Two weeks ago in this column I wished that Tom Lehrer would tell us what he made of Benjamin Netanyahu's nomination of Agent Orange for a Nobel Peace Prize. Sadly we may never know, though I think we can guess, because the great satirist has died aged 97. The word genius is wildly overused but we can make an exception with Lehrer; nobody I can think of could sum up the darkness of the human condition and have the listener weeping with laughter.

His Vatican Rag (Two, Four, Six, Eight, Time to Transubstantiate) predictably infuriated the Catholic Church and I Wanna Go Back to Dixie (I wanna talk with Southern genn'lemen/put my white sheet on again) met the wrath of students at Carolina University who burned his effigy, were a soundtrack to our long car journeys, though only if the passenger was like-minded.

Despite a panning from the Herald Tribune and the po-faced Evening Standard, Lehrer sold out tours here and in the US but spent most of his life teaching maths (or math singular as it's America) at his alma mater, Harvard, and occasionally writing an appropriate Cold War ditty like We Will All go Together When We Go and of course Wernher von Braun (Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?)

He was one of a long and hopefully unstoppable line of brilliant Jewish song writers and composers, particularly in the US, who have entertained and made us think for over the last 100 years. Robert Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Burt Bacharach, Irving Berlin, Elmer and Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, the Gershwins, Billy Joel, Lerner and Loewe, Randy Newman, Stephen Sondheim, Kurt Weill and the great and often overlooked Warren Zevon whose use of satire in his rock music was on a par with Lehrer ('Bring lawyers, guns and money, the shit has hit the fan'.)

As for comedians, the list seems endless and I hope it is; Woody Allen, Mel Brooks aged 99, Phil Silvers (the immortal Bilko), Goldie Hawn, Danny Kaye, the Marx Brothers, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David and Gene Wilder. 

But how come Jewish people are so creative in the arts to the extent that they dominate almost every category? They make up just 2.4 per cent of the US population and 0.2 per cent of the world's. Is it because they have sought, subliminally or otherwise, to find a way out of centuries of persecution? Do they work harder at their chosen subject or vocation? Perhaps they rise to the top to shake off the unwarranted reputation of Shylocks.

To a lesser extent the Irish have overcome a history of domination by their unfriendly imperial neighbour and appalling sectarian violence to produce way more than their fair shares of great writers from Swift, Wilde, Congrieve, Shaw, Joyce, O'Casey and Yeats to Heaney, John Banville, Edna O'Brien and Colm Toibin. They are pretty good at rugby too. Oh and the Republic has a budget surplus of 23 billion Euros. How Rachel Reeves would love that.   

So farewell Tom Lehrer, the man who Princess Margaret insisted on meeting thinking he was Danny Kaye. Alas, he never wrote a song about that but he did say she was disappointed "because I am so dull". He wasn't.  He was the most brilliant chronicler of our lives and times. Nobody did it better.

*****

That was quite a weekend of sport; the Lions won the series against the Wallabies thanks to three of the five tries by Irish players; there were further heroics by Ben Stokes at Old Trafford and the ladies in Basle made such compelling TV. Tuning in late to the Euro final the first words I heard by the commentator was "That is this summer's must-have accessory, a tampon for the nose". Well, it is women's football.

The story from the ever-brilliant Test Match Special team was, predictably, on a rather higher plain. Recalling the 2005 Ashes series in England which many regard as the greatest yet — well, we did win — a retired archdeacon wrote in to say he had been at the Oval for the final Test. This made him late for a diocesan meeting with his bishop. "I explained to him that I had been detained relocating some ashes.”

"Perfectly understandable", said his lordship, "and well done".

*****

Let's hear it for Bradford (Bratford in local speak). The Mail on Sunday reveals that residents in one road, Gain Lane, in Thornbury, a suburb of this year's City of Culture, are trying to persuade Royal Mail to change their postcode from BD for Bradford to LS, denoting Leeds  This is because houses on one side of the street with the LS postcode are worth £100,000 more than their BD neighbours.  

Through a family connection I got to know the place well and can report that it is a fine Victorian city and gateway to some magical countryside in the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors. Birthplace of Frederick Delius, David Hockney, Denis Healey (born in London but brought up in nearby Keighley), JB Priestley, actor Timothy West and Brian Close, the former England cricket captain and of course the Bronte Sisters from Haworth, nine miles away.

Thanks to the influx of Pakistani immigrants to work in the post-war woollen mills there are some great restaurants, from the original caffs in the front rooms of terraced houses to the uber-smart Mumtaz, a Bollywood sort of place with beautiful Bollywood types.

About 40 years ago I drove straight from the Express to Bradford to meet a friend for what he promised would be a great culinary experience, genuine Karachi-style food in one of the city's oldest Pakistani restaurants. I parked outside the place and as I was getting out of my Expressmobile my pal John came rushing from the restaurant telling me to ditch the jacket and tie.

Why? "Because they'll think you're the health inspector!"

For the record, we were the only white people in the little restaurant and the food, for which we had to pay on ordering, was utterly delicious. And no, it didn't go on my exes.

*****

A word about Stephen Bacon, affectionately known as Sizzling, who has died. He was a delight, a highly skilled lawyer with a natural affinity for journalists and, like his predecessor Justin Walford, strove to get copy into the paper rather than the reverse, a tactic adopted by lesser legal brains.

Stephen was kind enough to recommend a colleague from The Times to look through the manuscript of my book and keep me from trouble. The last time we met at length was at the wake for our dear friend Terry Evans. RIP Stephen.

AND FINALLY

A press release announcing the forthcoming documentary and film series adaptations of my book Toto and Coco describes me as an 'award-winning veteran journalist'. No awards sadly, I failed to win the Lopes Cup despite valiant efforts. And veteran? Never! 

ALAN FRAME

29 July 2025