The organ-building firm of Cavaillé-Coll, who supplied instruments to churches throughout the country, also built many organs for private customers – the largest being a cathedral-size instrument for the fabulously wealthy Baron Albert de l’Espée, an eccentric aristocrat condemned to solitude by a morbid fear of germs, who used to spend hours alone, immersed in the music of Wagner, in the cavernous organ-hall of the Chateau d’Ilbarritz on the rocky Atlantic coast near Biarritz.

From a piece on the Poulenc Organ Concerto. French Wikipedia adds that he played Wagner on the full-sized cathedral organ (below) with the windows open.

Here’s the Chateau:

Jessie Gugig, 15, said she could not believe the charges, especially against Mrs. Murphy, who was an accomplished gardener.

“They couldn’t have been spies,” she said. “Look what she did with the hydrangeas.”

If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

Hat tip to Dr Phillips.

Dr Phillips (whom God preserve, of New Jersey) liked this one.

Dr Boli’s other interests are eyebrow-raising, but for those you need to go to his site & follow the links.

Look at how relaxed a tomato is in its natural environment. A human does exactly what a tomato does but the tomato is in bliss because it does not need to make things up.

Help yourself. These are from the only shop I know whose name is a philosophical joke.

This wins the Hook Prize for subject line:

Open it or get constipation.

And here’s a pseudonym Thurber could have used:

Elvera Fulp.

Perhaps we could strike back.

Now that I’m off life-support, I’m writing to thank you for the green pills.

OK it works, but now my cock gets caught in my shoelaces.

Writing verse using words of two letters
Is a thing that?s not done by my betters.
But I must here have something to show -
So it is up to me to do so.

Nine two letter words! The Wordability judges deliberated long past their bedtimes: was this an actual English poem? Some said no, others didn’t hear the question. But the oldest judge pointed out that it was (a) unquestionably a poem (b) in English, even if (c) line 3 resembled something he once saw on a Serbo-Croatian desk calendar.

We do not expect to see a better entry or a wittier last line. If Dr Gillard would forward us a stamped addressed envelope his prize will be on the way.