Excellent article. As media lawyer DavidAllenGreen pointed out on Twitter, “The mainstream media desperately want to discredit an adverse Mosley judgment on injunctions. Be skeptical what they tell you this week” anticipating stories on “#SuperInjunctions Ate My Hamster, Cause Cancer, and Ban Page Three”.

Mainstream Media claims the internet wrecks injunctions. Am not so sure. A few thousands see claims, right or wrong, online. Millions read claims in the tabloids, which lie around on busses, trains etc and in waiting rooms for ages.

I’m afraid you’ve rather missed the point, or at least you have chosen not to address the key issue.

What people are outraged about is not that Celebrity X demands the media respect their privacy, they are outraged at the unaccountable form in which super injunctions operate.

We know for a fact that information that Courts have ruled that information cannot be published even though there are clear arguments that its disclosure would be in the public interest. The fact that a process designed to protect individual’s private lives has EVER been used by a multinational company to suppress negative media coverage in the way Trafigura did demonstrates that the system is flawed.

Due to the nature of super injunctions, the majority of those outraged by them have no idea what the people involved are supposed to have done. However, the Trafigura and Andrew Marr cases mean that we have no reason to feel confident that these super injunctions are not, in some way, hampering efforts to keep in check the power of big business, politicians and the media.

They may well not be. But they might be, and that’s what matters, resulting in the system of super injunctions losing the public’s confidence. Those who make this point are not calling for the wholesale destruction of privacy in the UK. They simply want the existing regime to be replaced with something more accountable, defined by elected officials and in which we can have confidence.

1. In principle I have nothing against a DNA database – but I lack the condifence in the state to control the database effectivly. I know of too much abuse of existing government databases be willing to provide my DNA at the present time. There needs to be a comprehensive control of who has access and restrictions on the type of access they have. I’d be more confortable if it was regularly independently audited. As DNA technology increases – the potential dangers of having your DNA widely known will rise exponentially.

2. Personally I don’t especially ‘feel’ that I have a right to a private life. I’m aware that people may find out about the things I do, that may be made more widely known and I can expect to be held accountable for whatever those actions are. While I’m not well known, it seems naturally to me that the more famous one becomes – the more likely it is that you will feel pressures on your privacy. There are already interception of communication/harrassment laws that might be of use here.

While the right to privacy might sound nice, I really struggle to see what a workable solution to the issue would be that does adequately balance the freedom of speech. In this regard I’m somewhat of a free-speech absolutist. It is a right that trumps most others.

Absolutely disagree. Take the case of the super injunction being used to protect the reputation of two men involved in a money laundering case. Say those men were politicians or ran major banks, would we not have a right to know about it? You have every right to be angry about the public demand for personal information about people’s lives that should be private but super injunctions are not the way to combat this. The problem is systemic, and a super injunction merely treats the symptoms (and does a poor job at that).

Reference: http://guernseytrustvictims.blogspot.com/

Sorry but I can’t agree.

The current legislation regarding Superinjunctions is not just wrong because it can (and has) been stretched to cover the activities of companies such as Trafigura; but that it is used as a means for the rich to claim a level of protection unavailable to the rest of the nation.

Destroying the superinjunction; exposing those using it; especially the rich and the powerful will force them to pay attention to the desperate need to reform British privacy (and Libel) laws.

So if Andrew Marr, and other well paid celebrities cannot rely upon the Superinjunction to protect themselves; they will have an incentive to reform privacy laws in such a manner that benefits themselves but doesn’t encourage the rest of us to attack those laws as being only available to the privileged few.

The main reason so many lawyers are defending the current situation is that they clearly are the one group that benefits the most from a legal structure that benefits the wealthy and commands high fees for their services.

So I hopefully every single person and organization that currently has a superinjunction is outed. Then they might suddenly start caring about a fair legal process that benefits all of us; not just those that can afford over-priced lawyers.

This isn’t about freedom of the press; it’s not about the muck-raking media. It’s about much needed legal reform that benefits all of us. The simplest ruling of all would be that the media is not allowed to discuss ANYONE’s sex life unless they can prove that impacts on government policy making or impacts upon financial activity for a publicly listed company.

So here’s to those in power being afraid of being exposed for their hypocrisy and lies. May it last as long as they continue to benefit from a protections they gladly deny the majority.

