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As children we all have favourite books. Although some critics of no win, no fee compensation might struggle to believe that anyone associated with the industry was ever actually a child, when I was a tot my favourite was Maurice Sendak's wild rumpus of a tale Where the Wild Things Are.
My eldest daughter, although now too cool for anything that rhymes (unless it is expletive-ridden hip-hop) used to demand Dr Seuss's Fox in Socks as many as ten times a day, while my youngest's current favourite is Oliver Jeffer's Lost and Found.
Lost and Found is lovely book. Telling the story of a boy who one day finds a "lost" penguin at his door, it uses simple and spare watercolour illustrations, done in a style completely idiosyncratic to Jeffers. It is also a quiet and unsentimental homage to the journey of friendship. Aside from the sometimes jarring syntax, there is little to object to.
One objection I would raise, however, is that it is not at all like what happens when in real life you find a real penguin, which is something that happened to me when I was a seven-year-old boy growing up in New Zealand.
I had gone with my family on a day trip to a beach, I forget which, and, after walking across the deserted promenade with my older brother, we crossed the road to buy ourselves some ice creams from a small café. At that point I literally fell into a two feet-deep pothole, and was astonished to find myself close-pressed to an adorable and placid infant Emperor penguin.
What it was doing there was never explained. It did though attract national press. And for a brief giddy week I became "the boy who found the penguin".
I picked it up in my arms and cradling it, walked swiftly with my brother so that we could find our parents.
As you might imagine, they were apparently sceptical as my brother approached them at speed, quickly exclaiming, "Mummy! Daddy! Mummy Daddy! We've found a penguin!" You might even more easily imagine their astonishment to find me actually holding one.
How that penguin, not in any way native to New Zealand, got there remains to this day a mystery. We do know it was eventually placed with a zoo; I, sadly, was not allowed to keep it.
Anyway, perhaps you are wondering where all this talk of penguins and children's books is leading and what in the world it has to do with working for a no win, no fee compensation company: well, not much really.
But there is a thread of association and this stems from something I read this week about a huge 6.6ft diameter hole that suddenly opened up on a road in Manchester.
Pictures of the hole show it as a gaping chasm, almost certainly not leading to a distressed penguin but perhaps to some sulphur-breathed subterranean beast that lies in wait at the centre of the earth - it certainly looks like it has the potential to cause car crash injury.
Perhaps this high profile pothole will help draw attention to the fact that potholes are a major concern to the UK road user. A recent report indicated that £8.5 billion needs to be spent to address the problem in order to avoid accidents and reduce the no win, no fee compensation bill.
If asked, my advice would be get it done, but please first check for penguins.
