In 1998 I reviewed for the London Review of Books three books concerned, from very different standpoints, with interpretation: a new edition of Francis Bennion's practice manual on statutory interpretation, a volume of academic essays on law and interpretation, and a book by Mary Brennan and Richard Brown, Equality Before the Law: Deaf People's Access to Justice.

Not long before, I had tried a group of profoundly deaf teenagers on a murder charge and had seen both the difficulties which lack of hearing created in court and the skills with which the defendants and their interpreters coped with these. It is possible that, in this light, the review displayed some tetchiness towards the etherialities of academic debate.

At the time this essay was written the drafter's explanatory memorandum, the notes on clauses, became public only when they were placed after a gap of 30 years in the Public Record Office. It has since become the practice to publish explanatory notes with every parliamentary bill.