My main issue with super injunctions is that they do little to remedy the underlying invasion of privacy and tabloid behaviors, and instead act as a case by case sticking plaster, working in the favour of those rich enough to take them out.

I’m all for respect of privacy, but celebrity super injunctions are more like a purchase of privacy, and that’s a dangerous trend.

I think both the OP and the comments are leaning towards the idea that privacy laws should protect individuals from being hounded and having their lives invaded, but not make it possible for people to cover illegal behaviour or for companies to cover the details of how they conduct their business. In which case, I’d agree, but it would probably be difficult to draw a perfect line between the two.

Great OP.

What some people don’t seem to understand is that freedoms / rights involve competing interests. The freedom of expression is not absolute and does not necessarily outweigh the right to privacy.

Anyone ever thought that a super-injunction is a guaranteed way of generating publicity once its details are leaked?

Food for thought…

maltrack,

As media lawyer DavidAllenGreen pointed out on Twitter, “The mainstream media desperately want to discredit an adverse Mosley judgment on injunctions. Be skeptical what they tell you this week” anticipating stories on “#SuperInjunctions Ate My Hamster, Cause Cancer, and Ban Page Three”.

Sure, but AIUI Mosley wants the media to be compelled to clear stories with the subject of the story in advance, which seems on the face of it ludicrous (Independent on Sunday article about Mosley’s case). I supported Mosley in his original enforcement of his right to privacy, but not this – he goes too far.

Apparently it’s in our PUBLIC INTEREST to know what goes on behind the closed doors of footballers and assorted celebrities beneath the sheets.
The tabloid press try to have us believe that our lives will be somehow the poorer if we do not know the full sordid details of the latest scurrilous affair of some Premier League superstar with some club groupy!
Apparently we MUST know because these upstarts have dared to commit the cardinal sin of attempting to use the celebrity culture which the tabloid press have created to make a better life for themselves and therefore deserved to be punished by having every aspect of their private lives dragged through the public eye for all to laugh at.

Notice the tabloids say we have a right to know about the private wrongdoings of the rich? Oh yeah. What about the Monarchy then? Oh noo they are beyond the pale musn’t expose anything about them eh?

@Chaise Guevara,

You’re right about what I think – I agree, the law should prevent invasive tittle-tattle but permit and defend the publication of genuine public interest stories, like Trafigura for instance, or an affair between David Cameron and Hillary Clinton, for instance.

But one of the confusions that bedevils this debate is the belief many people have that the Trafigura thing and some of these privacy injunctions are based on the same law. They’re not.

Trafigura’s superinjunction was (I think) to protect its legal privilege in a document it had prepared for legal proceedings. It had nothing to do with privacy law.

What I think has happened is that, in order to boost their campaign against privacy law, some people have hit on the brilliant wheeze of calling privacy injunctions “superinjunctions” whether they are or aren’t superinjunctions in fact (i.e. an injunction the very existence of which the injunction prohibits you from publishing). The effect is to press people’s rightful concern about Trafigura into service of the tabloid campaign against privacy.

It’s worked brilliantly.

I’m more concerned about hyperinjunctions which are damaging to our democracy. I can’t help but feel that the discussions about superinjunctions are distracting us from the bigger issue of judges gagging people from even speaking to their MP.

What Max Mosley is seeking is to compel newspapers to at least attempt to contact the subjects of stories they are about to publish. This is ordinarily standard journalistic practice but in the case of stories involving celebrity exposés, the act of journalists contacting the subject also gives the subject the opportunity to seek an injunction against the story appearing.

I certainly take Carl Gardner’s point, and he has been right on the money in criticising the egregious John Hemming MP. But on superinjunctions I have a bit of a difficulty. While I don’t think any less of a footballer or actor for their sexual infidelity, I do think less of them for trying to suppress the story through the courts before publication. They have the chance to sue for libel after publication if the story is wrong.

The Guardian published an annotated version of the Trafigura injunction, if people want to see it for themselves.

@George #2:

“We know for a fact that information that Courts have ruled that information cannot be published even though there are clear arguments that its disclosure would be in the public interest. The fact that a process designed to protect individual’s private lives has EVER been used by a multinational company to suppress negative media coverage in the way Trafigura did demonstrates that the system is flawed.”

