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"Doug, please tell us what are the greatest television shows of all time?"
A couple of caveats first. (1) This is pretty much a list of US and UK TV shows -- it is conceivable that there are Canadian or Uzbeki TV shows that I haven't seen that are absolutely brilliant (but I doubt it, having spent a week in Trinidad where the cheap cable channels were all filled with breathtakingly bad Canadian TV shows). (2) I didn't set any arbitrary number like the "top 10 TV shows of all time" or the "best 100 TV shows of all time." Instead, I just wanted the TV shows that are inarguably better than any other TV show ever made. So I ended up with 34, since the drop from #34 to #35 ("Beavis and Butthead") was very steep.
And to answer in advance the whiny complaints of a few cultists -- yes, I HAVE seen The Simpsons, Friends, the Sopranos, Dr. Who, Dragnet (bubbling under), The Prisoner, Lost, Top Chef, The Wire, I Love Lucy, Dexter, the "original" British version of the The Office, Six Feet Under, and (especially) The West Wing. They're not even in the same ballpark as the 34 best TV shows of all time.
N.B.: I have not seen Mad Men, I Claudius, Homeland, or Breaking Bad, so I reserve the right to add them to the list later.
So, no more suspense, you finally can all know the truth -- the best TV shows of all time (in reverse order).
(34) The Bob Newhart Show - How can you go wrong with Bob Newhart's scripts, Chicago as a setting, and the smoking hot Suzanne Pleshette as the sex object?
(33) Fawlty Towers - People who talk really funny are really funny.
(32) Girls - Nudity knows no weight barriers as a plus to a TV show's rating. Plus this makes the Oberlin tuition we paid go down a lot easier.
(31) LA Law - "Send lawyers, guns, and money."
(30) Carnivale - Serious TV shows kind of miss the point of TV. If I want to be serious, I'm not turning on the boob tube. But every rule has an exception or two, and this is the third-best Sci-fi/fantasy show to ever grace the rube tube (and, yes, I have seen Twin Peaks).
(29) Star Trek - The second best sci-fi/fantasy to ever appear in Newt Minow's vast wasteland.
(28) Monty Python's Flying Circus - They do talk funny, but their funniness extends all the way to brussel sprouts, which is impressive for those who grew up in the land of the numbingly bland BBC.
(27) The Twilight Zone - The best sci-fi/fantasy show to ever appear in couch potato world.
(26) The Beverly Hillbillies - I have seen a lot of "Best TV shows of all time" lists that leave Jed, Jethro, and Ellie May Clampett off the list. This is a much clearer sign that we are in the Final Days than whatever is happening in Syria or Israel right now.
(25) My So-Called Life - Clare Danes absolutely nailed what it's like to be 15 in America. Agreed, what it's like to be 15 in America might not be that riveting ... but it was CLARE DANES (who inexplicably has never done a nude scene).
(24) 30 Rock - A show that made an art out of going for broke and doubling down on jumping the shark, with the incomparable Sarah Palin (I mean Tina Fey), who regrettably has never done a nude scene.
(23) The Rockford Files - "Jim, don't walk through that door!"
(22) Duck Dynasty - I have never seen a list of the "best" TV shows on the Internet that mentions Duck Dynasty. All those critics are going to be mighty embarrassed if they manage to live another 25 years.
(21) The Miss America Pageant - MTV, the Oscars, the Emmies, the Country Music Awards -- none come close to the grandmother of them all (which has, regrettably, done a nude scene -- Vanessa Williams, don't take a bow).
(20) The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson - Occasionally brilliant, never boring, routinely superb. Millsaps College's only real brush with fame. "May your sister elope with a camel!"
(19) Cheers - If you look up "warm and fuzzy" in the Dictionary of American Phrases, you'll find "Cheers." Yes, I know Woody Harrelson's daddy was not warm, but Ted Danson's dalliance with Whoopi Goldberg was definitely fuzzy (for all concerned).
(18) Frasier - Okay, I've never read a whole Jane Austen novel, but I did watch a bunch of Frasier's and quite often laughed daintily. That's an impressively mannered achievement for an American male who understands when it makes sense to blitz on 3rd and 8.
(17) That 70's Show - The Wonder Years gets a lot of critical praise for trying to make American suburban life from 1968 to 1973 funny. That five year period includes Charles Manson, "Tin soldiers and Nixon coming," and the early years of Elton John's career. How can anyone make a convincing comedy from that? The Wonder Years is Hogan's Heroes for Baby Boomers. That 70s Show deals with easier comedy source material than the 60s nostalgists -- much of the show is set in the cheap-shot-rich Jimmy Carter administration -- and Mila Kunis, Olivia d'Abo, and Laura Prepon have all done nude scenes.
(16) Sex in the City. What is it with Carrie and her bizarre no-nude-scenes-for-me but "I love nude scenes for everybody else"? Still, sales of sex toys zoomed, spicing up married couples' bedrooms round the world.
(15) Will & Grace. Always funny, always kind -- AND DID MORE FOR GAY RIGHTS THAN STONEWALL AND ENDA AND PFLAG ALL ROLLED TOGETHER! Let's hear it for silly roommates.
(14) The Office (US version). I totally despise sharia law and all the horrendous misogyny it incorporates. Still, I have to admit that if Pam ever did a nude scene stoning would be the only appropriate remedy.
(13) Modern Family - The most second-most wholesome TV show ever, everybody loves this. And the butt of humor is the straightest (and gayest) couple of the bunch, whose humor never exploits the butt of humor. Thanks for the amazing progress, you played an important role (which historians who focus exclusively on politics will completely miss).
(12) The Mary Tyler Moore Show - "Who's walking down the streets of the city, smiling at everyone she sees?" is the definition of the not-Ugly American.
(11) The Gong Show - For a lazy procrastinator, law school is a horrible experience. If you just skip a whole semester of classes, never crack a book, and chat with fellow procrastinators and play pinball all day, suddenly (and wholly unfairly) the final exams loom as a defining moment of failure. But you have the study period -- 24 hours a day and 10 days to go to figure out whatever these classes were about. So you sleep 1-3 hours a day, don't leave the crummy Chicago South Side apartment, and desperately try to figure out what the heck this professor talked about in class. But at this point you need laughter more than you need sleep so you ration yourself 30 minutes a day of the Gong Show to keep you sane and smart. But how could Phyllis Diller give a zero to the Popsicle Twins? The world and tax law are so confusing. Thank God for the Gong Show to help us reach the other side.
(10) Saturday Night Live - At a big raucous party on the North Side (cool) of Chicago in 1976, they turned the TV on loud so no one would miss SNL. There have been some misses since then, but the hits have those writers batting well over .500, with an OPS above 1.200.
(9) Jeopardy. If I could figure out a way to describe the New York Times crossword puzzle as a TV show, I'd list it here as a tie with Jeopardy.
(8) Seinfeld - Randy Newman had Lester Maddox condemn those "smart-ass New York Jews" in his brilliant "Rednecks." Fortunately, Maddox was 100% wrong and the entire cast of Seinfeld is witty, lovable, funny, and as far as I can tell 100% smart-ass New York Jews, except for the tall weird guy who went on to do appallingly unfunny stand-up comedy shows (Bowser? Kosmo? Buster Keaton?).
(7) Curb Your Enthusiasm. We've all wondered when dealing with an a**hole whether he realizes what an a**hole he is. Now, thanks to Larry David's research, we all know the answer is "yes, yes, he does." But he's okay with that.
(6) The Newlywed Game - Total destruction of Freud's "penis envy" theory.
(5) No Reservations - Tony Bourdain single-handedly rescues Freud's penis envy theory from the edge of extinction.
(4) The Andy Griffith Show - The most wholesome family values TV show ever. And whistling too. I often whistle while walking down the streets of Washington, D.C., secure in the confidence that Andy has made the world safe for whistlers.
(3) The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - Slashing through Republican and Democratic hypocrisy with no mercy and astonishing wit.
(2) Rome - Suetonius can finally stop spinning in his grave.
(1) Californication - The best. Period. Hank Moody rules.
Remember John Cleese in the famous "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch from "Monty Python's Flying Circus" TV show?
Well, on this side street gable end mural in Weston-Super-Mare that's him walking along (what's meant to be) the resort's pier.
(See large size to read those two silly signs.)
"Probably pining for the fjords..."
~ The Dead Parrot Sketch, from Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969)
Autographed by John Cleese for auction at Brickfair Virginia 2018 to benefit the SladeChild Foundation Charity
The final resting place of Terrance 'Spike' Milligan CBE KBE, my favourite writer, comic, human being. I guess as I didn't know him I don't know how cruel he could be.
Please read 'Goodbye Soldier'.
Terence Alan Patrick Seán Milligan KBE (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002), known as Spike Milligan, was an Anglo-Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet and playwright. Milligan was the co-creator and the principal writer of The Goon Show, in which he also performed. Aside from comedy, Milligan played the trumpet, saxophone, piano, guitar and bass drum.
Milligan was born in Ahmednagar, India, on 16 April 1918, the son of an Irish-born father, Captain Leo Alphonso Milligan, MSM, RA, who was serving in the British Indian Army. His mother, Florence Mary Winifred Kettleband, was born in England. He spent his childhood in Poona (India) and later in Rangoon (Yangon), capital of Burma (Myanmar). He was educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Poona, and St Paul's Christian Brothers, de la Salle, Rangoon.
He lived most of his life in England and served in the British Army, in the Royal Artillery in World War II.
During most of the late 1930s and early 1940s Milligan performed as an amateur jazz vocalist and trumpeter before, during and after being called up for military service in the fight against Nazi Germany, but even then he wrote and performed comedy sketches as part of concerts to entertain troops. After his call-up, but before being sent abroad, he and fellow musician Harry Edgington (nicknamed Edge-ying-Tong which gave birth to one of Milligan's most memorable musical creations, the Ying Tong Song) would compose surreal stories, filled with puns and skewed logic, as a way of staving off the boredom of life in barracks.
