The Diary's occasional column sparks back into life this week with a contribution from Peter Charlton, the London managing partner of Clifford Chance. He delivered the following joke to a bunch of inebriated legal hacks in a boat bobbing about on the Thames somewhere near the firm's headquarters-to-be at Canary Wharf.

A German, an American and an English lawyer are in a light aeroplane that is experiencing some turbulence. So the pilot comes on the intercom and says the plane is too heavy and one of them is going to have to jump out of the plane. Thankfully for the English and US lawyers, the German lawyer volunteers to do the right thing and steps out of the plane.

But a little later, the pilot comes back on the intercom and says it's no good, somebody else is going to have exit the plane. This time it is the US lawyer who volunteers. Then the pilot comes over the intercom again and asks the English lawyer to bail out. Naturally he refuses, so the co-pilot goes to the back of the plane and throws him out. When he returns to his seat he says to the pilot: "Hang on a minute, what's wrong with the plane." "Nothing," the pilot says, "I just hate lawyers."