Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a plurality, lectured the nation with the bromidic insight that, “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

He was fascinated by the possibilities of reanimating a dead metaphor, playing with the bromidic visual formulae of mass culture, asking questions about inarticulacy, probing the tension between surface and depth.

But you can tell when he means it and you can tell when he’s being bromidic, which is much of the time.

And with that bromidic, banal analogy out of the way, let's get down to the business of the day.

Probably, even in that less bromidic day, there were not lacking a few hundred guests to commit the ancient wheeze anent May and December.