Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 23hI have a new hero and he is a Chinese manservant called Lee: counselofperfection.substack.com/p/lee-is-mar... 010
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 14/10/2026Come to the Kalisher Lecture given by Joshua Rozenberg KC (Hon), celebrating The Kalisher Trust's 30th Anniversary, at the Old Bailey on 9 November at 5.30. Tickets are free by application here: www.thekalishertrust.org/2026/10/14/t...thekalishertrust.orgThe Kalisher Lecture 2026 - The Kalisher Trust9 NOVEMBER 2026, 5.30pm at the Central Criminal Court In this, our 30th anniversary year, we are delighted to announce that the Kalisher Lecture will be given by Joshua Rozenberg KC (Hon). Joshua is... 000
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 14/10/2026If you like a laugh at the cinema and you don't mind laughing in French Comédie-Française is a very funny French comedy. 000
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 13/10/2026There’s a lot to be said for simple, speedy, summary justice. There’s also a reason why there’s an automatic right of appeal from the Magistrates’ Court. 031
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 12/10/2026Has it ever been harder to raise sons? My latest piece in @thespectator1828.bsky.social: spectator.com/article/the-...spectator.comThe trouble with raising sonsI’ve seen too many teenage boys shrug their shoulders when asked what they intend to do when they leave school. Leaving things to chance means leaving them with little chance. 122
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 11/10/2026Childhood is being able to produce a list as long as War & Peace when asked what you want for your birthday. Adulthood is asking for time and silence. 071
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 10/10/2026Iran, and now the United States of America, among a tiny handful of nations that countenance public executions. As John Steinbeck puts it in East of Eden: ‘kind recognises kind’. We are a LONG way from Paradise. 052
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 09/10/2026The 2yo struggles to join the conversation at supper and when the urge to contribute overwhelms him he bursts into Baa Baa Black Sheep as the only coherent sentence he knows. Probably helps that everyone then joins in. 2122
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 09/10/2026Watching someone you love die, a small part of your soul goes with them. Watching someone die in violence, a small part of your soul is taken with them. Public executions are not a public good. 2155
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 08/10/2026“I'm fond of fire and crickets and all that, A lobster salad and champagne and chat.” - Don Juan. Byron would have smashed social media. 131
Reposted by Max HardyMarie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 08/10/2026very bad for me, a person with extremely poor impulse control and tiny feet, to have realised that Skechers sell kids shoes with a CAR GARAGE in the heel in what I believe may actually be just about my size www.amazon.co.uk/Skechers-Boy... 3947426
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 06/10/2026I don't know why these people keep saying 'the silence is deafening', if you live with 3 boys under 10 the silence is never deafening it is LONGED FOR. 030
Reposted by Max HardyStephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026One thing I find endlessly funny about the rise of AI is that it has revealed that there is a large number of people who believe that the reason they wrote essays at school or university is their teachers were desperately waiting for them to provide a definite answer to “Lear: what’s up with him?” 6857931249
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 05/10/2026True fraternity is the fellowship of men in the cause of virtue. Anything else is a league of devils. 020
Reposted by Max HardyDavid KC @davidmuttering.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Ходим кругом, Карманы полны цветов, Апчхи! Апчхи! И все мы падаем is Google Translate's offering for Ring-a-Ring o'Roses in Russian, just in case 3281
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Nursery worker. End of day. Sing song voice, starts exhaustively reeling off a moment by moment account of the entire day. Catches my eye. Normal voice: ‘He’s fine’. Me: ‘Thanks, see you tomorrow’. 040
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 04/10/2026If the Government implements its proposed trial policies there will be vastly fewer cases eligible for jury trial in the future than now. That's a funny way of 'saving' jury trial. The lay magistracy should not have powers of imprisonment at all let alone for 2 years. 250
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 02/10/2026In 2004 I interned in New Orleans working on death row cases by day, by night I socialised with debutantes. This is an introductory essay to a short series of excerpts from my diary of that time: counselofperfection.substack.com/p/death-row-... 030
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026I keep on seeing these posts about things being 'a sign of respect in toddler culture'. Are these people for real? Toddlers have no culture, they are the original Barbarians. 050
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026What’s incredible is how contradictory the Americans are about it. Prisoners serving decades before arbitrarily the moment of death euphemistically comes disguised as a medical procedure. All the delay tacitly acknowledging its wrongness with never the moral courage to abolish it. 040
Reposted by Max HardyAlex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 01/10/2026When I first read about the death penalty as a child, I thought it was barbaric. Still do. A state that gives itself the judicial power to kill debases itself and everyone it involves in that repulsive business. 1130736
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026If America was so confident in the justice and dignity of the death penalty it would not take 30 years to execute an offender then fail in the task by dressing up death as a medical procedure. Killers brutalise their victims, killing them brutalises everybody. 0161