Serious question; what exactly was wrong with Trafigura obtaining an injunction against disclosure of the Minton report – a procedure that has, in context, much precedent and to which celebrity libel injunctions were entirely irrelevant?

The Minton report was (i) a preliminary report based on assumed facts (ii) obtained by the company’s lawyers (iii) in contemplation of proceedings and (iv) in the event the assumed facts, relied upon by the uninformed as true in criticism of Trafigura, turned out to be wholly incorrect. In the circumstances, getting an injunction preventing publication was a no-brainer.

The only real issue was whether the existence of the injunction (and hence of the report) should itself have been published. It was unsurprising that the judge found that publication would cause unfair prejudice to Trafigura; the fact that even now people believe that the report gives the lie to reports subsequently commissioned by Trafigura and relied upon in the legal proceedings is testament to that.

@JSlayer

‘Hyperinjunctions’ are – with perhaps one exception – a figment of John Hemming’s increasingly deranged imagination.

There is, so far as can be ascertained, only one example of a case in which an individual has been injuncted in such a way as to preclude them speaking to an MP, and this appears to a commercial law case from five to six years ago.

Andrew French, who’s been the poster boy for so-called hyperinjuctions, wasn’t injuncted at all – he was advised by his own brief to give a verbal (and possibily unenforceable) undertaking not to contact Hemming on the grounds that involving Hemming would be at best unhelpful and maybe even prujdicial to his interests.

Bascially, his own lawyer told him that Hemming was a liability and he was better off steering clear of the guy.

As for the case on which Hemming broke an injunction a couple of weeks ago, the individual in that case was perfectly free to seek advice/assistance on her case from her own constituency MP (which isn’t Hemming) without any fear of sanctions from the court. Such conversations are, quite correctly, considered to be both confidential and privileged.

What she wasn’t entitled to do, was turn up an open public meeting conducted by an all parliamentary group (which is a private interest group and has no legal status in parliament, unlike MPs or parliamentary committees) and talk about her case to an audience which included MPs and members of the public.

That’s why she was hauled before the courts to explain her actions, not because she spoke to an MP but because she addressed a public meeting.

@JSlayer #13:

“I can’t help but feel that the discussions about superinjunctions are distracting us from the bigger issue of judges gagging people from even speaking to their MP.”

Cite? I think I klnow to what you’re referring, but let’s see.

I’m surprised that a progressive website should stoop to publishing self-serving stuff from the legal establishment. Check out the cases alluded to in the latest Private Eye before trying to claim the public has no right to know here. Privacy laws helped ensure that corruption by the likes of Kohl and Mitterand when unexposed in their lifetimes. Parliament has not instituted a privacy law – members of the judiciary are trying, utterly unconstitutionally, to introduce one by the back door at the behest of the likes of Max Mosley. As in Mosley (easy to understand why he wouldn’t worry about the principles of parliamentary democracy), who could perfectly well have fought his case simply on libel (for someone who claims to have suffered in that case he’s oddly willing to talk about it at every opportunity…)

@Jonathan #19:

“Parliament has not instituted a privacy law ”

Ahem:

“Article 8

Right to respect for private and family life

1 Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.”

(Human Rights Act 1998 Scheduel 1 Part 1)

The DNA data base, as operated by the police, was objectionable because of the arbitrary way in which it accumulated information on persons who had been detained by the police but in many cases not even charged. If there is a genuine public benefit in such a database, then it should be authorised by Parliament, after debate, and it should be compulsory for all inhabitants of these Isles to have their DNA on the base. People should then be dragged to special stations and held down whilst their DNA is taken. And to make it much easier to keep the database up-to-date there should be a requirement that the first thing that should be recorded for a new born infant is its DNA. Who knows, thirty years later it may help to solve a crime. And as soon as such a law is enacted I will emigrate.

Jonathan,

I’m surprised that a progressive website should stoop to publishing self-serving stuff from the legal establishment. Check out the cases alluded to in the latest Private Eye before trying to claim the public has no right to know here.

But Carl is not saying the public has no right to know. What he is saying is that the public interest is not the same as public prurience and the right to privacy is not necessarily outweighed by the right to freedom of expression.

I have that issue of Private Eye. Helpfully, the article has been published on the Private Eye website – ISTM there is a public interest in some of the cases but not all of them.

