Spot the frippet: dung.

Okay, what's brown and sounds like a bell?

DUNNNG!

Oh all right, please yourselves. It made me laugh, anyway.

I have a French friend who, if I tread in some dung, says: if that had been your left foot it would have been lucky.

I don't know if that's a genuine French proverb or whether she's just a bit weird.

Anyway, dung is marvellous stuff. Just think, people pay extra to have their vegetables fed on dung instead of nice clean fertiliser (that's often what organic means). 

Do keep an eye out for some dung today.

Come to think about it, keep an eye out for dung every day...but if it's your left foot it might just be lucky.

Spot the frippet: dung. I chose this word mostly for its surprising history. The word dung comes from the Old English word for prison. Before this it was related to the Old High German tunc, which was a cellar roofed with dung (you can see why one of those would make a good prison), and before that the Old Norse dyngja, which means manure heap.