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026How could anyone with a mind or a soul favour Artificial Intelligence over Actual Intelligence? The only AI worth a damn. 030
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026My Party Piece for the Spectator: spectator.com/article/your...spectator.comYou're never too old for a partyPrudes may insist otherwise, but parties in your 20s are about one thing: sex. If you come with someone you are going home with them; if you meet someone you hope you are going home with them. For a d... 012
Reposted by Max HardySwelterTheChef @swelterthechef.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Assume it will go left to right. Will there be a special one for Chinese visitors that goes right to left? 011
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Something the British Museum urgently needs to do is instal a slow moving travelator next to the Bayeux Tapestry, as per the Crown Jewels. Universal grumbling about the queue definitely takes the gilt off the gingerbread. 122
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026You have to take an ethics exam before becoming a barrister. Increasingly seems a good idea for young men to take an ethics exam before joining society. 061
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026The Bayeux Tapestry is a work of wonder. Bring a good book about it for the queue. Longing for someone to film a drama about its embroidering, that would go some small way to balancing the 600 men to 6 women depicted. Also piquant that Prince William calls his brother Harold! 041
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Swifties will be hoping this quartet of tracks is not a Richard Strauss Easter Egg. 000
Reposted by Max HardyJohn Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 24/09/2026Everyone, stop what you are doing. I've discovered there is a politician called Teresa May running for city council in British Columbia. And this is from one of her campaign videos. Never have two people with the same name had such different vibes. 59741124
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Let your actions do the talking and leave the words to others: counselofperfection.substack.com/p/bring-back... 011
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 21/09/2026A masterclass here in how to cross-examine your children. 1327
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Given the extent to which AI hallucinates case law I think we can safely assume that when it executes Armageddon we can expect Pluto to go up in flames. 031
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 18/09/2026If you’re Gen Z and getting into ‘vintage’ 90s fashion and music know that you’re about to be getting a lot of 90s ‘news’ too. 000
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 18/09/2026And parents wonder why their children choose estrangement. 070
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 17/09/2026The Duke of Wellington said publish and be damned. He wasn’t wrong. 040
Reposted by Max HardyCrime Girl @crimegirl.co.uk · 17/09/2026Andrew Thomas KC: ‘Curbing jury trials is about cost-cutting not delays’ www.thetimes.com/article/d0a6...thetimes.comAndrew Thomas: ‘Curbing jury trials is about cost-cutting not delays’The Criminal Bar Association chair talks to Catherine Baksi about why we need juries, his love of the criminal Bar and his pride in being Welsh and northern 0134
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 16/09/2026If you’re a barrister and you run into a judge at the weekend the correct etiquette is to address them as ‘Judge’. Conventionally they call you ‘Mr’ in return. This feels very Jane Austen though and no doubt prompted a judge recently to greet me with ‘Hey Man’ instead. 060
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 16/09/2026AI can’t be that bloody intelligent if it’s going to kill us all. Who’s going to pay the electricity bill when we’re gone? 282
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Parenting is getting into bed after a long day and being spiked by a plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex that your son left there and feeling equal parts livid and amused. 040
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Here’s a piece I wrote for The Spectator about school to parent communication: spectator.com/article/spar... 011
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Has anyone ever tried to calculate the number of lives cost, the money spent and the time devoted to the USA treating the USSR as its enemy only for Trump to capitulate, almost completely, to Putin’s wishes? 011
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 13/09/2026I know we’ve subsided into semi-literacy thanks to the Internet and AI but I’m reading ‘Watership Down’ to the Hardy Boys and wondering whether 1970s kids could seriously read French epigraphs? 162
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 13/09/20269yo asks to put 2yo in car seat. Fine, I say, delighted. 5 minutes of anguished wrestling later he looks at me, appalled. Welcome to childcare, kid. 040
Reposted by Max HardyMax Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 13/09/2025You know you’re living in strange times when Last Night of the Proms feels like the least jingoistic thing happening in Britain at the moment. 1655393
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Unfathomably rich men are buying Reform for them not for you. If you vote for Reform you are voting for them not for you. 1114
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Long week, evening with the family, 2 year old screaming the house down. Who needs Whisky Sour when you’re having a Cortisol Cosmopolitan? 010
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 11/09/2026My sister’s account of witnessing 9/11. As she says, the antidote to terror is kindness, true that dreadful day and true always: www.newsweek.com/twin-towers-...newsweek.com'I Was Staying Across The Street From The Twin Towers on 9/11'At the area we were evacuated to, one block away, we began to see people jumping out of the towers, It was absolutely horrifying. I spoke to a woman who was distraught because her husband worked in th... 031
Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Explain it like I'm 5 but why can't we stop the AI apocalypse by just unplugging the machine? 272