Just what the world's been waiting for . . .

I'm afraid this might ruin the old limerick.  The Telegraph reports:

A Frenchman has developed a range of pills aimed at making people’s flatulence smell sweeter - of chocolate or of roses - which he says will make the perfect Christmas present.

The 65-year-old artist and inventor says his pills are aimed at easing indigestion and are made of 100 percent natural ingredients such as fennel, seaweed and blueberries.

The pills are sold on the internet under the Lutin Malin (Crafty Imp) website pilulepet.com and have been approved by health authorities, according to Christian Poincheval, who is based in the village of Gesvres in western France.

For this year’s festive season he has added a new product to the range which he has titled “The Father Christmas fart pill that gives your farts the scent of chocolate”.

There's more at the link.

I'm sorry, but I can't stop giggling over this one.  Considering schoolboys' obsession with fart jokes (and yes, there are even Web sites about them!), I can just see some budding juvenile chemist taking this idea and running with it in the school lab, producing his own variation on 'fart pills' that will make the result smellier than ever.  Limburger cheese farts, anyone?  Sulfur dioxide?  Butyl mercaptan (a.k.a. skunk oil)?

Oh - the limerick?  You don't know it?  Believe it or not, it was one of my mother's favorites.  It goes like this:

There was a young man from Australia
Who painted his **** like a dahlia.
The color was fine,
Likewise the design:
The aroma?  No, that was a falia!

Peter