“Derbyshire’s hilarious and eventually fatal attempt at treehouse

construction”? Feu! This is the tree house to end

all tree houses, the Taj Mahal of tree houses. Daniel Liebeskind keep

calling to ask about points of technique. Far from being “hilarious and

eventually fatal,” my tree house is serious and life-enhancing. Strike that

reader from the subscription lists, Kathryn!

A column in which every third word is “buggery”? Let me work on that.

(I *did* once do a book review for NRODT in which I used the words “buggery”

and “bastardy” BOTH IN THE SAME SENTENCE. When I proudly pointed this out

to Jay Nordlinger, he said: “Derb, that’s just like anyone else using ‘and’

and ‘the’ in the same sentence…”)