Privacy laws helped ensure that corruption by the likes of Kohl and Mitterand when unexposed in their lifetimes. Parliament has not instituted a privacy law

Wrong.

– members of the judiciary are trying, utterly unconstitutionally, to introduce one by the back door

Wrong.

at the behest of the likes of Max Mosley. As in Mosley (easy to understand why he wouldn’t worry about the principles of parliamentary democracy), who could perfectly well have fought his case simply on libel (for someone who claims to have suffered in that case he’s oddly willing to talk about it at every opportunity…)

Libel is after the fact! Why should his privacy be breached?

Parliament has not instituted a privacy law – members of the judiciary are trying, utterly unconstitutionally, to introduce one by the back door at the behest of the likes of Max Mosley.

All of which goes to demostrate the need for civics education in schools.

Seriously, the degree of ignornance on display in regards to the working of both our parliamentary and legal system is, to say the least, dispiriting.

Max Mosley’s case is, as I recall, based on the Human Right Acts, which was passed into law by parliament in the clear understanding that a privacy law would emerge in the courts as a consequence of article 8. This was actually explained to MPs and Peers before the act was passed in a briefing written by the-then Lord Chancellor, Derry Irvine.

The family court cases in which Hemming has been dabbling are covered by the Children’s Act 1989 and the Administration of Justice Act, both enacted by parliament.

As for Trafigura and the Minton Report, that seems to be the only one not predicated on primary legislation but based, instead, on common law notions of commerical confidentiality which have long been operated by the courts.

Before daming something as unconstitutional, Jonathan, you might want to try understanding how our unwritten constitution actually works – I’d suggest to start with Bagehot and work your forwards from there.

@17

Is Hemming talking out of his arse on that one? I read on Hansard it was an issue with regards to dangerous paint on water tanks. If it’s not true that these “hyper-injunctions” exist then surely someone would have pushed him on misleading the House?

It’s incredibly difficult to pontificate on the prevalence of something that you’re not supposed to know exists…

“Quite apart from the possible contempt of court these tweets represent, they’re also utterly irresponsible. How can the person know they’re true? Haven’t they considered for a moment the partners, children and parents of the people supposedly “outed”?”

If someone has an affair behind their wife’s back it isn’t the Twitterers outing them who are hurting the family is it?

Hold on though. I am not in the slightest bit interested in who(1) is shagging who(2). However, I am very interested when who(1) decides that we should not know who he (and we are mainly talking about ‘he’) is and he can afford to buy the silence of the media. I am also interested if that who(1) is a public figure and has published an opinion that the ‘ooman rights laws’ have gone to far and that these rights were supposed to prevent ‘real’ persecution, not trivial little cases involving ‘slopping out’ etc. Well if you are using those laws because you cannot keep it in your trousers, then we need to know you are using the very laws you despise.

I am also interested to know why the law relates to who(1) but not to who(2). If the media ARE allowed to mention who(2) is then by definition, it is not a human right it is a cash right. Perhaps the courts should just tell us how much money you need before you become invulnerable?

Jim,

I am also interested to know why the law relates to who(1) but not to who(2). If the media ARE allowed to mention who(2) is then by definition, it is not a human right it is a cash right.

Because who(2)’s freedom of expression does not necessarily outweigh who(1)’s right to privacy.

Somebody needs to close this italics tag.

Sorted?

sorry, please ignore me@27, i misread Jim’s post.

the problem here is simple, these injunctions are ONLY available to the RICH, if they were available to ANYONE then yes I agree its a good way to protect peoples privacy, but frankly the current system is disgustingly elitist and yet another way in which MONEY not LAW determines justice and rights for people.

Super-injunctions are the symptom of the disease, not the cause. The cause is a lack of privacy, largely due to prurience.

The media – and I include the blogosphere here, including LibCon which recently demanded the right to name the mother of a dying child – acts like the inquisition: nothing is considered ‘private’ anymore, the personal is political – no matter how personal it is – and the media demands instant public exclosure at all times. We all live in the Panopticon now.

A right to a private life is essential to free speech not a contradiction: without freedom to experiment, to make mistakes or bring form to initially formless ideas we have no thought or experience WORTH making public, nothing WORTH SAYING.

Shatterface, as usual you write bollocks.

