Day: November 18, 2003

From this week’s Weekly Review:

Newly declassified files from MI5, the British intelligence agency, revealed that in 1940 German saboteurs had planned to attack Buckingham Palace with exploding cans of French peas. Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as governor of California.

Let me just say, it’s not the frozen peas I find ridiculous.

I’ve uploaded the four most recent newsletters to the Monty Python Society website. Besides my brief attempt at Barry Manilow parody, this week’s issue features the following quiz:

Monty Python Character or Band Name?

In the spirit of “Dead or Canadian?” and “Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer?”, Completely Different is pleased to bring you this little quiz. Can you guess which of the following are band names and which are characters from Monty Python?

Gwen Dibley
Lady Chatterley’s Hamster
Flying Fox of the Yard
Bullwinkel Gandhi
Mystico and Janet
Neville Shunt		 Toad the Wet Sprocket
Uncle Mingo
Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
Johann Gambolputty
Ewan McTeagle
Attila The Stockbroker		 Mr. Pither
Mrs. Grundy
Three Monkeys Named Bob
Ximinez
Timmy Williams
Screaming Iguanas of Love

Without cheating, how well do you know your Python characters or obscure band names? I’ll give you a hint: one of them’s a trick.

As I told my mother on the phone last night, the whole sketch comedy show is starting to feel a little like a job for which I’m not getting paid. A lot of the initial fun has gone out of it, I think in large part because I haven’t seen an episode since the premiere. I think I lost some of my drive after the live show. There was talk about streaming video online, but for that they first need a website. And there was talk of getting us a DVD of our first season, but I’m worried that’s going to fall through (like a lot of the other talk), and I won’t actually have anything to show for this.

At the same time, I’m still trying to convince the Monty Python Society that we should record a new CD. There, the fun of performance and writing really hasn’t gone away. It’s a much smaller group, and we’re much more informal, so I guess that’s only natural. I’m not sure if the Society really needs to record a new CD, but we have a pretty good stockpile of material. I know it’s something that I’d really like to do.

I have always sort of regretted not getting a chance to record that love song I once wrote about diarrhea…