Origins of the Biss Clause - Samuel Biss: A biography

Samuel Norman Biss was born in Ibadan, Nigeria on Christmas Day 1985 to Clayton Israel Biss, a progressive Jazz Saxophonist from Egham, Surrey and Moldovan professional mime Josephine Ian Biss (née Stalin).

Clayton Biss - circa. 1987

   

Samuel’s parents arrived in Nigeria in the April of that year to fulfil a contractual obligation to the then Nigerian minister for the Arts; Dr. Lawrence B. Assan-Edonye, who had seen the couple perform at a top London Jazz venue three years previously.

Samuel’s birth was a difficult one owing to his disproportionally large trapezius muscles; his mother Josephine was forced to stay in hospital for an additional ten weeks of convalescence. Unfortunately for the family this enforced stay in hospital meant that their temporary Visas expired before they were able to leave the country legally. Afraid to face the brutality of the Nigerian leader Ibrahim Bagda-masi and with no one to assist them the family went to ground and made a modest living performing their unique blend of Jazz-Mime in rural townships. After five long years they were eventually able to save enough money to pay for rudimentary transport to the coast where they would stow away to England on the British Naval Destroyer, the HMS David Bowie.

The family settled in South West London and Samuel was finally able to attend school. It soon became apparent that Samuel had a gift for words. His prep-school English Master Reverand Leroy Del-Mar described him thus:

“Samuel’s ubiquitous verbosity matched and even surpassed his monolithic social presence around the courtyards and corners of our school. At the age of 9 he submitted a 5000 word treatise on the cultural significance of early urban music pioneers East 17. He was head of the school’s debating society and once made legendary American linguist Noam Chomsky weep with frustration as they jostled for dominance in a specially televised debate on the socio-economic impact of imported limes. He was a marvellous little boy and if it wasn’t for his fondness for that barbaric sport of Rugby Football I strongly suspect he could have been one of the great British thinkers. I have not seen nor heard anything of him since except that he had turned his back on words and was working with numbers – banking or something ghastly like that. Such a shame.”



Chomsky on the brink of tears during

the infamous televised debate with Biss - June 1996



By now Samuel had indeed began working in banking but unbeknownst to many he maintained a keen interest in words. One evening, at his local Rugby Football club, he happened upon a conversation about a game that had evolved on a social networking site whereby participants composed short puns around pre-determined parameters. He joined in but soon found that the abundance of poorly thought-through and crude puns diluted his enjoyment and the participation of others – the sheer volume of entries was inhibitive to inclusion and quality. And so he proposed a clause to the founder of the competition: that each participant is allowed to enter a maximum of five puns per competition. “The Biss Clause”, as it became known, was popular and increased participation considerably in the first few weeks of its use.

Samuel N. Biss lives and loves on – he is engaged to television personality Aneka Rice. They live in a converted mosque in Wandsworth with their twin sons Arcadius and Hercules and their adopted daughter Irene (aged 51).