ABSTRACT
In a lecture given at Cambridge University in 1998 entitled ‘The Future of the Common Law’,3 Lord Bingham, then Lord Chief Justice, noted that his was the second lecture of that title delivered at that University in a little over a year. His Lordship likened his position to that of PG Wodehouse who, in the preface to his novel ‘Summer Lightning’ acknowledged that there was already in circulation a work by another author bearing the same title. Undeterred, Wodehouse expressed the hope that his own book might be included in any future list of the 100 best books called ‘Summer Lightning’.
