I went to Philip Argy‘s retirement lunch today, it was strange to be amongst the legal glitterati of Sydney and it was very kind of Phil to invite me. Special guests were former Chief Justice, Sir Laurence Street, and Senator Helen Coonan (who assured us she was not presently suffering from “relevance deprivation”). I refrained from throwing any food at either guest speaker (in spite of various tweets requesting it).

Many people drew word pictures of Phil’s character (determined, resolute) and his demeanour (hyperactive, argumentative) and all of this rang true for me. But for me the thing that I’ve always enjoyed (apart from the chocolate milkshakes) is the inquiring mind and willingness to explore new ideas. It’s what makes Phil a great lunch or dinner partner.

But it was when I realised that Phil has yet to be introduced to the LOLspeak and LOLcat memes that this post had to be done. Phil you need to check out to icanhascheezburger to successfully deconstruct my good wishes from lunchtime today.

On a more serious note, Phil is an eminent lawyer in the areas of intellectual property, science, technology and competition law. He has been a quite geeky type who still programs, and has done much public service for the ICT industry as well as being a former ACS el presidente, and many other eminent person type of things.

By Carruthers via Aide-mémoire http://w.sharethis.com/widget/?tabs=web%2Cemail&charset=utf-8&services=facebook%2Cdigg%2Cstumbleupon%2Cdelicious%2Creddit%2Cblinklist%2Cnewsvine%2Cfurl%2Ctailrank%2Cmagnolia&style=rotate&publisher=91b467b0-fcb3-4e42-95e0-1f04ad0c9be9