During World War II he served as a signaller in the 56th Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery, D Battery, as Gunner Milligan, 954024 with the First Army in the North African campaign and then in the succeeding Italian campaign. He rose to the rank of Lance Bombardier and was about to be promoted to Bombardier when he was wounded in action in Italy. Subsequently hospitalised for a mortar wound to the right leg and shell shock, he was demoted by an unsympathetic commanding officer (identified in his war diaries as Major Evan 'Jumbo' Jenkins) back to Gunner. It was Milligan's opinion that Major Jenkins did not like him due to the fact that Milligan constantly kept the morale of his fellow soldiers up, whereas Major Jenkins' approach was to take an attitude towards the troops similar to that of Lord Kitchener. An incident also mentioned was when Major Jenkins had invited Gunners Milligan and Edgington to his bivouac to play some jazz with him, only to discover that the musicianship of the aforementioned gunners was far superior to his own ability to play the military tune 'Whistling Rufus' (albeit badly).
After his hospitalisation, Milligan drifted through a number of rear-echelon military jobs in Italy, eventually becoming a full-time entertainer. He played the guitar with a jazz and comedy group called The Bill Hall Trio in concert parties for the troops. After being demobilised, Milligan remained in Italy playing with the Trio but returned to England soon after. While he was with the Central Pool of Artists (a group he described as composed "of bomb-happy squaddies") he began to write parodies of their mainstream plays, that displayed many of the key elements of what would later become The Goon Show ( originally called Crazy People) with Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine.
Milligan returned to jazz in the late 1940s and made a precarious living with the Hall trio and other musical comedy acts. He was also trying to break into the world of radio, as either a performer or as a script writer. His first success in radio was as writer for comedian Derek Roy's show. Milligan soon became involved with a relatively radical comedy project, The Goon Show. Known during its first season as Crazy People, or in full, "The Junior Crazy Gang featuring those Crazy People, the Goons!", the name was an attempt to make the programme palatable to BBC officials by connecting it with the popular group of comedians known as The Crazy Gang.[2]
Milligan was the primary author of The Goon Show scripts (though many were written jointly with Larry Stephens, Eric Sykes and others) as well as a star performer.
Milligan had a number of acting parts in theatre, film and television series; one of his last screen appearances was in the BBC dramatisation of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, and he was (almost inevitably) noted as an ad-libber. One of Milligan's most famous ad-lib incidents occurred during a visit to Australia in the late 1960s. He was interviewed live on air and remained in the studio for the news broadcast that followed (read by Rod McNeil), during which Milligan constantly interjected, adding his own name to news items. As a result, he was banned from making any further live appearances on the ABC. The ABC also changed its national policy so that talent had to leave the studio after interviews were complete. A tape of the bulletin survives and has been included in an ABC Radio audio compilation, also on the BBC tribute CD, Vivat Milligna [sic].
Milligan also wrote verse, considered to be within the genre of literary nonsense. His poetry has been described by comedian Stephen Fry as "absolutely immortal - greatly in the tradition of Lear"[3]. His most famous poem, On the Ning Nang Nong, was voted the UK's favourite comic poem in 1998 in a nationwide poll, ahead of other nonsense poets including Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear[4]. This nonsense verse, set to music, became a favourite Australia-wide, performed week after week by the ABC children's programme Playschool. Milligan included it on his album No One's Gonna Change Our World in 1969 to aid the World Wildlife Fund. In December 2007 it was reported that, according to OFSTED, it is amongst the ten most commonly taught poems in primary schools in the UK.[5]
While depressed, Milligan wrote serious poetry. He also wrote a novel Puckoon, parodying the style of Dylan Thomas[citation needed], and a very successful series of war memoirs, including Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall (book) (1971), "Rommel?" "Gunner Who?": A Confrontation in the Desert (1974), Monty: His Part in My Victory (1976) and Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall (1978). Milligan's seven volumes of memoirs cover the years from 1939 to 1950 (his call-up, war service, first breakdown, time spent entertaining in Italy, and return to the UK).
He wrote comedy songs, including "Purple Aeroplane", which was a parody of The Beatles' song "Yellow Submarine". Glimpses of his bouts with depression which led to the nervous breakdowns, can be found in his serious poetry, which is compiled in Open Heart University.
Spike Milligan also co-wrote the one-act play The Bed-Sitting Room, with John Antrobus. It premiered at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury. It was adapted to a longer play, which made its debut at the Mermaid Theatre, London.
Milligan contributed occasional cartoons to the satirical magazine Private Eye. Most were visualizations of one-line jokes. For example, a young boy sees the Concorde and asks his father "What's that?". The reply is "That's a flying groundnut scheme, son."
After their retirement, Milligan's parents and his younger brother Desmond moved to Australia. His mother lived the rest of her long life in the coastal village of Woy Woy on the New South Wales Central Coast, just north of Sydney. As a result, Milligan became a regular visitor to Australia and made a number of radio and TV programmes there, including The Idiot Weekly with Bobby Limb. He also wrote several books including 'Puckoon' during a visit to his mother's house in Woy Woy. In July 2007, it was proposed that the suspension bridge on the cyclepath from Woy Woy to Gosford be named after him.
He suffered from severe bipolar disorder for most of his life, having at least ten major mental breakdowns, several lasting over a year. He spoke candidly about his condition and its effect on his life:
I have got so low that I have asked to be hospitalised and for deep narcosis (sleep). I cannot stand being awake. The pain is too much... Something has happened to me, this vital spark has stopped burning - I go to a dinner table now and I don't say a word, just sit there like a dodo. Normally I am the centre of attention, keep the conversation going - so that is depressing in itself. It's like another person taking over, very strange. The most important thing I say is 'good evening' and then I go quiet
The Prince of Wales was a noted fan, and Milligan caused a stir by calling him a "little grovelling bastard" on live television in 1994.[9] He later faxed the prince, saying "I suppose a knighthood is out of the question?" In reality he and the Prince were very close friends,[8] and he was finally made a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) (honorary because of his Irish citizenship) in 2000. He had been made an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1992.
He was a strident campaigner on environmental matters, particularly arguing against unnecessary noise, such as the use of muzak.
In 1971, Milligan caused controversy by attacking an art exhibition at the Hayward Gallery with a hammer.[10] The exhibit consisted of catfish, oysters and shrimp that were to be electrocuted as part of the exhibition. He was a strong opponent of cruelty against animals and, during an appearance on Room 101, chose fox hunting as a pet hate, and succeeded in banishing it to the eponymous room.
In 1996, he successfully campaigned for the restoration of London's Elfin Oak.
He was also a public opponent of domestic violence, dedicating one of his books to Erin Pizzey.
Milligan had three children with his first wife June (Marchini) Marlow: Laura, Seán and Síle. They were married in 1952 and divorced in 1960. He had one daughter with his second wife, Patricia Ridgeway (known as Paddy): the actress Jane Milligan (b. 1964). Milligan and Patricia were married in June 1962 with George Martin as best man. The marriage ended in 1978 with her death. In 1975 Milligan fathered a son, James, in an affair with Margaret Maughan. Another child, a daughter Romany, is suspected to have been born at the same time by a Canadian journalist named Roberta Watt. His last wife was Shelagh Sinclair, to whom he was married from 1983 to his death on 27 February 2002. Four of his children have recently collaborated with documentary makers on a new multi-platform programme called I Told You I Was Ill: The Life and Legacy of Spike Milligan (2005) and accompanying website[11].
In October 2008 an array of Milligan's personal effects were to be sold at auction by his third wife, Shelagh, who was moving into a smaller home. These included a grand piano salvaged from a demolition and apparently played every morning by Paul McCartney, a neighbour in Rye in East Sussex[12].
Even late in life, Milligan's black humour had not deserted him. After the death of friend Harry Secombe from cancer, he said, "I'm glad he died before me, because I didn't want him to sing at my funeral." A recording of Secombe singing was played at Milligan's memorial service. He also wrote his own obituary, in which he stated repeatedly that he "wrote the Goon show and died".
Milligan died from liver disease, at the age of 83, on 27 February 2002, at his home in Rye, East Sussex. On the day of his funeral, 8 March 2002, his coffin was carried to St Thomas's Church in Winchelsea, Sussex, and was draped in the flag of the Republic of Ireland.[13] He had once quipped that he wanted his headstone to bear the words "I told you I was ill." He was buried at St Thomas's Church cemetery in Winchelsea, East Sussex, but the Chichester Diocese refused to allow this epitaph.[14] A compromise was reached with the Irish translation, "Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite", and additionally in English, "Love, light, peace".
From the 1960s onwards Milligan was a regular correspondent with Robert Graves. Milligan's letters to Graves usually addressed a question to do with classical studies. The letters form part of Graves' bequest to St. John's College, Oxford.
The film of Puckoon, starring Sean Hughes and including Milligan's daughter, the actress Jane Milligan, was released after his death.
Milligan lived for several years in Holden Road, Woodside Park and at The Crescent, Barnet, and was a strong supporter of the Finchley Society. His old house in Woodside Park is now demolished, but there is a blue plaque in his memory on the new house on the site. The Finchley Society is trying to get a statue of him erected in Finchley. There is also a campaign to erect a statue in the London Borough of Lewisham where he grew up (see Honor Oak). After coming to the UK from India in the 1930s he lived at 50 Riseldine Road, Brockley and attended Brownhill Boys' school (later to become Catford Boys' School which was demolished in 1994). Lynsey De Paul is a patron of the Spike Milligan Statue Memorial Fund. There is a plaque and bench located at the Wadestown Library, Wellington New Zealand in an area called Spike Milligan corner.
In a BBC poll in August 1999, Spike Milligan was voted the "funniest person of the last 1000 years". Also, in a 2005 poll to find The Comedians' Comedian, he was voted among the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.
Milligan has been portrayed twice in films. In the adaptation of his novel Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, he was played by Jim Dale, while Milligan himself played his own father. He was also portrayed by Edward Tudor-Pole in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004). In a 2008 stage play, Surviving Spike, Milligan was played by the entertainer Michael Barrymore.
