‘Dead Parrot’ Still Dead…But Real

There's always that shudder of dread whenever one clears the throat and dares bring up a classic sketch by those Oxbridge lads from Monty Python. Do it in the right circles (and you never know when you're IN those circles until it's too late) and you know there will be some OCD individual or other who will insist on reciting the entire bit, no matter how many times his (and it IS usually a he, I'm afraid) partner tugs his arm and says "Oooh, not here Jerry." He can't help it.

For nearly 40 years we British TV fans, and a great number of "casual dabblers" besides, have been brought up on the group's verbal acrobatics and, as a result, can no more resist the compulsion to go on about our inability to foresee the Spanish Inquisition than we can stop a recitation of our social security number once we've begun. And one of our chief Pythonic delights: the ex-parrot.

It's a Norwegian Blue parrot specifically, dead though he might be, that Michael Palin has tried repeatedly to sell John Cleese all of these decades: "beautiful plumage." And now an assistant curator of natural history in England has popped up in the headlines saying he discovered the fossilized remains of the Norwegian Blue -- its wing, actually -- in Denmark. That said, the bird could also have flown in Norway, he says. This piece, which comes to us by way of Yahoo! India (who knew?), includes the following bit of Pythonesque wit from the good Dr. David Waterhouse himself:

"I specialise in bird fossils and am also a Python fan, so I have lived with jokes about dead parrots for years. Obviously we were dealing with a bird bereft of life, but the tricky bit was establishing it was a parrot."

[Do be sure to check out an insightful interview with Python Eric Idle in 30 Years of British Television, now available on Amazon -- your helpful author.]

Life imitates British TV

Sure, we all laugh at Little Britain, until one of their routines comes to life. Like thousands of other people, your’s truly may or may not be caught in American Airlines’ cock up (we shall see when I head off to the airport tomorrow morning). I had the pleasure of chilling out on hold for 1 hour and 20 minutes this morning just for the opportunity to speak to the American equivalent of Carol from LB.

“Can I switch flights, at least?”

“Computer says no.”

FINALLY!

Pop the champagne corks and dance on the desktops! After months and months of work, proofs for 30 Years of British Television finally have been sent off to the publisher for review! Sure, we may be a tad cross-eyed from the DIY indexing (see previous entry), but the book is finally completed! (Not thinking about corrections, not thinking about corrections, not thinking about corrections…)

Final proofing!

Just finishing up the proofing stage of 30 Years of British Television. Very soon it will be ready to hit the press!

The Admirable Kryten

While working on the introduction to my 1997 interview with Red Dwarf’s Craig Charles and Robert Llewellyn (Lister and Kryten), I was pleasantly surprised to find that the former is now a regular on the long-running British soap Coronation Street, and the latter has plunged deeply into new media. You can check out Llewellyn’s Web site at www.llew.co.uk, and his series of YouTube clips at www.youtube.com/bobbyllew.

Idle By Name, But Not By Nature

This week and next finds us rounding the home stretch as we put the finishing touches on 30 Years of British Television. I’m continuing to write new introductions to each of these 12 interviews. Today, I’ve been wrestling with putting the lengthy career of Monty Python alumnus Eric Idle into some kind of context. True, reams have been written about that comedy juggernaut, but condensing the accomplishments of a single member to fit snuggly in a page or two is anything but easy. The man does not stop!