By Toutatis!!!!

Yes I know, some people have far too much time on their hands and it has become common amongst grant seeking academics to hang their latest research on popular culture, especially if  they can make it a bit controversial.

Asterix history debunked but Gaul myth will endure

The Asterix comic books, first created in 1961, have done much to mould popular beliefs about the Gauls through their diminutive, moustachioed hero and his corpulent sidekick Obelix.[Ed. ‘Well covered’] 

But the books by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo have got it almost all wrong, according to the exhibition "Les Gaulois" under way at Paris' Cite des Sciences.

For a start, the Gauls were not forest dwellers but lived in complex towns and villages, aerial archaeology suggests, clearing woodland to raise cattle, sheep and pigs, and farming cereal.

But then we come to

What!!!!!

Any fule kno that  Obelix is a Menhir sculptor and delivery man , he wouldn’t know a dolmen even if the sky were to fall on his head

I guess the author has never read an Asterix book in his life either that or perhaps he is a Roman and as everyone knows “These Romans are crazy”

As a ‘well covered’ gentleman myself, I feel it is my duty to point out another example of ignorant, not bothered to research journalism.

ADDENDUM
Something I didn’t know, that literally made me smile.

Obelix's name is a pun on the French word obélisque (obelisk), suggested by rotund physique and his habit of casually carrying heavy stone monuments (menhirs) around with him. In fact "obelisk" is also (in both French and English) a variant of the word obelus (obèle), a typographical mark ("†") often found in a companion role to that of the asterisk, after which his friend Asterix is named. [Ed. Nice]

Very, very clever and a huge tip of the hat to René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, the Asterix books from my youth still find their way into the bathroom on occasion when there is a shortage of reading materiel.