You the jury!

Jury Duty. Pain in the butt or serving your country? A bit of both as it happens. I was called up for jury duty for the second time (in my life) this week. Yup, twice in my tender years I've been called! Even though I was sat with people nearly twice my age who'd only just been called for the first time. I didn't end up being chosen which was a relief. Not because I wish to shirk my civic duties (actually, I do quite fancy doing it proper at some point) but because work remains really busy and I had to foist a bunch of stuff on an equally, if not more, busy colleague, which didn't feel good.

Having spent the best part of the day in court, it's hard not to feel that an obscene amount of money must be being wasted in the justice system. I know these things are complicated and I probably shouldn't judge as a fleeting visitor but it seems like craziness. There were easily 60 of us, if not more, called to be potentially picked for Sheriff Court Jury Duty (for the record, I've not read anything saying I can't talk about this. If you think I might be arrested, do me a favour and let me know and I'll ditch this post!). We were cited for 11am, taken in at 11.30 and by 12 we were told that something had happened to halt the case and we'd need to reconvene at 2. Shit happens when it comes to court cases - I get that - and things get delayed. Fair enough. We came back at 2, the jury were selected, we all sat about for a bit longer then the rest of us, about 3ish, were sent away and told we might have to come back again in two days. I'm not sure whether folk were called back (I had a 10 year anniversary holiday that I WASN'T cancelling for queen, country or some wee bam, ta v much!) but, even if they were, I suspect the day would go much the same and at the end, a good 50% of the people called wouldn't be used. In most cases, the court have to pay people's wage for the day, plus lunch expenses. So I guess all I'm thinking is that, while I know they have to have more people than they need in case potential jurors can't serve/don't show up/know someone involved with the case etc, it seems that there are an AWFUL lot of extra people there and, thus, a lot of money wasted. I'm totally available to work on system reform if required. For a fee. Obvs.

Anyway, more importantly (I'M JOKING), what did I wear to court? Well, I decided to go as a smart-ish version of me. I probably ruined that with the denim jacket. I also figured I needed walkable shoes because, as it was a nice day (when it wasn't pissing down), it seemed like the good thing to do to get out in the fresh air and walk on up there. Here's how it worked out for me. I don't really do smart.

dress: Vintage reproduction from vintage fair, belt: off a River Island dress, green lurex cardi: Asda, shoes: Primark, gold bag: H&M, Denim jacket: Old Navy (from da USA).

If nothing else, at least I managed to a bit of reading up on CSR for work and a bit of reading of Elle magazine too. It wasn't a wasted day after all!