
Those of us who do revel in the comedic potential of, say, holding down your own father and trumping onto his eyelids, are seen as juvenile, puerile, somehow less sophisticated.
And yet, a few hundred years ago, farting was seen as such a legitimate form of entertainment that there were even professional farters employed by royal courts.
Most of us have heard of the great French flatulist Le Petomaine, who died in 1945, but go back even further and you'll find the likes of Roland le Fartere entertaining King Henry II (and making a good enough living from it to be able to afford a 30-acre estate in Suffolk), and references to "musical farters" in the book City of God - written by no less than Saint Augustine himself.
William Langland's 14th Century allegorical poem, Piers Plowman, even appears to rank farting as a valued social attribute akin to playing the harp: "As for me, I can neither drum nor trumpet, nor tell jokes, nor fart amusingly at parties, nor play the harp".
Indeed, farting - and other bodily functions - can often be found illustrating medieval manuscripts. Here's a whole bunch of them (NSFW, if your employer is likely to be appalled by mostly bad drawings of monks having a poo).
"Put some clothes on, Geoffrey, and then you can lecture me. Amen."
"No no no."