Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Something’s still bothering me, sir…

...as Columbo would say, shambling through the frame, scratching his head, puffing on his inexplicably green cigar and riffling through his notebook.

It's about yesterday's story - the "Google StreetView divorce" thingummy. I think it's clear now that the post by Idiot Forever, claiming to have hoaxed the Sun, was a hoax. But is the hoax hoax about something that isn't even real? Stay with me now; we can get through this.

Mark Stephens (the media lawyer quoted in The Times, not the man who claimed to have thought up 'Mark Stephens' from a random name generator) says this:

Talking about away games, my divorce department has just received its first instructions based on a wife who spotted her husband’s Range Rover at a lady friend’s house, when he said that he was away on a business trip. The putative ex-husband has a singular interest in pimped-up hub caps that were apparently the identifying feature. I suspect the husband’s lawyers will consider bringing in Google as a third party to indemnify against its invasion of privacy that has cost a marriage and will cost him his Range Rover.

Something's bothering me about this.

First, what on earth's going on? Would a lawyer really be able to talk about an ongoing case like this? Surely it would be a breach of confidence to do so - or at the very least unprofessional. Something strikes me as odd about this. I certainly would instruct a firm about a divorce case if I knew it'd be telling all and sundry through the press about the grubby details. Would you?

And is Stephens talking about seeing the Range Rover on Google Street View? Because that wouldn't appear to make any sense. GSV is done once, and then left on the internet. It's not as if the Google cars are patrolling the streets all the time, constantly updating the street views for our pleasure - not yet, anyway. So how did the woman in question know her husband's Range Rover was parked outside her friend's house on a day when he had claimed to be somewhere else, given that she couldn't possibly have known when the Google cars were going around?

Thirdly, surely there are quite a few Range Rovers which have blinged-up hubcaps? Surely that's not enough evidence?

I'm now beginning to wonder if this is a hoax about a hoax about a hoax. I wonder if Mark Stephens couldn't possibly talk about real ongoing cases at his law firm, and so decided to provide an example of the kind of thing they might be doing...? I'm not saying that's misleading, it's just not quite as accurate as it could be, is it?

I don't know. Perhaps as an experienced media lawyer he'll have his eye on the ball and be able to explain to us what's going on here...?

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