Trained monkeys

I liked this from the Times, about lawyers suing for slander:

“In one case in 1639, Mr Justice Berkeley stated that it would not be a slander to say of a lawyer that he knew “as much law as a monkey” because such a statement was consistent with the lawyer also knowing more than the monkey. Saying of a lawyer, though, that he knew “no more law” than a monkey would be actionable. A sophisticated legal differentiation. And, happily, one quite evolutionarily advanced from anything a monkey could manage”.