Taken from a late great uncle’s booklet of quotes and press cuttings, this gem comes from a medical bulletin that described the ailment that caused French President Pompidou to miss a diplomatic dinner in April 1974:
“a benign lesion of vascular origin situated in the anal-rectal zone and intermittently hyperalgesiac“.
Piles!
The French named the famous Beaubourg building that he commissioned whilst President, the Centre Georges Pompidou in his honour; perhaps it should have been called Pompidou’s Pile!
Postscript: Pompidou died less than two weeks after this diagnosis, but not from piles; he was actually suffering from a form of lymphoma.