On 9 June 2006 it was reported that Professor Richard Wiseman had identified Milligan as the writer of the world's funniest joke as decided by the Laughlab project. Professor Wiseman said the joke contained all three elements of what makes a good gag: anxiety, a feeling of superiority, and an element of surprise.[15]
Members of Monty Python greatly admired him, and gave Milligan a cameo role in their 1979 film, Monty Python's Life of Brian, when Milligan happened to be holidaying in Tunisia, near where the Pythons were filming. Graham Chapman gave him a minor part in Yellowbeard.
This first appeared in "At Last the 1948 Show" but was reprised in Monty Python's Flying Circus. It was originally "Number three - The Larch" (there was no number one or two) but later became number one and number three in How to recognise trees from a long way away" episode 12B (the only episode)
Odd eh :-)
Tracklist
Embarrassment/A Bed Time Book 2:55
England 1747-Dennis Moore 1:00
Money Programme 1:55
Dennis Moore Continues 1:10
Australian Table Wines 1:45
Argument Clinic 3:40
Putting Down Budgles & So Forth1:40
Eric The Half A Bee4:55
Travel Agency 3:50
Radio Quiz Game 1:30
A Message/City Noises Quiz 1:30
Miss Anne Elk 2:50
We Love The Yangtse 2:40
How-To-Do-It Lessons 1:05
A MInute Passed 1:20
Eclipse Of The Sun/Alastair Cooke 2:25
Wonderful World Of Sounds 2:30
A Fairy Tale 6:45
Apologies 2:00
Spanish Inquistions 2:49
World Forum 4:00
Gumby Theatre 2:58
The Architect 4:10
The Piranha Brothers 9:50
Death Of Mary Queen Scots 2:35
Penquin On The T.V 2:58
Comfy Chair/Sound Quiz 3:29
Be A Great Actor/Theatre Critic 4:21
Royal Festival Hall Concert 4:05
Spam 2:24
The Judges/Stake Your Claim 3:27
Still No Sign Of Land/The Undertaker 5:28
Delaney hangs with Zeb, Bogie and Frasier Crane in the Bigg Family Flying Circus* green room (which is red).
Happy Wiener Wednesday!
*Not to be confused with Monty Python's Flying Circus.
BaD 13 January 2018: Heaven
♻️ 💜 ♻️
Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...
And...
...always look on the bright side
of life...
(Whistle)
Always look on the light side
of life...
(Whistle)
If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle
- that's the thing.
And...always look on the bright
side of life...
(Whistle)
Come on.
Always look on the right side
of life...
(Whistle)
For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain
with a bow
Forget about your sin - give the
audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance
anyhow.
So always look on the bright side
of death...
(Whistle)
a-Just before you draw your terminal breath...
(Whistle)
Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true
You'll see its all a show, keep 'em laughin as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you
And...
Always look on the bright side
of life...
(Whistle)
Always look on the right side
of life...
C'mon Brian, cheer up
Always look on the bright side
of life...
Always look on the bright side
of life...
Worse things happen at sea you know.
I mean - what have you got to lose?
You know, you come from nothing
- you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing.
Always look on the right side
(I mean) of life...
what have you got to lose?
You know, you come from nothing
- you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost?
Always (Nothing.) look on the right side of life...
Nothing will come from nothing ya know what they say?
Cheer up ya old bugga c'mon give us a grin!
There ya go, see!
Always look on the right side of life...
(Cheer up ya old bugga c'mon give us a grin! At same time)
There ya go, see!
~Eric Idle, Monty Python's Life of Brian
Aberystwyth University is a public research university in Aberystwyth, Wales. Aberystwyth was a founding member institution of the former federal University of Wales. The university has over 8,000 students studying across three academic faculties and 17 departments.
Founded in 1872 as University College Wales, Aberystwyth, it became a founder member of the University of Wales in 1894, and changed its name to the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. In the mid-1990s, the university again changed its name to become the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. On 1 September 2007, the University of Wales ceased to be a federal university and Aberystwyth University became independent again.
In 2019, it became the first university to be named "University of the year for teaching quality" by The Times/Sunday Times Good University Guide for two consecutive years. It is the first university in the world to be awarded Plastic Free University status (for single-use plastic items).
In the middle of the 19th century, eminent Welsh people were advocating the establishment of a university in the principality. One of these, Thomas Nicholas, whose book, Middle and High Class Schools, and University Education for Wales (1863), is said to have "exerted great influence on educated Welshmen".
Funded through public and private subscriptions, and with five regional committees (London, Manchester, Liverpool, North and South Wales) guaranteeing funds for the first three years' running costs, the university opened in October 1872 with 26 students. Thomas Charles Edwards was the principal. In October 1875, chapels in Wales raised the next tranche of funds from over 70,000 contributors. Until 1893, when the college joined the University of Wales as a founder member, students applying to Aberystwyth sat the University of London's entrance exams. Women were admitted in 1884.
In 1885, a fire damaged what is now known as the Old College, Aberystwyth, and in 1897 the first 14 acres of what became the main Penglais campus were purchased. Incorporated by Royal Charter in 1893, the university installed the Prince of Wales as chancellor in 1896, the same year it awarded an honorary degree to the British prime minister, William Gladstone.
The university's coat of arms dates from the 1880s. The shield features two red dragons to symbolise Wales, and an open book to symbolise learning. The crest, an eagle or phoenix above a flaming tower, may signify the college's rebirth after the 1885 fire. The motto is Nid Byd, Byd Heb Wybodaeth (a world without knowledge is no world at all).
In the early 1900s, the university added courses that included law, applied mathematics, pure mathematics and botany. The Department for International Politics, which Aberystwyth says is the oldest such department in the world, was founded in 1919. By 1977, the university's staff included eight Fellows of the Royal Society, such as Gwendolen Rees, the first Welsh woman to be elected an FRS.
The Department of Sports and Exercise Science was established in 2000. Joint honours psychology degrees were introduced in September 2007, and single honours psychology in 2009.
The chancellor of the university is The Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who took up the position in January 2018. The visitor of the university is an appointment made by the Privy Council, under the Royal Charter of the university. Since July 2014, the holder of this office is Mr Justice Sir Roderick Evans KC.
In 2011, the university appointed a new vice chancellor under whom the academic departments were restructured as larger subject-themed institutes.
In 2022, the university celebrated its 150th anniversar,y being established in 1872 (known at the time as The University College of Wales).
Aberystwyth is a university and seaside town as well as a community in Ceredigion, Wales. Located in the historic county of Cardiganshire, Aberystwyth means "the mouth of the Ystwyth". Aberystwyth University has been a major educational location in Wales since the establishment of University College Wales in 1872.
The town is situated on Cardigan Bay on the west coast of Wales, near the confluence of the River Ystwyth and Afon Rheidol. Following the reconstruction of the harbour, the Ystwyth skirts the town. The Rheidol passes through the town.
The seafront, with a pier, stretches from Constitution Hill at the north end of the Promenade to the harbour at the south. The beach is divided by the castle. The town is divided into five areas: Aberystwyth Town; Llanbadarn Fawr; Waunfawr; Llanbadarn; Trefechan; and the most populous, Penparcau.
In 2011 the population of the town was 13,040. This rises to nearly 19,000 for the larger conurbation of Aberystwyth and Llanbadarn Fawr.
Aberystwyth Bay from a 1748 survey by Lewis Morris (1701–1765)
The distance to Swansea is 55 miles (89 km); to Shrewsbury 60 miles (97 km); to Wrexham 63 miles (101 km); to Cardiff 76 miles (122 km); and to London 180 miles (290 km).
Aberystwyth is a university town and tourist destination, and forms a cultural link between North Wales and South Wales. Constitution Hill, scaled by the Aberystwyth Cliff Railway, gives access to panoramic views and to other attractions at the summit, including a camera obscura. Scenic Mid Wales landscape within easy reach of the town includes the wilderness of the Cambrian Mountains, whose valleys contain forests and meadows which have changed little in centuries. A convenient way to access the interior is by the preserved narrow-gauge Vale of Rheidol Railway.
Although the town is relatively modern, there are a number of historic buildings, including the remains of the castle and the Old College of Aberystwyth University nearby. The Old College was originally built and opened in 1865 as a hotel, but after the owner's bankruptcy the shell of the building was sold to the university in 1867.
The new university campus overlooks Aberystwyth from Penglais Hill to the east of the town centre. The station, a terminus of the main railway, was built in 1924 in the typical style of the period, mainly in a mix of Gothic, Classical Revival, and Victorian architecture.
The town is the unofficial capital of Mid Wales, and several institutions have regional or national offices there. Public bodies located in the town include the National Library of Wales, which incorporates the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, one of six British regional film archives. The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales maintains and curates the National Monuments Record of Wales (NMRW), providing the public with information about the built heritage of Wales. Aberystwyth is also the home to the national offices of UCAC and Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society), and the site of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research, the Welsh Books Council and the offices of the standard historical dictionary of Welsh, Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru. A purpose built Welsh Government office and an adjoining office of Ceredigion County Council are also located in the town.
At the 2001 census, the population of the town was 15,935. This reduced to 13,040 at the 2011 census. Including neighbouring Llanbadarn Fawr, the population was 16,420, and the greater Aberystwyth conurbation having a population of 18,749 in 2011
Aberystwyth experiences an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification Cfb) similar to almost all of the United Kingdom. This is particularly pronounced due to its west coast location facing the Irish Sea. Air undergoes little land moderation and so temperatures closely reflect the sea temperature when winds are coming from the predominant onshore (westerly) direction. The nearest Met Office weather station is Gogerddan, 3 miles to the northeast, and at a similar elevation.
The absolute maximum temperature is 34.6 °C (94.3 °F), set during July 2006. This is also the July record maximum for all of Wales, suggesting that the area's low lying situation, aided by a possible föhn effect when winds are offshore can act to achieve high temperatures on occasion. Typically the warmest day will average 28.0 °C (82.4 °F) and 5.6 days will achieve a maximum of 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) or above.
The absolute minimum temperature is −13.5 °C (7.7 °F), set in January 2010. Typically 39.8 days will register an air frost.
