This week, Austin has been watching the world shrink, and discovering there is only one - and not six- degree of separation between himself and Nelson Mandela.

I’m in international mode this week. Two main reasons: my son has just come back from a trip to South Africa, and an old friend has just come over to Scotland from Australia.

The son and heir to my estates is a student with a background in school and university debating. Having represented Scotland abroad, he was invited to be a judge at the African Schools Debating Championships. So for a week he was looked after, entertained and put to work by the powers that be in Johannesburg, having a thoroughly fascinating and rewarding experience of a country round the bottom of the world, both different and similar to ours in various ways. Thanks to the wonders of modern tech, we were able to keep in touch with him in what is no longer a dark continent, with calls, emails and texts keeping us posted. Highlight of the week for him and us was the brief text “Just shaken hands with Nelson Mandela”. Yes he met the great man at the debating ceremony.

His Mum and I were of course always thinking in the back of our minds of the notorious danger of crime in that nation, made worse by the plethora of radio and newspaper pieces on South Africa as it approached the elections. Murder capital, robbery epidemic, AIDS rampant - all were the lurid headlines. Thankfully Lafferty Junior met nothing but courtesy (everyone called him Mr. Jonathan , or Sir. He’ll probably now insist we do too). For all its size, he thought Jo’burg dull, and all the nicer places were gated off for security.

He also in the course of the week met some judicial personages including two SA high court judges, one of who was an anti-apartheid campaigner himself in the old days. I was moderately envious, as I would be most interested to have been there to learn more of the legal system of South Africa – thrown into sharp focus by the news stories of the dropping of racketeering charges and acquittal for rape enjoyed by Jacob Zuma.

We were relieved when he texted to say he had touched down safe and sound in London , but overall there was no sensation on our part that he had been far, far away and was now back in civilisation – he lives away in England at Uni anyway, so we’re kind of used to him not being around. And not being around but being in Africa was not so dissimilar to him not being around and being in Oxford.

The sense of the world being a small place was heightened by a traveller in the other direction. My friend who lived across the road from me in Kings Park when we were schoolkids now lives with her husband (also Glaswegian) in Perth, Australia, and was over to see relatives in Glasgow for two weeks just past. We managed to meet up for a coffee in their hectic schedule, which was a delight – but again, not an earth-shattering moment of reconnection. You can keep in touch with almost anyone around the world by e-mail, Facebook, Skype, mobile phone/text. Physical proximity is a pleasant addition, not the only game in town.

I am tempted to stop there. We all are aware to a greater or lesser extent of the communication revolution which has taken place- and which we are still living through. Twitter , Bebo, Youtube (which in Glasgow should have the second syllable stressed instead of the first ) are all with us, and I am sure there is much more to come. Within 5 years we will just twitch our nose and be able to see images broadcast directly into our brains. We truly then will be Bewitched.

So the world is shrinking. And it is becoming more homogenised – I was just listening to a programme about Hungary in which the participants were bemoaning the process of giant glass and steel taking over from the delightful, unique and ancient architecture in Budapest that is a fine amalgam of European and eastern influence. Whether you think modern buildings are carbuncular or not, there is certainly a universal modern style around the world. But what then about law around the world and in our own land?

Coming back to my globetrotting son, he is shaping up to jump into the legal fray in due course. He has recently completed an internship at an English firm, and expects to pursue a career in English law, very much with my blessing if he needs it. But from that moment when he becomes an English solicitor, that role will not define him or limit him, and the kind of firm he will work in will have an international practice. When I occasionally talk to youngsters up here who are thinking about the law, I recommend that they shape their studies and their entry into the profession to keep their geographical options open as far as possible. One of the few regrets I have is that in my day (crikey. what kind of old fogy do I sound like? harrumph) only a very very few looked beyond urban or suburban legal practice in Scotland. I was certainly limited in my aspirations and qualifications, and now wish I had not been.

I had the interesting experience a couple of years ago of doing a legal phone in - no change there - but for the whole of the UK, on property matters. I had to bone up on English conveyancing law and procedure (fascinating) and answered questions from viewers in Suffolk and Yorkshire. Sassenach conveyancing is much like ours, but I cannot consider opening an office in Cambridge or Truro. I am stuck in Cambuslang or Tranent. You may ask why would I want to move to Cornwall? My answer – why not? And then move or expand again, to Cardiff, or Cockfosters, or … Corfu.

International commerce and finance are one thing, but I guess it would be too much to expect substantial homogenisation of legal systems for the kind of laws that affect ordinary citizens. But the more consistency there can be the better for people and lawyers. The rise of European law is of course a powerful wave that sweeps over all of us – don’t know if you read last weekend of the European Court ruling that all admissions by accused persons without the presence or advice of a lawyers are inadmissible (that was the Sunday Mail version, so I guess it may be more complicated in the detail). If followed here, that would blow open our criminal procedure. I am in a case for a commercial agent dismissed by a company. He is not an employee, but a self-employed agent. European law allows him notice with a payment equivalent to up to two years’ earnings from the employer. That’s transnational law in action in my own territory.

I would love the opportunity to go and practice in, say, France. But I suspect that vigorous and youthful though I feel, turning the ship round at this late stage in the voyage is likely to be an impossible task. If law were like engineering, accountancy, dentistry, then crossing borders would be much easier. And in spite of my pride in the merits of our legal system (though we should never forget our shortfalls too) I would like to be more of a citizen of the world. I do feel parochial. When I go on city breaks to the likes of Paris, Madrid, Rome, I like to nosy into the courts to see how they deal with crime and civil litigation for an hour or two. Still not sure what the Italian for a two-cop breach is though.

So maybe it is because this week I am like Puck, putting a girdle round about the earth in a few minutes , seconds even, to talk to friends and family abroad, but I have again raised my eyes beyond the horizon of these shores, and gazed, if a little wistfully, at the great beyond.

Austin