Painterly wooden gavel beside small brass balance scales on a dark mahogany surface.

Original artwork, not a still

Joanna Lumley

To be a judge you don't have to know about books, you have to be skilled at picking shrapnel out of your head.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

A wry jibe about judging: the job supposedly needs no literary knowledge, only the knack of removing shrapnel from your own head. It suggests that judges endure heated, damaging argument, and survival matters more than expertise.

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