Rainfall averages 1,112 mm (44 in) a year, with over 1mm recorded on 161 days. All averages refer to the 1981–2010 period.
There is evidence that during the Mesolithic Age the area of Tan-y-Bwlch at the foot of Pen Dinas (Penparcau) was used as a flint knapping floor for hunter-gatherers making weapons from flint that was deposited as the ice retreated.
The remains of a Celtic fortress on Pen Dinas (or more correctly 'Dinas Maelor'), a hill in Penparcau overlooking Aberystwyth, indicates that the site was inhabited before 700 BC. On a hill south of the present town, across the River Ystwyth, are the remains of a medieval ringfort believed to be the castle from which Princess Nest was abducted. This rare survival is now on private land and can only be accessed by arrangement.
The recorded history of Aberystwyth may be said to date from the building of a fortress in 1109 by Gilbert Fitz Richard (grandfather of Richard de Clare, known as Strongbow, the Cambro-Norman lord notable for his leading role in the Norman invasion of Ireland). Gilbert Fitz Richard was granted lands and the lordship of Cardigan by Henry I, including Cardigan Castle. The fortress built in Aberystwyth was located about a mile and a half south of today's town, on a hill over the south bank of the Ystwyth River, thus giving the settlement of Aberystwyth its name. The location is now known as Tan-Y-Castell.
Aberystwyth was usually under the control of the princes of Deheubarth, but its position close to the border with Gwynedd and Powys left it vulnerable to attacks from the leaders of those polities. The town was attacked by Gwenwynwyn ab Owain in 1197, an assault in which Maelgwn ap Rhys was captured. Llywelyn the Great attacked and seized the town in late 1208, building a castle there before withdrawing.
Edward I replaced Strongbow's castle in 1277, after its destruction by the Welsh. His castle was, however, built in a different location, at the current Castle Hill, the high point of the town. Between the years 1404 and 1408 Aberystwyth Castle was in the hands of Owain Glyndŵr but finally surrendered to Prince Harry (the future King Henry V of England). Shortly after this, the town was incorporated under the title of Ville de Lampadarn (the ancient name of the place being Llanbadarn Gaerog or the fortified Llanbadarn, to distinguish it from Llanbadarn Fawr, the village one mile (1.6 km) inland. It is thus styled in a Royal charter granted by Henry VIII but, by Elizabeth I's time, the town was invariably named Aberystwyth in all documents.
From 1639 to 1642, silver coins were minted at Aberystwyth Castle on behalf of the Royal Mint, using silver from local mines. £10,500 in currency was produced, equivalent to 2.5 million silver pennies.
In 1649, Parliamentarian troops razed the castle, although portions of three towers still exist. In 1988, an excavation within the castle area revealed a complete male skeleton, deliberately buried. Though skeletons rarely survive in Wales' acidic soil, this skeleton was probably preserved by the addition of lime from the collapsed building. Affectionately known as "Charlie" and now housed in the Ceredigion Museum in the town, he probably dates from the English Civil War period, and is likely to have died during the Parliamentarian siege. His image is featured in one of nine mosaics created to adorn the castle's walls.
The development of Aberystwyth's Port contributed to the town’s economic development during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Port improvements were carried out in both 1780 and 1836, with a new Customs House constructed in 1828. Rural industries and craftsmen were also an important part of life in this country town. The local trade directory for 1830 shows that there were in Aberystwyth: Twenty boot makers, eight bakers, two corn millers, eleven carpenters and joiners, one cooper, seven tailors, two dressmakers, two straw hat makers, two hat makers, three curriers, four saddlers, two tinsmiths, six maltsters, two skinners, four tanners, eight stonemasons, one brewer, four lime burners, three shipwrights, three wheelwrights, five cabinet makers, one nail maker, one rope maker and one sail maker.
The Cambrian Railways line from Machynlleth reached Aberystwyth in 1864, closely followed by rail links to Carmarthen, which resulted in the construction of the town's impressive station. The Cambrian line opened on Good Friday 1869, the same day that the new 292 metres (958 ft) Royal Pier (designed by Eugenius Birch) opened, attracting 7,000 visitors.
The railway's arrival gave rise to something of a Victorian tourist boom, with Aberystwyth becoming a significant holiday destination for working and middle class families from South Wales in particular. The town was once even billed as the "Biarritz of Wales". During this time, a number of hotels and fine townhouses were built including the Queens Hotel, later renamed Swyddfa'r Sir (County Office) when used as offices by the town council, and most recently used as the external scenes of the police station in the television show Hinterland. One of the largest of these hotels, "The Castle Hotel", was never completed as a hotel but, following bankruptcy, was sold cheaply to the Welsh National University Committee, a group of people dedicated to the creation of a Welsh University. The University College of Wales (later to become Aberystwyth University) was founded in 1872 in this building.
Aberystwyth was a contributory parliamentary borough until the Third Reform Act, which merged its representation into that of the county in 1885.
In 1895, various businessmen who had been behind the Aberystwyth New Harbour Company formed the Aberystwyth Improvement Company (AIC) to take over the works of the defunct Bourne Engineering & Electrical. In 1896, the AIC completed three projects: the new landside pavilion for the Royal Pier; built the Cambria Hotel (later the United Theological College) and formed Constitution Hill Ltd, to develop a Victorian theme park. Chief engineer George Croydon Marks designed all the AIC developments, including the United Kingdom's second longest funicular railway, which takes passengers up a 50% gradient to a park and camera obscura.
Aberystwyth hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1865, 1916, 1952 and 1992.
On the night of Friday, 14 January 1938, a storm with estimated wind speeds of up to 90 mph (140 km/h) struck the town. Most of the promenade was destroyed, along with 200 feet (60 m) of the pier. Many properties on the seafront were damaged, with every property from the King's Hall north affected; those on Victoria Terrace suffered the greatest damage. Work commenced on a protective coffer dam which continued into 1940, with total costs of construction coming to £70,000 (equivalent to £2.5 million today).
Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society) held their historic first protest on Trefechan Bridge in Aberystwyth, on 2 February 1963. The first independent Welsh Evangelical Church was established in Aberystwyth (see Evangelical Movement of Wales).
On 1 March 2005, Aberystwyth was granted Fairtrade Town status.
In March 2009 mayor Sue Jones-Davies, who had played the role of Judith Iscariot in the film Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979), organised a charity screening of the film. Principal actors Terry Jones and Michael Palin also attended. There is a popular, but incorrect, urban myth that the town had banned the film (as some authorities did) when it was first released.
During the aftermath storms from Cyclone Dirk on Friday 3 January 2014, the town was one of the worst hit in Wales. Properties on the adjoining promenade were then evacuated for the next five days, including 250 students from the University. Ceredigion Council appealed to the Welsh Assembly Government for funds, whilst Natural Resources Wales undertook surveys and emergency preventative measures.
North Parade, Aberystwyth was reported to be the most expensive street in Wales in 2018, based on property prices.
Penglais Nature Park (Welsh: Parc Natur Penglais) is a woodland overlooking the town. The park was created in 1995 from a disused quarry and surrounding woodland that had formerly been part of the Richardes family estate. In spring a carpet of bluebells bloom, in common with the many other bluebell woods.
The park covers 27 acres (11 ha). It was the first Nature reserve to open in Ceredigion and is the only UNESCO Man and Biosphere urban reserve in Wales.
Aberystwyth's local government administration has a two-tier structure consisting of two separate councils. As local government is a devolved matter in Wales, the legislation for both Councils is a responsibility of the Senedd.
Aberystwyth Town Council is the first tier of local government, which is the closest to the general public; there are 19 elected town councillors from five wards. The last elections were held in 2022. The council is responsible for cycle paths, public footpaths, CCTV, public Wi-Fi, bus shelters, parks, gardens (including the castle grounds and the skateboard park) and allotments. The council is a statutory body which is consulted regarding planning decisions in the town area and makes recommendations to the planning authority, Ceredigion County Council. The Town Council is also involved in leisure, tourism, business (through providing more than half of Menter Aberystwyth's funding in grants), licence applications, wellbeing and environmental health, recycling and refuse collection.
A borough council existed in Aberystwyth from 1832 and the Aberystwyth School Board was established in 1870.
Ceredigion County Council is another statutory body incorporated by Act of Parliament. It is the second tier of local government in the area and is a unitary authority with a wide range of powers and responsibility. The Council deals with roads (except trunk roads), street lighting, some highways, social services, children and family care, schools and public libraries. Aberystwyth elects six of the 42 councillors in five separate wards (Bronglais, Central, North and Rheidol wards elect one councillor each while Penparcau ward elects two).
Aberystwyth has five Senedd members, one of whom (Elin Jones) was elected as a constituency MS for Ceredigion, and four who are elected on the regional list for Mid and West Wales.
The town is in the Ceredigion constituency for elections to the House of Commons. Since June 2017, Aberystwyth's MP has been Plaid Cymru's Ben Lake.
The first ever public library in Aberystwyth was opened in Compton House, Pier Street on 13 October 1874. In 1882 the library was moved to the Assembly Rooms which were leased to the council for 21 years. The lease expired in 1903 and the library returned to Pier Street, this time to the Old Banking Library at the corner with Eastgate Street, although this was short lived. A Carnegie library was built in Aberystwyth in 1905, with a grant of £3,000. Located in Corporation Street, it was designed by the architect Walter Payton of Birmingham, who was one of 48 who entered the competition to design the building. It was formally opened on 20 April 1906 by Mrs Vaughan Davies, wife of the local MP. The town library moved to Aberystwyth Town Hall, now known as Canolfan Alun R. Edwards, following the building's refurbishment in 2012.
The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, is the national legal deposit library of Wales. Established in 1907, it is a Welsh Government sponsored body. According to Cyril Evans, the library's centenary events co-ordinator, "The library is considered to be one of the world's greatest libraries, and its international reputation is certainly something that all Welsh men and women are intensely ... proud of". Welsh is the main medium of communication within the organisation; it aims to deliver all public services in Welsh and English.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre is one of the largest and busiest arts centres in Wales. It encompasses a 312-seat theatre, 900-seat concert hall, 125-seat cinema, and has accompanied studio, galleries, plus public spaces which include cafes and a bar. Arad Goch is an Arts Council funded community theatre and art gallery based in the town. The premises holds a theatre, gallery, several art studios and meeting rooms, and a darkroom.
