We begin with a medical bulletin. Thanks to the wonders of antibiotics (see last week’s post) and her inner strength, Bernice bounced back from her bout of strep throat in good time to pull her weight in last week’s preparations for Pesach. (Just as well: I would have felt bad leaving her at home with a packet of matza and a flask of tea while I went to a hotel for chag.)

Instead, we turned down numerous invitations from family and friends. With Micha’el and family celebrating with other Israelis in Portugal and Esther and family (I rather like the sound of that) celebrating with Maayan’s parents and siblings, Bernice and I held a seder-à-deux (thereby turning the enforced format of 2020 into a voluntary tradition in 2022).

No arguments about who was going to sit next to who; nobody fell asleep at the table; Bernice recited Mah Nishtanah faultlessly, found the afikomon very quickly, and was not unreasonable in her ransom demand; there were very few arguments about whether we fill the third cup now or later, and at what point we sing what. All in all, a very satisfying evening, and we even both managed to find the time on Friday afternoon to prepare new insights to bring to the table.

(My insights, incidentally, were gleaned from the amazing Lamm Heritage Archives, of which I was, to my shame, completely unaware until last week. This is a collection of PDFs of Rabbi Norman Lamm’s original typewritten sermons and addresses, complete with his pencilled emendations, spanning over 50 years from the middle of the last century. As a pulpit rabbi, and as the president of Yeshiva University, Rabbi Lamm brought a fierce intelligence, immense scholarship, and an insightful awareness of the significance of current events to his sermons. If there is anyone out there who is unaware of this amazing resource, as I was, and who might be interested, I cannot recommend it too highly.)

Looking back again to last week’s post, allow me to brag about the fact that I achieved a very significant milestone last week. I believe I became a social media influencer (even though I’m not at all sure what that is). It came about in the following way.

You may remember (but probably don’t) that I made a passing reference to the Waddington board game Buccaneer in last week’s post. A dear friend posted a comment saying; ‘My favorite game ever. ! played for many wonderful hours…. I often wish I still had it to play with the grandchildren.‘

Reading that, I went back to eBay, where I had found the illustration I used in my post, and sent her a link to one of the several boxed sets available for sale. I of course selected one of 1958 vintage, which I knew would be the set she remembered, as it was for me. The same day she WhatsApped me to say: Awesome idea !!!!! Brilliant! We‘ll get on it !’ and, a little later: ‘Done !’ She was even thinking of buying another one to send to her cousin as a birthday present.

This all left me a little dazed, not least because I had only sent her the link as a joke. I now begin to feel a terrible weight descending slowly but inexorably onto my shoulders. Am I going to have to start weighing my words now, and considering what effect my careless trifles might have on impressionable readers? Am I acting irresponsibly when, every Sunday morning, I just sit down at the keyboard and just allow myself to be led wherever the fancy takes it? Do I need to consider more responsibly my target readers and my relationship to them?

To which, after due consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the only answer is: Not bloody likely!

(Far-from-brief editorial aside: I am allowing myself to sully my post with this expletive, since it is a quote from one of the classics of English theatre – George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Pygmalion’. Eliza, in her first public attempt to pass herself off as a lady, responds to an enquiry as to whether she plans to walk home across the park: ‘Not bloody likely! I’m going in a taxi.’

In 1914, when the play was first staged, theatre censorship was a legal requirement, and all plays had to be submitted to the Lord Chamberlain’s office for pre-performance approval. The office’s report included the following:

The Play is entirely without offence, except perhaps to the opinions of old-fashioned people who must be accustomed to having their opinions offended in modern dialogue. [Ed. Note: There really is nothing new under the sun.] I notice, however, one detail. On Page 46, the word “bloody” slips out of the as yet only partially educated Liza and on the next page a silly young woman uses it under the impression that it is part of the new “small talk”. The word is not used in anger, of course, and the incident is merely funny. I think it would be a mistake to be particular about it, but since the word has been forbidden in other plays– in a different sort of connection, however– I mention it.
Recommended for license.

Although the word stayed in, and no less an actress than the great Mrs Patrick Cambell, playing Eliza, uttered it on stage in London and, later, New York, the usage gave rise to a delightful euphemism. For some time after the premiere, Londoners, in print if not in speech, favoured the expression: ‘Not Pygmalion likely!’)

While I was trying to decide who my target audience is, a phrase came into my head that I have not heard for some time: the man on the Clapham omnibus.

[Editor’s notes:

‘Omnibus’ is the correct word for which ‘bus’ is merely an abbreviation. It is Latin and means ‘to or for, by, with or from everybody’, which is, as Michael Flanders pointed out, a very good description.

Clapham is an area of London which, when the phrase ‘the man on the Clapham omnibus’ was first used in a court of law, was a lower-middle-class commuter suburb with reasonable access to the financial and legal district of the City of London. We can picture the nominal ‘man’, therefore, as an office clerk. (These days, to be able to afford to live in Clapham you are far more likely to be a lawyer, accountant or stockbroker than a mere clerk.]

Possibly the first use of the phrase as we know it was in 1903, when Lord Bowen, hearing a case of negligence, said: ‘We must ask ourselves what the man on the Clapham omnibus would think.’ In other words, what a reasonable layman of reasonable intelligence would think. The phrase is often used when arguing how to interpret a less than clearly written text, for example.

Incidentally, the Clapham omnibus itself features in a much earlier reference. I don’t know how much of a comfort this will be to any of you reading my blog while stuck in London traffic, but here is a quote from 1857: ‘So thoroughly has the tedious traffic of the streets become ground into the true Londoner’s nature, that … your dog-collar’d occupant of the knife-board of a Clapham omnibus, will stick on London Bridge for half-an-hour with scarcely a murmur’. [Ed. Note: There really, really is nothing new under the sun.]

Since his first appearance, the Clapham commuter has travelled around the world, putting in appearances (so Google tells me) in Australia – as the man on the Bondi tram (Sydney) or the man on the Bourke Street tram (Melbourne), or the man on the Prospector (a rural passenger train) to Kalgoorlie (Perth) – and even in Hong Kong, as the man on the Shaukiwam tram.

One final diversion, if I may. Apparently, ‘a moron in a hurry’ has recently emerged as the obverse of the man on the Clapham omnibus, in cases where intellectual property rights may have been infringed. If I try to flog really bad copies of Nike shoes, for example, and Nike take me to court, the judge may dismiss the case, claiming that only a moron in a hurry could possibly confuse my ‘knock-offs’ for the real thing.

Of course, my dark secret – as I am sure all of you realise – is that I am not writing for the man, or the woman, on the Clapham omnibus or, for that matter, John or Jane Doe or Fred Bloggs. I’m writing for David Brownstein. If John, or Jane, or Fred, or, indeed, you, want to eavesdrop, then you’re all more than welcome.

Meanwhile, in Zichron, Raphael is taking an increasing interest in the world around him, and, in Penamacor, Tao shared one of his new books with us last week during our video call.