If one is in a public position one can expect some kind of public interest. For example, as a councillor my contact details are in the public domain and my interests are on public record.

The question is one of what is reasonable. Of course, this is nuanced, so someone thick enough might find it confusing.

You seem to have also missed the business of accessibility: If the law only works for an elite group in society then there’s something wrong.

ukliberty 10 “AIUI Mosley wants the media to be compelled to clear stories with the subject of the story in advance”

Not “clear”, “notify”. Mosley wants to compel tabloids to comply with the Press Complaints Commission’s Editors’ Code of Practice, which currently they ignore when it suits them.

@Cherub #32:

I wonder if you can spot the inconsistency in your comment?

Cherub,

If one is in a public position one can expect some kind of public interest.

The legal term “public interest” is not the same as “what the public might be interested in”.

“what the public might be interested in” does not outweigh the right to privacy.

“the public interest” might outweigh the right to privacy – it depends on the circumstances of the case (to be heard by a neutral and informed decision-maker).

‘If one is in a public position one can expect some kind of public interest. For example, as a councillor my contact details are in the public domain and my interests are on public record.’

Is your sexual history, such as it may be, or the medical records of your children, of public interest?

‘The question is one of what is reasonable. Of course, this is nuanced, so someone thick enough might find it confusing.’

You know that bit about bringing form to initially formless ideas without which we have no thought or experience WORTH making public, nothing WORTH SAYING that I wrote? You might have availed yourself of your right to think things through before spouting shite.

‘You seem to have also missed the business of accessibility: If the law only works for an elite group in society then there’s something wrong.’

The fact that wealthy people can afford better legal protection than poor people doesn’t mean we scrap laws against rape or murder does it? You might well want to live your life as an exhibit – and if so, why the pseodonym? – but the rest of us value our privacy and aren’t prepared to sacrifice it just to feed the voyeuristic desires of a small number of people forever cranking the handle of society’s What the Butler Saw machine.

The current farce is also a by-product of a media obsessed by celebrity. Chomsky would argue it keeps peoples minds of the things that really matter.

I personally couldn’t give a toss which sleb is sleeping with who. The super injunctions make the media look even more moronic because their story is now they can’t report what I don’t care about. Meanwhile real stuff goes unreported , like 11 000 children daying a day of starvation. Good grief.

So what’s the betting this salacious twitter account was created by a PR person looking to discredit those speaking out against superinjunctions?

The tabloid media are now not fit to be called journalists. They are (call centre) journalists. They sit on their fat backsides and wait by a phone for some tart to ring up and say I slept with XYZ celebrity.

It is all part of the bread a circuses that distract the people from what the elites are doing. Which is robbing them blind.

@39 To be honest Sally I think you’re giving tabloid journos far too much credit there, making shit up, bribing the police, committing illegal acts in the pursuit of what can only be called “shit stories”, constantly pandering to “working/middle class” prejudices at all costs (decided upon by the editor naturally), those are the main staple of the Tabloid Journalist. If they just sat on their arse all day waiting for kiss and tell calls that’d be an improvement on their normal behaviour.

What is farcical is the idea that super-injunctions can work in the age of Twitter and the internet. The real cause of rage is that millions of people online cannot be threatened or controlled.

I should add it would be interesting to know what proportion of those backing super injunctions have nevertheless attempted to find out the names of the relevant celebrities for themselves.

For those who are interested, the Daily Mash gives a hint:

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3787&Itemid=75

If you start from the premise that superinjunctions haven’t gone “too far” then you’ve already lost the argument.

maltrack,

ukliberty 10 “AIUI Mosley wants the media to be compelled to clear stories with the subject of the story in advance”

Not “clear”, “notify”. Mosley wants to compel tabloids to comply with the Press Complaints Commission’s Editors’ Code of Practice, which currently they ignore when it suits them.

The applicant [Mosley] complains that the United Kingdom has violated its positive obligations under Article 8 of the Convention by failing to impose a legal duty on the News of the World to notify him in advance in order to allow him the opportunity to seek an interim injunction and thus prevent publication of the material.

http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2009/1840.html

I am wrong to say that “Mosley wants the media to be compelled to clear stories with the subject of the story in advance” – I have no evidence of such a “want”. But ISTM that would be the effect if he succeeds.

