Look What You Made Me Do: The FRJ Attempts to Shoehorn Itself into Taylor Swift’s Engagement

Author: not signing name on blank space (Polly Morgan)

The time has come for the FRJ to shamelessly grasp for relevance among those down (bad) with popular culture.

Unless you have been living under a rock, you will be aware of the engagement of Taylor Swift and burly American football guy Travis Kelce. While some members of the FRJ committee are indeed under a rock, probably thrown at them by the Court of Appeal, others have been demonstrating an unexpected familiarity with Swift’s oeuvre. And not the ones you’d expect.

Would this enable us to comment intelligently on whether she would have a prenuptial agreement (almost certainly yes)? What about ownership of the engagement ring and an apparent difference in approach between US jurisdictions (a conditional gift) and England and Wales (traditionally an absolute gift)? Would leading counsel pronounce on whether the reported $97 million wealth of Swift’s cat Olivia Benson be considered a matrimonial asset in light of Standish? Or would we be like the Times and decide to respond to her engagement with an article that her marriage is likely to end in divorce, as a woman is the higher earner?

Just how was the FRJ to approach this in a way that was, unlike the Times, tasteful and appropriate? Should we draw on the crib sheet kindly provided to us – yes, really – by a leading firm? Of course not. It asserts that the Folklore era is the worst era. The FRJ cannot countenance such philistinism.

Surely the only way forward is to recognise the kinship that Swift has with the financial remedies practitioner, something that has admittedly gone unrecognised to date. After all, ‘Sorry, I can't see facts through all of my fury’ is the witness’s mantra. Who among us has not had clients determined to ‘go down with the ship, white knuckle grip’ or studied ‘No Body, No Crime’ for pointers? Who doesn’t so much want ‘the penthouse of my heart’ as the actual literal penthouse?

We are all Taylor Swift.

Author bio: The author owns a Folklore cardigan, but if you attempt to write ‘mine’ on her upper thighs, she will start a DASH risk assessment.