This is a guest post by the Law Librarian of Congress, David Mao, who is back from a recent business trip to London, England. Last week I attended a meeting in London, England. While there, I took the opportunity to go sightseeing. The picture to the left shows the front gate of the St. Pancras building …
It would be wonderful if this post were about all kinds of laws drafted by the Ministry of Magic. It’s not. I’m sorry. While England did at one point have laws regarding witchcraft on the books, those days are long gone. Instead, in what can only be considered to be the highlight of my social calendar …
The Holiday season flew by again this year. It truly is my favourite time of the year. When not frantically cooking or wrapping gifts, I always spend a part of my time feeling a bit homesick. I compensate for this by watching Masterpiece Classics on PBS; although, there are only so many period dramas I can …
As mentioned in my previous post, during my day-to-day work at my cool job, I never know what I’m going to stumble upon. It so happened that, as I was gathering information for my post on sumptuary laws, I came across a page of ‘legal curiosities’ compiled by the UK’s Law Commission and published by …
When doing my cool job, I never know what will cross my path. Recently, I happened to discover some items covering early sumptuary laws in England. These laws were prohibitions against what the Monarch at the time considered to be “extravagance,” typically in the form of food or clothing. They were reportedly aimed to preserve the class system …
In a related theme to gruesome, violent ads (commercials) being removed from programming in the UK, as described in my previous blog post, the UK has censored an entire film (movie). The Human Centipede II has failed to get a certification (rating) from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). The BBFC is an independent, non-governmental …
This is my first post back after my recent jolly jaunt back to dear old Blighty. One of the first stops that I make when I land back on British soil is to my local fish and chip shop (chippy) where I have a delicious, but artery clogging meal (normally chips, a battered sausage, and …
With the marital celebrations of Prince William and Kate Middleton only a week away, the question flying around some people’s minds is whether Will and Kate have a pre-nuptial agreement (also known in England as a ‘marital property agreement‘) in place. The use of pre-nuptial agreements has not been widespread in England, due mainly to …
This is my first post since I arrived back from having my baby (a beautiful girl who, with four brothers, is going to be well taken care of). I am combating a strong urge to write about maternity leave legislation in the UK (it is very generous), but instead have decided to write about something …