This is the eighteenth book in the 'Asterix' series, but it feels immediately different from the rest of them. For one, it starts in Rome, which isn't unprecedented but is unusual, but it plays with the chronology by shifting back to Lutetia to explain why we're in Rome. That's new. Also new are the spoonerisms, which start out with Asterix exclaiming "Zigackly! Obelix, you're ferpectly right!" In most instances, they're delivered drunk, but not here at the outset. Even the text looks different, more raw and less polished than usual. Asterix doesn't even smile.

And that's because he's on a mission that he knows is stupid but has to pursue anyway, because it was assigned by his chief, Vitalstatistix, even if he happened to be drunk at the time. There's a lot of drunkenness in this one, among other adult themes. The best moment for me involves Asterix delivering a passionate speech designed to have him and Obelix thrown to the lions in the Circus Maximus. There's even a point where they persuade a slave dealer to sell them as slaves. I should add that there are reasons for all of this, but they all go back to Vitalstatistix being drunk.

He's in Lutetia with his wife, Impedimenta, so she can visit her brother, Homeopathix and his wife, Tapioca. They're well-to-do, as Impedimenta is keen to highlight, with a raft of servants and a posh spread of food. There are beavers' tails in strawberry sauce, cow's hoof mould and, no doubt, lots more that sounds just like what they served at the stadium in 'Life of Brian'. Ocelot earlobes? It's in keeping. At least there's a 55 BC wine, from their own vineyards. Was that a good year? I fail to recall. A bottle of that would be worth a fortune now, of course. Talk about vintage!

Anyway, Vitalstatistix hates the food with a passion but he's drunk and promises that, should they come to his village, he'll serve them a much better meal. A stew, he says, that's out of this world, seasoned with, hey why not, Julius Caesar's laurel wreath. Damn. I've said some crazy things when I'm drunk, I'm sure, but nothing that bad. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Asterix and Obelix are there too. He claims that they're his guard of honour, but mostly they seem to carry whatever Impedimenta has just bought. Obelix is drunk too and totally on board with his chief's awful idea, but Asterix knows precisely how stupid it is and says so.

And that gets them sent to Rome, though, and so we promptly skip back there to see how they're doing. As you might imagine, that doesn't mean much of a plot, what we get involving a variety of schemes to get them into Caesar's palace. Once inside, Asterix thinks they can just wander around bashing Romans until they find the laurel wreath and they can go home. Why he doesn't agree to just wander in and then around bashing Romans until they find the laurel wreath, I have no idea. It seems rather like a way to stretch out the flimsy story to the usual page count.

The good news is that this approach means that they get to meet a lot of characters, who have fun punny names. The best for me is the family of Osseus Humerus, i.e. Funny Bone, who buys them as slaves for a pittance because he thinks they're funny. His wife is Fibula, his daughter Tibia and his nitwit son Metatarsus. Even their other slaves get names. Their British slave is Autodidax and the major-domo is Goldendelicius. Oddly, it's Metatarsus who gets the best scenes, mostly because he spends most of his time drunk.

Incidentally, there's a historical gag here that ties to Metatarsus being drunk. Our heroes are put in the kitchen to spin up some Gaulish food and they mix up an unholy mess of ingredients, having realised that they're not in Caesar's palace, just so they can get sent back to the House of Typhus and sold again to the right place. That unholy mess turns out to be a perfect cure for a hangover, meaning that they're suddenly Metatarsus's best friends. He can go out and get utterly rat-arsed then come home and eat their cure and be fresh as a daisy again. Eventually, we learn that this is the beginning of the end for the Roman Empire. It's all Asterix's work, even if he didn't intend it.

That's not a particularly highbrow historical joke, but it works. A more obscure one that we might just notice anyway without realising it happened a little earlier at the slave market. At the House of Typhus, a particularly ripped slave ready to be sold poses in recognisable fashion. I got the first and fifth poses (Rodin's 'The Thinker' and Myron's 'Discobulus') and realised the third followed in suit too, even though I didn't recognise it as 'Laocoön and His Sons', the sea serpents replaced by artfully placed ropes. Apparently the second is 'Apollon of Olympia' and the fourth may or may not be a pose. I'm pretty sure it is but have no idea what it parodies.

I adore that Goscinny and Uderzo are so fond of throwing in highbrow gags like those, then switch right back to puns, the lowest form of wit. Locus Classicus and Titius Nisiprius aren't particularly strong examples but I liked Habeascorpus, the chief of a band of street cutthroats in Rome, even though it doesn't come close to absolutely anyone in Ossius Humerus's domus. That name tickles my ossius humerus for sure, even if Metatarsus is rather going out on a limb. See what this series does to me? Zigackly!

And that's about it. Of course they find a way to steal Caesar's laurel wreath, even if it happens by chance more than planning. They swap it for a fake made of parsley. Having not started out in the village, we don't end up there until the last page but one. Most of the regulars don't show up this time, though the pirates do get a cameo in one panel. They're not at sea and they don't fight any Gauls, but Caesar fought a brief campaign against them and brought them back as prisoners in his triumph.

By the way, that's a historical gag too, because they have a habit of arriving when we least expect it and often with us not noticing. Apparently the young Julius Caesar was captured by pirates who wanted a ransom for his return. He felt it was too low and persuaded them to increase it. After it was paid and he was freed, he proceeded to deliver on his promise to them to execute them. That seems fair to me. There's another one when Asterix and Obelix are being falsely tried for treason, it being believed that they planned to assassinate Caesar rather than just steal his laurel wreath. Their lawyer quotes Cato the Elder, in Latin no less, by saying "Delenda Carthago!" or "Carthage must be destroyed." That's a deep cut for sure. Cato isn't too hot in today's pop culture.

At the end of the day, this isn't a particularly strong entry in the series but it's fun enough. It has quite the message too: don't get drunk and promise stupid things to family. Next month, a return to the norm with 'Asterix the Soothsayer'. ~~ Hal C F Astell

For more titles by René Goscinny click here
For more titles by Albert Uderzo click here