The town has three works by the Italian sculptor Mario Rutelli; the War Memorial on the promenade, the Tabernacle Chapel Memorial on Powell Street, and the statue of Edward VIII as Prince of Wales in the Old College. All are Grade II listed structures. Rutelli’s connection with the town came through Thomas Jenkins of Aberystwyth, who ran a shipping business. Jenkins was a frequent visitor to Italy where he admired Rutelli’s work. Jo Darke, in her work, The Monument Guide to England and Wales: A National Portrait in Bronze and Stone, describes Rutelli’s war memorial as “striking and rare” and suggests that the life-size statue of Edward VIII is the only recorded example.
Aberystwyth has a live music scene which has produced bands and artists such as: The Crocketts; The Hot Puppies; Murry the Hump; and The Lowland Hundred. The University Music Centre promotes a varied programme for instrumentalists, singers and listeners from the university and the wider community. The University chamber choir, The Elizabethan Madrigal Singers, have been singing in the town since 1950 and continue to hold a number of concerts throughout the year. Aberystwyth gives its name to a well known hymn tune composed by Joseph Parry.
Aberystwyth RFC is the local rugby union club and acts as a feeder club to professional side Scarlets. It was formed in 1947 and for the 2017/18 season played in the WRU Division One West. Aberystwyth Town F.C. is a semi-professional football club that was formed in 1884. The team currently compete in the Cymru Premier, Wales' top division. The town also has a cricket club which plays in local leagues, an athletics club (founded 1955), and boxing club in Penparcau. The town's golf course opened in 1911.
Ceredigion, the county in which Aberystwyth is located, is one of the four most Welsh-speaking counties in Wales and remained majority Welsh speaking until the 2011 census. Since the town's growth as a seaside resort in the Victorian era, it has been more anglicised than its hinterland and the rest of the county in general. The university has also attracted many English-speaking students from England, non-Welsh speaking parts of Wales and elsewhere. The 1891 census recorded that, of the 6635 inhabitants who completed the language section, 3482 (52.5%) were bilingual, 1751 (26.4%) were Welsh monoglots, and 1402 people (21.1%) were returned as English monoglots. Ceredigion (then named Cardiganshire) as a whole was 95.2% Welsh-speaking and 74.5% monoglot Welsh. Although the town remained majority Welsh-speaking for many more decades, English had already replaced Welsh in certain domains, such as entertainment and tourism. By 1961, only 50.0% of the town's population could speak Welsh, compared to 79.5% for Cardiganshire as a whole; by 1971, these numbers had fallen to 44.9% and 67.6% respectively. The 2001 census reported that, in the seven wards of Aberystwyth, 39% of the residents self-identified as able to speak or read or write Welsh. This is lower than Ceredigion as a whole (54%) but higher than Wales overall (19%).
Aberystwyth parish church is St Michael's and All Angels, located in Laura Place. The parish was a Rectoral Benefice until 2019, incorporating the Anglican churches of Holy Trinity, Santes Fair (services in Welsh) and Saint Anne's, Penparcau. The Rectoral Benefice has now been converted to a local ministry area (LMA). The church was built between 1886 and 1890, replacing an earlier church. It was designed in a Gothic Revival style and is a Grade II listed building.
In addition to the Anglican churches, there are many existing and former Welsh Calvinistic Methodist chapels that have these days merged into Saint David's (United Reformed) and Capel y Morfa (Welsh language services). A former Calvinistic Methodist Sunday school house, Ysgoldy Tanycae, is now the meeting place of the Elim Pentecostal church. Meanwhile there is a Wesleyan Methodist church, Saint Paul's Methodist Centre, located in Bath Street. An Independent Baptist church is located in Alfred Place. In 2021, amid some controversy, Aberystwyth's Catholic church, Saint Winefride's, was closed and the congregation relocated to a new-build church located in Penparcau.
There are a number of other smaller congregations, and many former churches that have now been converted to alternative use, such as the Academy bar.
Aberystwyth has two comprehensive schools serving the town and a wide rural area: Ysgol Gyfun Gymunedol Penweddig and Ysgol Penglais School. Ysgol Gyfun Gymunedol Penweddig uses Welsh as the primary language of tuition; Ysgol Penglais School teaches in English and in Welsh as a subject.
There are currently three primary schools within the town limits, which are: Plascrug, Saint Padarns (Roman Catholic) and Ysgol Gymraeg. Ysgol Gymraeg was the first designated Welsh medium school in Wales, originally established as a private school in 1939 by Sir Ifan ab Owen Edwards as Ysgol Gymraeg yr Urdd.
Aberystwyth is home to Aberystwyth University (Welsh: Prifysgol Aberystwyth) whose predecessor, University College Wales, was founded in 1872 and renamed the 'University of Wales, Aberystwyth' in the mid-1990s. Prior to the college's establishment, Wales had very limited academic-degree capability through St David's College, Lampeter (founded in 1822, now the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David).
As well as having two cinemas and a golf course, the town's attractions include:
The Aberystwyth Cliff Railway, a funicular railway
A Victorian camera obscura at the top of Constitution Hill.
The Vale of Rheidol steam railway (Aberystwyth to Devil's Bridge)
Aberystwyth Arts Centre.
The Parc Penglais nature reserve
The Ystwyth Trail cycle path
National Library of Wales
Park Avenue. Football stadium home to Aberystwyth Town F.C.
The all organic dairy unit of Rachel's Organic is based in Glan yr Afon, and is the largest private sector employer in Aberystwyth.
The Cambrian News newspaper came to Aberystwyth from Bala in 1870, after it was purchased by Sir John Gibson. Printed in Oswestry, in May 1880 the paper integrated operations in a former Malthouse in Mill Street. Owned by the Read family from 1926, in 1993 printing was contracted out, enabling the move of editorial staff to the current open-plan offices on Llanbadarn Fawr Science Park. On the death of Henry Read, the paper was purchased in 1999 by Sir Ray Tindle, whose company owns more than 200 weekly newspapers in Britain. Now printed in tabloid format, Cambrian News is the second-largest weekly-print circulation newspaper in Wales, with 24,000 copies in six regional editorial versions, read by 60,000 weekly readers. The circulation area of mid, west and north Wales covers 3,000 square miles (7,800 km2).
Since the TV series Hinterland has been filmed in and around Aberystwyth, the area is being promoted as an opportunity for tourists to visit filming locations; many are well publicised.
Aberystwyth railway station is situated in the town centre and is the terminus of the scenic Cambrian Line. Transport for Wales Rail operate a mostly hourly service (with some two-hour intervals) to Shrewsbury via Machynlleth and Mid Wales, with nearly all trains continuing to Birmingham International. Connecting services from Dovey Junction provide a link to Gwynedd's west coast as far as Pwllheli, along the Cambrian Coast Line. There is no longer a southbound connection: the Carmarthen–Aberystwyth line was closed in 1965 as part of the Beeching cuts.
Aberystwyth station is also the terminus of the Vale of Rheidol Railway, a steam-operated narrow gauge heritage railway. Constructed between 1901 and 1902, it was intended to ship mineral cargo, primarily lead, from Devil's Bridge down to Aberystwyth for trans-shipment. By the time it was finished, lead mining was in a deep downturn and—thanks to the Aberystwyth Improvement Company—the railway came to rely largely on the tourist industry, opening for passengers in December 1902. It still remains open for the summer season, with a journey of 12 miles (19 km).
In 1896, the Aberystwyth Improvement Company formed Constitution Hill Ltd which, under the direction of chief engineer George Croydon Marks, developed the United Kingdom's second longest funicular railway, the Aberystwyth Cliff Railway, which takes passengers up a 50% gradient.
A TrawsCymru T1 service on the A4120 in Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth is a hub for the TrawsCymru bus network, with four routes serving the town:
T1 - hourly service to Carmarthen (connects with T1S to Swansea, Monday-Saturday) via Aberaeron and Lampeter - with one service a day (Monday-Saturday) extended to Cardiff
T1C - daily express coach service to Cardiff, via Aberaeron, Carmarthen (connects with T1S to Swansea, Monday-Saturday), Swansea (Sunday & Bank Holidays only), Port Talbot Parkway and Bridgend
T2 - every 1–2 hours to Bangor via Machynlleth, Dolgellau (connects with T3 to Barmouth and Wrexham), Porthmadog and Caernarfon
T5 - hourly service to Haverfordwest via Aberaeron, New Quay, Cardigan and Fishguard
(TrawsCymru services run less-frequently on Sundays.)
There is a daily National Express coach, service 409 to London via Birmingham, along with local bus services within the town and into the surrounding area.
The A44 and A487 meet with much traffic between North Wales and South West Wales passing through the town. The A4120 links the A44 and A487 between Llanbadarn Fawr and Penparcau, allowing through traffic to bypass the town centre.
The B4574 mountain road linking the town to Rhayader is described by the AA as one of the ten most scenic drives in the world.
The port of Aberystwyth, although it is small and relatively inconsequential today, used to be an important Atlantic Ocean entryway. It was used to ship locally, to Ireland and as a transatlantic departure point. Commercially, the once important Cardiganshire lead mines exported from this location.
The importance of maritime trade in the 19th century is reflected in the fact that a lifeboat has been based at Aberystwyth since 1843, when a 27 ft (8.2 m) boat powered by six oars was funded by public subscription and placed under the control of the harbourmaster. The RNLI took over the service in 1861 and established Aberystwyth Lifeboat Station which celebrated 150 years in 2011. The station uses the Atlantic 85-class inshore lifeboat Spirit of Friendship.
The Owl Service by Alan Garner, a well-known and -loved multi-award-winning classic published 1967, is set in north Wales and has two of its core characters —Gwyn and his mam (mother) Nancy— recently arrived from Aberystwyth for 3 weeks' work, with Nancy repeatedly threatening to return there immediately. They and the Welsh locals refer to it as "Aber"; the English characters use its full name.
