A Touch More Treason.

Ian Hamilton, Q.C. Neil Wilson Publishing. 12.99[pounds]. 1-897784-35-X.

Ian Hamilton, Q.C., wig, gown and fall apart, bears scant resemblance to the Scottish Silk, dour or douce, who normally habituates the ringing stone passages and panelled justice halls of Edinburgh's High Court of Justiciary. Having made his autobiographical debut a quinquennium ago with A Touch of Treason, which I reviewed in these pages in April 1992, wherein was presented the authorised version of his larceny: (Was it that dishonestly appropriated, perhaps: but, intention `permanently' to deprive? this last was surely the royal Sassenachian intent) of the Stone of Scone, he now roars through the second volume thereof as racily as he scorches across the Trossachs, or wherever, astride his Yamaha FJ 1200, or whatever, at considerably more m.p.h. than the three score and ten years he is now himself hurtling towards.

This is a prosecution book. Practically everyone and everything is in the dock. The author represents Scotia, which is not to say necessarily the SNP. He bears the curse of Columba and the gift of the gab. He has also the gift of the enjoyment of life, albeit serious grumbling is part of that enjoyment. He lives his life `as though I will die within the next quarter of an hour'. This has meant that, by and large, he has done the things he likes to do. No bad way of life.

Fortunately, among the things he likes to do is writing essays, and even though some of them do display a touch of jaundice, very good and enjoyable essays they are. He writes well and jauntily of Scotland and the Scots; of his joy in his West Highland nest, Lochnabeithe, beside the self-revealing mirror of Loch Etive, whence he commutes, ninety miles there and ninety miles back, to his place of daily juridical labour; of his not-so-cordial dislike of that work place, Edinburgh, its modes and manners, and the douce New Town, its pomposities and circumstances; of the current state of the law; of your likely fate if you were to be charged with murder; of the new Kingdom of King Condom. And he airs his, often highly idiosyncratic but always highly intelligent and beautifully expressed, views on scores of other topics, direct and obiter.

If he had `been a good boy', praised the Lord Advocate, extolled the virtues of the Solicitor General, never criticised the Government -- except in a couthie, gentlemanly sort of way -- he would now have been a judge, writing judgments for 90,000[pounds] a year, instead of this book for a mite less. He would also have been, in all judicious probability, an ermine clone instead of his rough stuff (although faced with silk) self.

This is a delightful, diverting and instructive book which imparts a great deal of wisdom under the guise of wit.