well as Surreptitious and Dubbelosix. Near the coast of Gaul, Dubbelosix seizes the waterskin of rock oil and, as he tries to force it open, Obelix leaps upon him, spilling the oil into the sea. Asterix has lost all hope, but when they come back to the village, they find the Gauls fighting Romans as merrily as ever, and learn Getafix has replaced the rock oil in his potion with beetroot juice. Out of dismay, Asterix has a stroke, but after being cured with the new potion, convinces Getafix to perform experiments before testing him. Thereafter, the Gauls send Dubbelosix and Surreptitius to Caesar in a gift-wrapped box. Caesar sends them to the Circus Maximus as punishment for failure, where they are covered in honey and chased by bees, with the lovesick carrier fly following behind. Notes An audiobook of Asterix and the Black Gold adapted by Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge and narrated by William Rushton was released on Hodder and Stoughton's Hodder Children's Audio. The character Dubbelosix is an obvious homage to Sean Connery, star of the early James Bond movies. Uderzo modelled him on the appearance of Connery at the time the book was being drawn. Dubbelosix uses many "ancient times" versions of the popular gadgets of the Bond movies. His name is a pun on "006" (i.e. "007") — the "six" being required for the "-ix" suffix of all male Gaulish names in Asterix, and also reflecting the number of times Sean Connery portrayed the role of James Bond on screen, which at the time was six. When attempting to cure Getafix, Dubbelosix administers "a grain spirit called Caledonian", which is explained as "Ancient Scotch". This is a pun referring to the drink and the people — all the more so since Connery is Scottish himself. The secret service run by Surreptitius is referred to as M.I.VI. "VI" is 6 in Roman numerals, and MI6 is the name of the British espionage service. Surreptitius is a caricature of actor Bernard Blier and bears some resemblance to James Bond's early bosses M (played in the films by Bernard Lee and Robert Brown) The scene where the papyrus bearing instructions self-destructs after being read is a reference to Mission: Impossible where messages destroyed themselves after being received. Saul ben Ephishul ("It's all beneficial"; c.f. Saul Goodman, "it's all good, man"), the Jew who escorts Asterix and Obelix from