finding him guilty, that he was a "fecund liar".

The good sheriff had misgivings that the chap did not understand him, but his solicitor reassured Irvine afterwards that while his client did not know the word “fecund” he knew one which sounded remarkably similar, and had told his solicitor that it was the first time in his criminal career that he had heard the bench using language which he could really understand.

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