I think there are some hints in this piece about the suspected stories…

9th paragraph, 7th & 8th words: “shameless indugence” (typo as it is currently in the article) – made me stop and re-read. Is that a subtle way of hinting at one of the stories – oh go on – it must be?

11th paragraph, opening: “First, it’s interesting that in other contexts, many people have been whipped” – well that’s as bold as brass. I wonder which story that hints at?

For an alternative viewpoint, see FleetStreetFox: http://www.fleetstreetfox.com/2011/05/letter-to-famous.html

As FleetStreetFox puts is: “Half such stories, were they published, would have faded after a week and rarely been mentioned again.” Or as the old adage goes: “Todays news is tomorrows fish & chips wrapper”.

You would never have guessed that Mr Gardner is a lawyer, would you? Don’t the economists call this sort of behaviour ‘rent-seeking’?

He’s quite right of course. Politicians and the wealthy should have the same sort of privacy as was enjoyed, say, by Mitterrand and Chirac in France for so many years.

“Of course we need freedom of expression. Freedom to publish cartoons mocking religion.”

Which freedom is threatened by who exactly ?

“Freedom to take photographs in the street.”

Which freedom is threatened because of anti-terror laws brought in because of who exactly ?

“Freedom to publish novels without being threatened with death.”

Which freedom is threatened by who exactly ?

“Freedom to put on a play without it being closed by a mob.”

Which freedom is threatened by who exactly ?

I can’t help thinking there’s some kind of root cause involved in all the above – and it’s not any one religion. Just can’t quite put my finger on what it is …

Laban – “You would never have guessed that Mr Gardner is a lawyer, would you? Don’t the economists call this sort of behaviour ‘rent-seeking’?”

Yes, absolutely. Some years ago a strong negative relationship was found between lawyers as % of the workforce and economic growth (I spent ages trying to get the data to do the same thing for accountants).

Max Mosley has now lost his European case – cheered me up this morning

Chris,

For an alternative viewpoint, see FleetStreetFox: http://www.fleetstreetfox.com/2011/05/letter-to-famous.html

In summary,

“You don’t have or shouldn’t expect a right to privacy if you’re famous. And I wouldn’t worry about it as we quickly move on to another invasion of privacy.”

Laban,

You would never have guessed that Mr Gardner is a lawyer, would you? Don’t the economists call this sort of behaviour ‘rent-seeking’?

God forbid someone competent should comment on this topic…

He’s quite right of course. Politicians and the wealthy should have the same sort of privacy as was enjoyed, say, by Mitterrand and Chirac in France for so many years.

Why do people insist on missing Carl’s point?

Again: there is a difference between “the public interest” (e.g. a politician’s corruption) and “something the public is interested in” (e.g. a politician’s sexual activities).

@Laban & Jonathan #46 & 47:

“You would never have guessed that Mr Gardner is a lawyer, would you? Don’t the economists call this sort of behaviour ‘rent-seeking’?”

As opposed to the press which is of course acting a a sefless guardian (“Grauniad”?) of the public good? The press stance has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that scandal (i) sells newspapers and increases their owners’ profits and (ii) if it involves politicans increases their owners’ political power.

If you discount the views of everybody with an interest (however tangential – I don’t think Mr Gardner specialises in media law) on the basis of that interest you end up with a debate between people ignorant of the issues. As ukliberty said:

“God forbid someone competent should comment on this topic…”

Yesterday’s judgement in the Mosley case.

ukliberty – fair enough. I took your use of “clear” to equate to “copy approval”.

Laban, Carl Gardner has made it quite clear on Twitter that he is not practising and has no financial gain at stake. He obviously has relevant expertise and expressed it well, which is presumably why Liberal Conspiracy asked if they could repost his remarks, originally made elsewehere.

I agree that this country’s obsession with the personal lives of our “public” figures has gone to far, it’s childish and petty.

But the courts are not there for you to hind behind, philanderers. An injunction, even a super one, will not stop your wife from finding out. They will find out, as will the kids, the in-laws, your mum.

The excuse of “protecting” the injured parties doesn’t work – the best way of protecting your family from this kind of bad news is to not put it about when in a supposed;y loving relationship.

You can help it, itis your fault, and whatever the lovely judge man said, you have no excuse and you have to go tell your wife, yourself, and now.