Penguin's counsel Richard Rampton QC bleats about the costs of this libel action to the publisher, knowing full well that it was not in fact costing them a penny (they were insured):

 

Day 10:

MR RAMPTON: And I do not either and I, perhaps, in some sense have as much interest in this aimless ramble as your Lordship because the longer me and my team are in court, the more money it costs my clients. I am OK, but it is quarter past 4 and we are not sitting tomorrow, but if this start up again on Friday, I am going to have something to say about it.

 

Day 13:

MR RAMPTON: It is very difficult. I am very conscious of the amount of time that this case could take. That means I am also conscious of the amount of money it could cost my clients, never mind court time and the time of all the people involved. I have taken the view, right or wrong, that, if I have three or four, or maybe two or three, or even five or six, dead cert winners, to use a colloquialism, in any particular topic, I am not going to spend a lot of time having argy-bargy about minor points with Mr Irving. I have one more what I regard as dead cert winner to finish which is this business about ND3052 or ND3051 because I have chased that it and I know the answer. But if your Lordship should take the view at the end of the cross-examination of my expert witnesses that certain points have gone from the case, well, why then they have gone, but if Mr Irving should take up with my expert witnesses things I have not cross-examined him about, why, then they will come back into the arena

 

Day 16:

Q. At which point Mr Rampton decided to interrupt

MR RAMPTON: Yes, and there was a very good reason for it, if I may say so. I do not want to spend a lot of time in this court at my clients' expense listening to cross-examination that leads nowhere.

 

+++

 

Also, as a belly laugh, you might like this little item of Day 28:

MR IRVING: My Lord, you have considerably more experience than I do in cross-examination, and some of your clients have ended up in prison [Jonathan Aitken] and some of them, no doubt, have been acquitted or have been awarded large sums in damages [Lord Aldington].

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is kind of you to put it like that. Now let us get on with the cross-examination.