Has a chubby man in a forest ever offered you a strange mandrake like plant and called it ‘do-root’? Did you take it only to find it was some sort of natural Viagra? Did the whole town you grew up in then take it, and then collectively decide they fancy the pants off you, chasing you out of town in a Bacchic frenzy of flailing limbs and other members?

Armand and Curly: fools in love?

Well – exactly this happens in KING OF ESCAPE – the feature film from STRANGER BY THE LAKE director Alain Guiraudie. It’s hilarious. And terrifying. But mainly hilarious. As an ode to this weird natural aphrodisiac, we thought we’d run down some of the weirdest aphrodisiacs around the world: would any of these get you going?

1. Cobra Blood

Yup. It’s a thing.

According to some men in China – and other parts of Asia – drinking Cobra blood is the equivalent of switching on a sexy lava lamp and the latest XX album.

2. Wine-soaked water lilies

Remind you of anything?

Ok – admittedly this one stems from Ancient Egypt and so I don’t think you’re going to walk into a Tinder-date’s flat to find him/her soaking their lilies anytime soon. But, that doesn’t mean it’s not a neat reflection of some of our modern dating techniques, how different is it from a bouquet of Co-op flowers and some Blossom Hill?

3. Eels

This makes me uncomfortable.

These are large wiggly things that emit a gross slimy substance when touched. Enough said.

4. Sea cucumbers

Irrefutably terrifying.

These are disgusting aliens which crawl along the sea floor in the far east and consume food with their anus. But hey – who am I to judge? Kahloon (one of the director’s at Peccadillo) assures me these are delicious and ‘very good for your knees’. I have my suspicions.

5. Ambergris

Nom nom nom.

Doesn’t Ambergris sound like a delicious, nectar like drink you might find in the South of France, being supped from chalices by beautiful, frisky socialites? Well, it’s not. It’s actually a hard, faecal-smelling substance scraped from the intestines of sperm whales and then bottled into expensive perfumes. That’s right; we live in a world where sperm whale poo is sexy.

6. Asses’ Milk

This guy likes it.

Shut your mind, this is the milk of a donkey, and nothing else. In ancient Arabia and Rome women would rub asses milk onto their genitals as a stimulus, and, if you’ve ever heard that myth of Roman Emporer Nero’s wife taking baths in milk, it was in asses milk, for sexy reasons.

I think finishing on Asses’ Milk is always a good call. So there we have it – my top 6 picks of weird aphrodisiacs from around the world. Just FYI, I have a really weird thing about fresh orange juice. If I’m ever drinking it around you, you don’t want to know what I’m thinking.

KING OF ESCAPE is released on DVD on March 23.