Court

When I was growing up in Liverpool we had a joke:
Q: What do you call a Scouser in a suit?
A: The defendant
Today I was the man in the suit. I was in a Small Claims Court, in rural Northern Ireland, bringing the case of the faded kitchen blinds to the attention of the local magistrate.
There are seven blinds in our farmhouse kitchen, and they cost an arm and a leg. When they started to fade, after a year, my princess took them back to the fancy place where she bought them; she was expecting the shop to replace the faded fabric...
But the owner of the shop refused to accept any responsiblity for the fading of the blinds. She said my princess had 'misused' them and that's why they'd started to fade.
She asked a solicitor for advice - who seemed defeated from the outset. He said, "It's not really that much money! It's not like it's a 10,000 pound leather sofa set that's faded..."
My princess is an emotional woman, especially when she thinks she's being cheated and patronised. It was decided I would take over the case, and she would take deep calming breaths.
Today the magistrate looked at my faded blinds. The shop repeated its intransigent stance that the blinds had been misused.
The magistrate said, "But the blinds are faded. Anyone can see that."
He awarded in my favour. The shop is going to replace the faded fabric.