Chicken Licken

Once upon a time an acorn fell on Chicken Licken’s head. Being legally qualified and rightly concerned about the risk that this would be recharacterised as evidence that the sky was falling, Chicken Licken rushed off at once to warn the King. On its journey, Chicken Licken met other dumb animals whom Chicken Licken persuaded to recharacterise title transfer collateral arrangements as secured loans, credit derviatives as insurance contracts, and synthetic PB as cash equity, and before long the legal department numbered 400 and had an annual legal spend of £800m.

But they all ran into a fox who, not being dumb, duped them all to rush into its lair, where it ate them all up.

The nervy animals never made it to the King, who remained blissfully unaware of the impending collapse of the sky. In the mean time he has made a small fortune trading delta-one equity derivatives.

See also

• Recharacterisation
• Mediocre lawyers

The standard issue drafting joke

“Did you know”, you say, “that, for a disguise, elephants paint their toenails red, and hide in cherry trees?”
“Why, that’s preposterous!” your adversary will cry.
“Aha! but have you ever seen an elephant hiding in a cherry tree?”
“No, of course not!”
“SHOWS WHAT A GOOD DISGUISE IT IS.”