It’s a brave lawyer who mentions their profession in public, as several Nicholson Graham & Jonesers discovered last weekend. A team of runners from the firm, which was sponsoring and acting as legal adviser to the British 10K Road Race, hit the streets of London the weekend before last to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust and the Lord Mayor’s Appeal for Save the Children. But rather than receiving thanks for their help, the team – the members of which were conspicuous in their bright-green T-shirts bearing the phrase “British 10K Official Lawyers” – received oodles of abuse. Obviously, fellow runners, whose brains were no doubt addled by the 30° heat, decided the lawyers were to blame for everything. “If you’re the f***ing official lawyers, where’s the water?” cried one desperate runner in search of a drinks station. Sadly, the target of the dehydrated athlete’s abuse was not actually a lawyer, but one of the firm’s secretaries.So, Martin has been packed off to a Menorcan boot camp for two weeks of intensive dinghy sailing. Maybe when he gets back, the Macfarlanes partners should have a whip-round, pop down to the ships’ chandler and buy him a captain’s hat.