Aberystwyth (albeit an alternative universe version) is the setting for the cult Louie Knight series by Malcolm Pryce, which transfers Chandleresque "noir" stories and dialogue to this small seaside town. This alternative reality features many landmarks of Aberystwyth, such as the University and the National Library of Wales, but the social situation is radically altered to more closely resemble the pulp/noir stereotypical "Dirty Town" that the narrative plays off. Most of the humour in the books is derived from the almost seamless juxtaposition of the real Aberystwyth and the fictional, noir Aberystwyth. Various aspects of Welsh culture are reflections of what you might expect to see in reality, but with a pulp twist – for example, prostitutes wear Welsh stovepipe hats.
Stripping Penguins Bare, the book 2 of Michael Carson's Benson Trilogy of comic novels, is set in the town and university in the 1960s.
The local writer Niall Griffiths has set many of his novels here and reflects local slang, settings, and even individuals. Grits and Sheepshagger are set wholly in Aberystwyth, which also features prominently in his other novels such as Kelly and Victor and Stump. He portrays a more gritty side of Aberystwyth.
‘Cofiwch Aberystwyth’ by science fiction writer Val Nolan, is a near-future post-apocalyptic novelette about three young urban explorers visiting Aberystwyth years after a nuclear disaster on the west coast of Wales. It was originally published in Interzone (magazine) and later anthologised in Best of British Science Fiction 2020. The title references the Cofiwch Dryweryn graffiti outside nearby Llanrhystyd, Ceredigion.
Television
Y Gwyll (2013–2016), a Welsh-language television programme, and the English-language version Hinterland , broadcast on S4C, BBC One Wales, BBC Four, and syndicated around the world, is set in Aberystwyth. It is filmed in and around the town, often in rural locations.
Film
Y Llyfrgell (2017) is an award-winning Welsh language film set in and around the National Library, which was filmed on location in 2016. The 2009 book on which it was based was released in English in 2022.
The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the Town of Aberystwyth.
Individuals
1912 – Sir John Williams
1912 – David Davies
1912 – Stuart Rendel
1922 – David Lloyd George
1923 – Lewis Pugh Evans
1923 – Matthew Vaughan-Davies
1923 – Sir Herbert Lewis
1928 – Stanley Baldwin
1936 – Sir David Charles Roberts
1936 – Ernest Vaughan
1951 – Winston Churchill
1956 – Sir David James
2011 – Fritz Pratschke
2015 – Jean Guezennec
Military Units
1955 – The Welsh Guards
Twinning
Arklow in Wicklow, Republic of Ireland Ireland
Kronberg im Taunus in Hesse Hesse, Germany Germany
Saint-Brieuc in Brittany Brittany, France France
Esquel in Patagonia, Argentina Argentina
Week: Variations on a Theme, image 2
This pigeon has decided that sitting on the top of this metal cloud is a great way to interrupt my photo. At first I was annoyed, but now I enjoy the tiny interruption - almost like it's Monty Python's French Taunter in the castle castle threatening "I blow my nose at you!"
El -Jem is a town in Mahdia Governorate, Tunisia. The town is a sleepy place without much character but it is home to some of the most impressive Roman remains in Africa, like the world-famous "Roman amphitheater of Thysdrus". By the early 3rd century AD, when the amphitheater was built, Thysdrus rivaled Hadrumetum (modern Sousse) as the second city of Roman North Africa, after Carthage. Many tourists come here to see what it was like to be inside what was once a place where lions and people met their fate. Much of it is crumbled but the essence of it still remains. It is also possible that construction of the amphitheatre was never finished. Drifting sand is preserving the market city of Thysdrus and the refined suburban villas that once surrounded it. Some floor mosaics have been found and published, but field archaeology has scarcely been attempted. The amphitheatre is one of the best preserved Roman ruins in the world, and is unique in Africa. As other amphitheatres in the Roman Empire, it was built for spectator events, and it is one of the biggest amphitheatres in the world. The estimated capacity is 35,000, and the sizes of the big and the small axes are respectively 148 metres (486 ft) and 122 metres (400 ft). The amphitheatre is built of stone blocks, located on a flat ground, and is exceptionally well conserved. The belief is that it was constructed by the local proconsul Gordian, who became the emperor as Gordian III. In the Middle Ages, it served as a fortress, and the population sought here shelter during the attacks of Vandals in 430 and Arabs in 647. It is believed that the amphiteatre was used as a saltpetre manufacture in the end of the 18th and in the 19th century. Around 1850, the breach in the wall was enlarged by Ahmad I ibn Mustafa to approximately 30 metres (98 ft). In the second half of the 19th century, the structure was used for shops, dwellings, and grain storage. It was featured in films such as Monty Python's Life of Brian and Gladiator. The amphitheatre is listed by UNESCO since 1979 as a World Heritage Site.
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El Jem - miasto we wschodniej Tunezji, w Sahelu Tunezyjskim. Założone na ruinach rzymskiego Thysdrus w pobliżu dawnego miasta punickiego. W 689 było ono ośrodkiem antyarabskiego powstania Berberów. Najbardziej interesującym zabytkiem w El Jem jest amfiteatr zbudowany w latach 230-238 n.e., a jego pomysłodawcą najprawdopodobniej był cesarz Gordian I. Jest on najbardziej spektakularną rzymską budowlą w Afryce Północnej. Zachował się w lepszym stanie niż rzymskie Koloseum i jest trzecim co do wielkości amfiteatrem na świecie. W El Jem znajdują się także ruiny mniejszego amfiteatru, wille rzymskie oraz muzeum z bogatą kolekcją mozaik.Amfiteatr zbudowany został w latach 230-238 n.e., a jego pomysłodawcą najprawdopodobniej był cesarz Gordian I. Jest on najbardziej spektakularną rzymską budowlą w Afryce Północnej. Zachował się w lepszym stanie niż rzymskie Koloseum. Powierzchnia tego zabytku ma kształt elipsy o obwodzie 427 m, długości 149 m i szerokości 124 m, widownia zaś wznosi się do 36 m. W szczytowym okresie mieściło się w nim 30-35 tys. widzów. W przeciwieństwie do większości tego rodzaju obiektów, budowanych w pobliżu wzniesienia lub bezpośrednio wkomponowanych we wzgórze, amfiteatr leży na otwartej przestrzeni. Znajduje się on w bardzo dobrym stanie. Tunezyjski monument zaliczany jest do najlepiej zachowanych amfiteatrów na terytorium rzymskiego imperium. Budulec sprowadzano z oddalonych o 30 km kamieniołomów w Sulectum (dzisiejsza Salakta) na wybrzeżu, a wodę doprowadzono podziemnym akweduktem ze wzgórz położonych 15 km na północny zachód od miasta. Amfiteatr był wiele razy wykorzystywany do celów obronnych. W jego murach pod koniec VII w. broniła się przed Arabami księżniczka berberyjska Al-Kahina. W XVII w. wojska Mohammeda Beja wysadziły zachodnią część jego muru, aby rozgromić miejscowe plemiona. Wyrwa została poszerzona podczas kolejnej rebelii w 1850 r. Zabytek ten został wpisany na Listę Światowego Dziedzictwa Kulturowego i Przyrodniczego UNESCO w 1979.
Talk about no more ideas for my 365's!! LOL! I just grabbed this empty can of spam and snapped away.
So, I thought I'd just share one of my guilty pleasures while I'm at it: not just ordinary spam, but Golden Honey Grail Spam.
I'm not a huge fan of Spam, actually; but I have to admit, I like this particular flavor. It's tangy-sweet and not too salty. Unfortunately, they don't make it anymore :-( It was a limited edition to promote Monty Python's musical, Spamalot, based on the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".
Yes, I saved the cans. (Hey, it said Collector's Edition, so I couldn't just throw it away, right?!)
And I do think Monty Python is quite funny.
The Scene:
A large posh office. Two clients, well-dressed city gents, sit facing a large table at which stands Mr. Tid, the account manager of the architectural firm. (original cast: Mr Tid, Graham Chapman; Mr Wiggin, John Cleese; City Gent One, Michael Palin; Client 2:, Terry Jones; Mr Wymer, Eric Idle)
“Mr. Wiggin: This is a 12-story block combining classical neo-Georgian features with the efficiency of modern techniques. The tenants arrive here and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort, past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the rotating knives. The last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed. The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled flesh slurps into these...
Client 1: Excuse me.
Mr. Wiggin: Yes?
Client 1: Did you say 'knives'?
Mr. Wiggin: Rotating knives, yes.
Client 2: Do I take it that you are proposing to slaughter our tenants?
Mr. Wiggin: ...Does that not fit in with your plans?
Client 1: Not really. We asked for a simple block of flats.
Mr. Wiggin: Oh. I hadn't fully divined your attitude towards the tenants. You see I mainly design slaughter houses”
From: The Architects Sketch, by John Cleese and Graham Chapman. From: Monty Python's Flying Circus, 20 October 1970. Transcribed By Dawn Whiteside. A bit of Le Cobusier history might be used here - during the design of the Philips pavillion (for the World Exhibition 1958 in Brussels) he used a slaughterhouse metaphore.
Displayed here are the parking decks of the luxury ‘Hoge Heren’ apartment towers in downtown Rotterdam, near the northern approach of the Erasmusbrug. The building is designed by Wiel Arets. Within it walls it offers a very broad range of services & facilities ;-)
At night the decks looks a bit eerie, sinister and surreal; a fine motive for the Monty Python Quoters group.
Best viewed Large with a black background
Photograph above:
Hosting HARRY POTTER, The Palace Theatre wishes to tell everybody of the fact illuminated for everyone to see.
Photograph Copyright: digitalEXPRESSIONUK (2021)
The Palace Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster in London. Its red-brick facade dominates the west side of Cambridge Circus behind a small plaza near the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. The Palace Theatre seats 1,400.
