In a speech in praise of spit, the comedian Bruscambille refers to the French proverb ‘Crache-moy au cul, je te chieray au nez’, that is to say ‘Spit in my arse and I’ll shit in your face’. The proverb doesn’t appear to feature in any dictionary from the seventeenth century or more modern times. Could this be an example of the oral tradition, the kind of thing people were saying to one another in France four hundred years ago? Proverbial lore? It’s certainly a striking image and you can see an animated illustration of it by Dominic Hills.

The same speech refers to newlyweds breaking open the doors of the dungeon of love with a rocket greased with spit. In an earlier speech, in praise of the pubic louse, the louse was held up as the guardian of the dungeon of love. Here is that same dungeon, as re-imagined by Dominic Hills.