Strange lands, strange lingo

 

Just before the holidays, I stopped at Science World to see what their gift shop offered in the way of kids' stuff.  As I strolled from Point A to Point B, avoiding children who were out to be heard loudly if not seen, I looked up at a giant screen and found that I'd been morphed into………Darth Vader!?!?  Was I a victim of an alien snatch?  Or an Artificial Intelligence scam?  Whatever planet I'd landed on, would I need to learn a new language?

 

And language was very much on my mind.  Through a friend who's a financial advisor, I've been invited over the past months to a series of on-line talks by experts in various fields related to aging and retirement.  Lately,  I'd sat in on a 3-part series to do with estate planning.  The expert was a bright, pretty, young lawyer who is dually qualified to practice law in Canada and in her native Britain. (Is it fair to have all those gifts in one package?)  Just think:  Here's a young woman who has walked in Charles Dickens' footsteps.

 

When I asked if British law students have a go at his novel "Bleak House" (click HERE to see why), she looked mystified.  That's okay because, in answer to another question, she volunteered her "favourite expression in English law – hotchpot, which gives us the hotchpot clause."  

 

Ooooh.  This was pure gold! Without at first even knowing what it meant, I couldn't wait to have as much fun with "hotchpot" as I'd had with those other legal terms, "frolick and detour" and "incorporeal hereditaments."   You can find official explanations here and here.  And if you're keen to learn about the culinary use of hotchpot – or hotchpotch, or hodge podge – try this for "pot" lore and more about the word's 14^th century origins.

  

But for simplicity's sake, here's an example of legal hotchpot that sticks in my mind:  A parent has several children and advances $10K to one of them for a down-payment on a house.  The parent wants to be sure that his children are treated equally in his will – so he adds a "hotchpot clause" that states that any sums like this are to be counted against that child's share of the parental wealth so that, on division, the others are not shortchanged.  Otherwise, the housebuyer might be said to be double-dipping.

 

Got it?  Sort of?  So how was I going to translate this into a painting?  I kicked around all kinds of ideas and all kinds of sayings that might apply.   Scrooge McDuck (Donald's uncle) in his money bin even made a brief appearance – my childhood idea of what a rich man's wealth might look like.

 

 

I wrestled with this for more than a week and finally decided…oh, heck, maybe this is a time to hunker down and do a semi-serious copy of an actual painting.  The idea of a card game came to mind – winners and losers, games of chance, etc.  Looking for a source, I happened on "The Card Game" by Lucas vanLeyden, a 14^th century Flemish painter, and I rolled up my sleeves to begin.

 

Who are these people? – perhaps three aging siblings who are playing the hands they're dealt and looking to get their piece of the pie?  (Note that no pie is evident in the original.)

 

By the way, as word associations go, "Early Flemish painting" always strikes me as boring – until I remember that one of my favourite all-time paintings is this one.  Another painting by the same Pieter Brueghel the Elder is entitled, "100 Dutch Proverbs"  and is said to illustrate just what the title promises.  Some are listed in the link.

 

 

Well, here goes with the hotchpot painting.

 

I knew that guy on the right was going to give me problems.

 

In fact, I should have paid more attention to the guy on the left, but I was bedazzled by his sleeves -- and his hat that would have befitted a Beetle Being.  So, with its many flaws (and many lessons worth learning), here's the final.  Let's call it "No Cheating" (copyright 2023) – and dedicate this post to someone who's a world-class legal mind and pie baker!

 

 

While we're upholding the right way to do things, let's go back to those British law courts for a minute.

 

 

Is it possible that at Science World, I was morphed into one of these barristers – minus the wig, of course?  Umm.  Doesn't have quite the same appeal – and now Darth Vader is walking off in a huff – or maybe Darth has gone to scout the snack bar for his piece of the P-I-E-E-I-P-Pie?  (You really must click on this link!)