Richard D'Oyly Carte, producer of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, commissioned the theatre in the late 1880s. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and intended to be a home of English grand opera. The theatre opened as the Royal English Opera House in January 1891 with a lavish production of Arthur Sullivan's opera Ivanhoe. Although this ran for 160 performances, followed briefly by André Messager's La Basoche, Carte had no other works ready to fill the theatre. He leased it to Sarah Bernhardt for a season and sold the opera house within a year at a loss. It was then converted into a grand music hall and renamed the Palace Theatre of Varieties, managed successfully first by Sir Augustus Harris and then by Charles Morton. In 1897, the theatre began to screen films as part of its programme of entertainment. In 1904, Alfred Butt became manager and continued to combine variety entertainment, including dancing girls, with films. Herman Finck was musical director at the theatre from 1900 until 1920.
In 1925, the musical comedy No, No, Nanette opened at the Palace Theatre, followed by other musicals, for which the theatre became known. The Marx Brothers appeared at the theatre in 1931, performing selections from their Broadway shows. The Sound of Music ran for 2,385 performances at the theatre, opening in 1961. Jesus Christ Superstar ran from 1972 to 1980, and Les Misérables played at the theatre for nineteen years, beginning in 1985. In 1983, Andrew Lloyd Webber purchased and by 1991 had refurbished the theatre. Monty Python's Spamalot played there from 2006 until January 2009, and Priscilla Queen of the Desert opened in March 2009 and closed in December 2011. Between February 2012 and June 2013, the Palace hosted a production of Singin' in the Rain.
From June 2016 the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ran at the theatre until performances were suspended in March 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The play returned to the stage on 14 October 2021, after a 19-month break.
Best viewed full size
When i finished the rendering of this fractal and had a look at it full sized, it's complexity and strange structure reminded me Monty Python's movie Brazil.
you know what she's called? She's called... Incontinentia... Incontinentia Bucket!
Finally a new Lego shot! :D
Hope you guys are all good?!
Comments always appreciated, as long as you keep it clean - I love to hear your feedback! xx
Saturday in Leeds I went for breakfast with Gemma at the Premier Inn all you can eat breakfast. Set us up great for the day!
Gemma went to a cider festival in Bradford and I went to visit my dear friend Liz and her son Gabriel - a lovely afternoon where we took a walk in the park before going back to theirs and having home-made lasagne and watching Mpnty Python's Life Of Brian.
I am sure this would have suited Monty Python's Flying Circus......"Now for something completely different".
There's a chimney in the hat and a 'clockwork' key all the way through. I like the wire fencing 'fishnet stockings' though!
As I was tagged again by Eyopa Pendragon, Nanaho ♥ and Rainbow Magical Orchestra, here are 20 things about me again ! Thank you girls ♥
The first one : www.flickr.com/photos/mlletmajestyflickr/7306937426/in/se...
(this picture is a year old. Now my hair are longer !)
1- I'm a serious person. Haha it's a lie !
2- I'm studiying Design in Paris
3- My favorite color is light orange
4- I've got 119 dvds... *O_o just realised*
5- I love films like Tarantino's, Edgar Wright's, Monty Python's... Well, I love laughing!
6- The most handsome actors, for me, are Til Schweiger, Jude Law, Tony Leung, Ken Watanabe, Jason Isaacs...
7- I live in a 25m2, and my toilets are on the landing.
8- My favourite meals are French pancakes (you know... crèpes ?), and also boiled eggs !
9- In two years, I'll attend St Martin's and Royal College... Wish me good luck !
10- I'm quite proud to be French !
11- I dislike manga, but I'm fond of one : Hetalia. I love the concept !
12- I love Harry Potter, because it's the book of my childhood. I read the first one when I was 8, and I read the last one when I was 14, I grew up with Harry ! I was so fond of that I read the last one in English because it was not edited in French yet XD
13- I've got 12 Sonny Angels !
14- For the French people : yesterday I saw Taig Kris in front of my school, and last week, Jamel Debbouze in my street ! (French celebrities)
15- My favorite flower is the sunflower, my favorites fruits are the raspberries, and my favorite dessert lemon meringue pie.
16- I love delicatessen (charcuterie), and hate seafood.
17- I love reading Lovecraft, Romain Sardoue, Poe, Ken Follett, Chuck Palanhiuk, Stephen King...
18- I love going to exhibition and preview, I feel so good in a museum !
19- My favorite animal is the red panda, but I also love foxes !
20- I love my cat \o/
Unfortunately, I just didn't have the minifigs to add a woman and eight Mounties in the background - you'll just have to imagine that they're there.
The reticulated python (Malayopython reticulatus) is a python species native to South and Southeast Asia. It is the world's longest snake, and the third heaviest after the green anaconda and Burmese python. It is listed as least concern on the IUCN Red List because of its wide distribution. In several countries in its range, it is hunted for its skin, for use in traditional medicine, and for sale as pets.[1] Due to this, reticulated pythons are one of the most economically important reptiles worldwide.[6]
It is an excellent swimmer, has been reported far out at sea, and has colonized many small islands within its range.
Like all pythons, it is a non-venomous constrictor. In very rare cases, adult humans have been killed (and in at least three reported cases, eaten) by reticulated pythons.[7][8][9][10]
Taxonomy
The reticulated python was first described in 1801 by German naturalist Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider, who described two zoological specimens held by the Göttingen Museum in 1801 that differed slightly in colour and pattern as separate species—Boa reticulata and Boa rhombeata.[11] The specific name, reticulatus, is Latin meaning "net-like", or reticulated, and is a reference to the complex color pattern.[12] The generic name Python was proposed by French naturalist François Marie Daudin in 1803.[13] American zoologist Arnold G. Kluge performed a cladistics analysis on morphological characters and recovered the reticulated python lineage as sister to the genus Python, hence not requiring a new generic name in 1993.[14]
In a 2004 genetics study using cytochrome b DNA, Robin Lawson and colleagues discovered the reticulated python as sister to Australo-Papuan pythons, rather than Python molurus and relatives.[15] Raymond Hoser erected the genus Broghammerus for the reticulated python in 2004, naming it after German snake expert Stefan Broghammer, on the basis of dorsal patterns distinct from those of the genus Python, and a dark mid-dorsal line from the rear to the front of the head, and red or orange (rather than brown) iris colour.[16] In 2008, Lesley H. Rawlings and colleagues reanalysed Kluge's morphological data and combined it with genetic material, finding the reticulated clade to be an offshoot of the Australo-Papuan lineage as well. They adopted and redefined the genus name Broghammerus.[17]
However, this and numerous other names by the same author were criticized by several authors, who proposed ignoring them for the purposes of nomenclature despite this being contrary to the ICZN Code that underpins binomial nomenclature, ostensibly promoting the establishment of a dual nomenclature.[18] R. Graham Reynolds and colleagues subsequently and knowing that it was described already, redescribed the genus Malayopython for this species and its sister species, the Timor python, calling the Timor python M. timoriensis.[19] Hoser has since argued that the Malayopython name is a junior synonym of Broghammerus.[20] Neither of these proposed reclassifications has been recognized by the ITIS,[21] but Malayopython has been recognized by a number of subsequent authors[22][23] and the Reptile Database.
Subspecies
Three subspecies have been proposed:
M. r. reticulatus (Schneider, 1801) – Asian reticulated python
M. r. jampeanus Auliya et al., 2002 – Kayaudi reticulated python or Tanahjampean reticulated python, about half the length,[24] or according to Auliya et al. (2002), not reaching much more than 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in length.[25] Found on Tanahjampea in the Selayar Archipelago south of Sulawesi. Closely related to M. r. reticulatus of the Lesser Sundas.[25]
M. r. saputrai Auliya et al., 2002 – Selayer reticulated python, occurs on Selayar Island in the Selayar Archipelago and also in adjacent Sulawesi. This subspecies represents a sister lineage to all other populations of reticulated pythons tested.[25] According to Auliya et al. (2002) it does not exceed 4 m (13 ft 1 in) in length.[25]
The latter two are dwarf subspecies. Apparently, the population of the Sangihe Islands north of Sulawesi represents another such subspecies, which is basal to the P. r. reticulatus plus P. r. jampeanus clade, but it is not yet formally described.[25]
The proposed subspecies M. r. "dalegibbonsi", M. r. "euanedwardsi", M. r. "haydnmacphiei", M. r. "neilsonnemani", M. r. "patrickcouperi", and M. r. "stuartbigmorei"[3][16] have not found general acceptance.
Characteristics
The "reticulated" net-like patterning that gives the reticulated python its name
Head of a reticulated python
Skull diagram
Skull of a reticulated python
The reticulated python has smooth dorsal scales that are arranged in 69–79 rows at midbody. Deep pits occur on four anterior upper labials, on two or three anterior lower labials, and on five or six posterior lower labials.[26]
The reticulated python is the largest snake native to Asia. More than a thousand wild reticulated pythons in southern Sumatra were studied, and estimated to have a length range of 1.5 to 6.5 m (4 ft 11 in to 21 ft 4 in), and a weight range of 1 to 75 kg (2 lb 3 oz to 165 lb 6 oz).[27] Reticulated pythons with lengths more than 6 m (19 ft 8 in) are rare, though according to the Guinness Book of World Records, it is the only extant snake to regularly exceed that length.[28] One of the largest scientifically measured specimens, from Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, was measured under anesthesia at 6.95 m (22 ft 10 in) and weighed 59 kg (130 lb 1 oz) after not having eaten for nearly 3 months.[29]
The specimen once widely accepted as the largest-ever "accurately" measured snake, that being Colossus, a specimen kept at the Highland Park Zoo (now the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the 1950s and early 1960s, with a peak reported length of 8.7 metres (28 ft 7 in) from a measurement in November 1956, was later shown to have been substantially shorter than previously reported. When Colossus died on 14 April 1963, its body was deposited in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. At that time, its skeleton was measured and found to be 20 ft 10 in (6.35 m) in total length, and the length of its fresh hide was measured as 23 ft 11 in (7.29 m) – both measurements being significantly shorter than what had been previously estimated in 1956.[30] The hide tends to stretch from the skinning process, thus may be longer than the snake from which it came – e.g., by roughly 20–40% or more.[31] The previous reports had been constructed by combining partial measurements with estimations to compensate for "kinks", since completely straightening an extremely large live python is virtually impossible. Because of these issues, a 2012 journal article concluded, "Colossus was neither the longest snake nor the heaviest snake ever maintained in captivity." Too large to be preserved with formaldehyde and then stored in alcohol, the specimen was instead prepared as a disarticulated skeleton. The hide was sent to a laboratory to be tanned, but it was either lost or destroyed, and now only the skull and selected vertebrae and ribs remain in the museum's collection.[30] Considerable confusion exists in the literature over whether Colossus was male or female (females tend to be larger).[30][31] Numerous reports have been made of larger snakes, but since none of these was measured by a scientist nor any of the specimens deposited at a museum, they must be regarded as unproven and possibly erroneous. In spite of what has been, for many years, a standing offer of a large financial reward (initially $1,000, later raised to $5,000, then $15,000 in 1978 and $50,000 in 1980) for a live, healthy snake 30 ft (9.14 m) or longer by the New York Zoological Society (later renamed as the Wildlife Conservation Society), no attempt to claim this reward has ever been made.[31]
Reported sizes
DateLocationReported lengthReported weightReported girthScientifically analyzed lengthComments
The colour pattern is a complex geometric pattern that incorporates different colours. The back typically has a series of irregular diamond shapes flanked by smaller markings with light centers. In this species' wide geographic range, much variation of size, colour, and markings commonly occurs.
