football – that's to say beer, bikies, mud, and physical pain." - Meaning and context.">
Ch. 3
“

In the highly improbable event of his being asked to nominate the one most un-Jewish thing he could think of, Sefton Goldberg would have been hard pressed to decide between Nature – that's to say birds, trees, flowers, and country walks – and football – that's to say beer, bikies, mud, and physical pain.

— Howard Jacobson

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "In the highly improbable event of his being asked to nominate the one most un-Jewish thing he could think of, Sefton Goldberg would have been hard pressed to decide between Nature – that's to say birds, trees, flowers, and country walks – and football – that's to say beer, bikies, mud, and physical pain." in the context of "Ch. 3" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Howard Jacobson" (Quotes, Coming from Behind (1983)) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

About Howard Jacobson

Howard Jacobson (born 24 August 1942) is a British comic novelist, non-fiction writer and former academic.