Going Christmas crackers

The Insider, along with many in the legal profession, will be going on her Christmas break in a week or so. My current employer is relatively civilised about it; recognising the wastefulness of opening and heating up the building for the handful of students who would actually turn up over the festive season, they will be closing for a whole 12 days—nearly a fortnight away from the grindstone. Her Majesty’s Courts Service takes a similar view, with courts up and down the country closing for the Christmas break so that law firms really are very Scrooge-like if they continue to insist upon their staff coming in to the office.

That does not stop many firms. Previous employers of mine have been distinctly ungenial; I well remember one firm that used to let us all go at lunchtime on Christmas Eve, but never announced this until…lunchtime on Christmas Eve. At the time I was married to someone whose mother lived 200 miles away, and who insisted upon our presence at