The situation repeats itself cyclically, and it's always funny, no matter how serious. Someone goes to the hospital because they've inserted some blunt object rectally that they can't pass. The soda bottle is a classic and always makes me think of that Gordon Ramsay recipe for chicken stuffed with a tin can. The latest episode, much discussed at the bar, was that of the gentleman who went to the emergency room (at Rangueil Hospital in Toulouse) with serious damage to the area I won't mention, because it would rhyme. In his rectum, there was an object which, following a strict code of ethics, the doctors proceeded to remove. And lo and behold, as it was coming out, they realized it wasn't, precisely, a whip. It was a World War I shell. It measured 20 centimeters long and 3 centimeters wide, so we shouldn't imagine an Enola Gay. But of course, as a precaution, they had to call in the bomb disposal experts. Luckily, the weapon dated from 1918 and posed no risk of fireworks, beyond the patient's enjoyment. I speak to all of you, readers, with a certain scatological frankness, because we come from where we come from. Our most celebrated literary figure is Patufet, the boy expelled by a bull, rectally, as the poem glosses: "The bull farted and out came Patufet."

It's not entirely unusual for people to go to the emergency room because they've inserted an object into their rectum and can't remove it. What is more exceptional is that the object in question is a 1918 artillery shell. Medical staff at Rangueil Hospital in Toulouse (Occitanie) were stunned early Sunday morning when they discovered that the object a 24-year-old man admitted to the emergency room had in his rectum was an artillery shell. The story has been reported by various French media outlets, such as Le Figaro, France 3 and The Dépêche du Midi