In zoo exhibits, the colour pattern may seem garish, but in a shadowy jungle environment amid fallen leaves and debris, it allows them to virtually disappear. Called disruptive colouration, it protects them from predators and helps them to catch their prey.[37]
The huge size and attractive pattern of this snake has made it a favorite zoo exhibit, with several individuals claimed to be above 20 ft (6.1 m) in length and more than one claimed to be the largest in captivity.[38] However, due to its huge size, immense strength, aggressive disposition, and the mobility of the skin relative to the body, it is very difficult to get exact length measurements of a living reticulated python, and weights are rarely indicative, as captive pythons are often obese.[31] Claims made by zoos and animal parks are sometimes exaggerated, such as the claimed 14.85 m (48 ft 9 in) snake in Indonesia which was subsequently proven to be about 6.5–7 m (21 ft 4 in – 23 ft 0 in) long.[39] For this reason, scientists do not accept the validity of length measurements unless performed on a dead or anesthetized snake that is later preserved in a museum collection or stored for scientific research.[31]
A reticulated python kept in the United States in Kansas City, Missouri, named "Medusa" is considered by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the longest living snake ever kept in captivity. In 2011 it was reported to measure 7.67 m (25 ft 2 in) and weigh 158.8 kg (350 lb 2 oz).[36]
In 2012, an albino reticulated python, named "Twinkie", housed in Fountain Valley, California, was considered to be the largest albino snake in captivity by the Guinness World Records. It measured 7 m (23 ft 0 in) in length and weighed about 168 kg (370 lb).[40]
Dwarf forms of reticulated pythons also occur, from some islands northwest of Australia, and these are being selectively bred in captivity to be much smaller, resulting in animals often referred to as "super dwarfs". Adult super dwarf reticulated pythons are typically between 1.82 and 2.4 m (6 ft 0 in and 7 ft 10 in) in length.[41]
Distribution and habitat
The reticulated python is found in South and Southeast Asia from the Nicobar Islands, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore, east through Indonesia and the Indo-Australian Archipelago (Sumatra, the Mentawai Islands, the Natuna Islands, Borneo, Sulawesi, Java, Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores, Timor, Maluku, Tanimbar Islands) and the Philippines (Basilan, Bohol, Cebu, Leyte, Luzon, Mindanao, Mindoro, Negros, Palawan, Panay, Polillo, Samar, Tawi-Tawi). The original description does not include a type locality. The type locality was restricted to "Java" by Brongersma (1972).[2]
Three subspecies have been proposed,[25] but are not recognized in the Integrated Taxonomic Information System. The color and size can vary a great deal among the subspecies described. Geographical location is a good key to establishing the subspecies, as each one has a distinct geographical range.
The reticulated python lives in rainforests, woodlands, and nearby grasslands. It is also associated with rivers and is found in areas with nearby streams and lakes. An excellent swimmer, it has even been reported far out at sea and has consequently colonized many small islands within its range.[37] During the early years of the 20th century, it is said to have been common even in busy parts of Bangkok, sometimes eating domestic animals.[42]
Behaviour and ecology
Diet
A captive reticulated python eating a chicken
As with all pythons, the reticulated python is an ambush predator, usually waiting until prey wanders within strike range before seizing it in its coils and killing by constriction. Its natural diet includes mammals and occasionally birds. Small specimens up to 3–4 m (9 ft 10 in – 13 ft 1 in) long eat mainly small mammals such as rats, other rodents, mouse-eared bats, and treeshrews, whereas larger individuals switch to prey such as small Indian civet and binturong, primates, pigs, and deer weighing more than 60 kg (132 lb 4 oz).[43] As a rule, the reticulated python seems able to swallow prey up to one-quarter its own length and up to its own weight. Near human habitation, it is known to snatch stray chickens, cats, and dogs on occasion.[27] Among the largest documented prey items are a half-starved sun bear of 23 kg (50 lb 11 oz) that was eaten by a 6.95 m (22 ft 10 in) specimen and took some 10 weeks to digest.[29] At least one case is reported of a foraging python entering a forest hut and taking a child.[44]
Reproduction
Baby reticulated python
The reticulated python is oviparous. Adult females lay between 15 and 80 eggs per clutch. At an optimum incubation temperature of 31–32 °C (88–90 °F), the eggs take an average of 88 days to hatch.[24] Hatchlings are at least 0.61 m (2 ft) in length.[42]
Danger to humans
Large reticulated pythons are occasionally found on the outskirts of Bangkok. Usually, a minimum of two people is required to successfully extract such a large snake.
Reticulated python in Pune
The reticulated python is among the few snakes that prey on humans. In 2015, the species was added to the Lacey Act of 1900, prohibiting import and interstate transport due to its "injurious" history with humans.[45] Attacks on humans are not common, but this species has been responsible for several reported human fatalities, in both the wild and captivity. Considering the known maximum prey size, a full-grown reticulated python can open its jaws wide enough to swallow a human, but the width of the shoulders of some adult Homo sapiens can pose a problem for even a snake with sufficient size. Reports of human fatalities and human consumption (the latest examples of consumption of an adult human being well authenticated) include:
A report of a visit of Antonio van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company, to the Banda Islands in 1638, includes a description of an enslaved woman who, when tending to a garden on the volcanic island of Gunung Api, was strangled by a snake of "24 houtvoeten" (slightly over seven meters) in length, and then swallowed whole. The snake, having become slow after ingesting such a large prey, was subsequently shot by Dutch soldiers and brought to the Governor-General to be looked at, with its victim still inside. Although less reliable than this first-hand document, several early published travel journals describe similar episodes.[46]
In early 20th-century Indonesia: On Salibabu island, North Sulawesi, a 14-year-old boy was killed and supposedly eaten by a specimen 5.17 m (17.0 ft) in length. Another incident involved a woman reputedly eaten by a "large reticulated python", but few details are known.[47]
In the early 1910s or in 1927, a jeweller went hunting with his friends and was apparently eaten by a 6 m (20 ft) python after he sought shelter from a rainstorm in or under a tree. Supposedly, he was swallowed feet-first, perhaps the easiest way for a snake to actually swallow a human.[48]
Among a small group of Aeta peoples in the Philippines, six deaths by pythons were said to have been documented within a period of 40 years, plus one who died later of an infected bite.[44]
In September 1995, a 29-year-old rubber tapper from the southern Malaysian state of Johor was reported to have been killed by a large reticulated python. The victim had apparently been caught unaware and was squeezed to death. The snake had coiled around the lifeless body with the victim's head gripped in its jaws when it was stumbled upon by the victim's brother. The python, reported as measuring 7.0 m (23 ft) long and weighing more than 140 kg (300 lb), was killed soon after by the arriving police, who shot it four times.[31]
In October 2008, a 25-year-old woman from Virginia Beach appeared to have been killed by a 4.0 m (13 ft) pet reticulated python. The apparent cause of death was asphyxiation. The snake was later found in the bedroom in an agitated state.[49]
In January 2009, a 3-year-old boy was wrapped in the coils of a 18 ft (5.5 m) pet reticulated python, turning blue. The boy's mother, who had been petsitting the python on behalf of a friend, rescued the toddler by gashing the python with a knife. The snake was later euthanized because of its wounds.[50]
In December 2013, a 59-year-old security guard was strangled to death while trying to capture a python near the Bali Hyatt, a luxury hotel on Indonesia's resort island. The incident happened around 3 am as the 4.5-m (15-ft) python was crossing a road near the hotel. The victim had offered to help capture the snake, which had been spotted several times before near the hotel in the Sanur, Bali, area and escaped back into nearby bushes.[51]
In March 2017, the body of Akbar Salubiro, a 25-year-old farmer in Central Mamuju Regency, West Sulawesi, Indonesia, was found inside the stomach of a 7 m (23 ft) reticulated python. He had been declared missing from his palm tree plantation, and the people searching for him found the python the next day with a large bulge in its stomach. They killed the python and found the whole body of the missing farmer inside. This was the first fully confirmed case of a person being eaten by a python. The process of retrieving the body from the python's stomach was documented by pictures and videos taken by witnesses.[52][53][54]
In June 2018, a 54-year-old Indonesian woman in Muna Island, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, was killed and eaten by a 23 ft (7 m) python. The woman went missing one night while working in her garden, and the next day, a search party was organized after some of her belongings were found abandoned in the garden. The python was found near the garden with a large bulge in its body. The snake was killed and carried into town, where it was cut open, revealing the woman's body completely intact.[55]
In June 2020, a 16-year-old Indonesian boy was attacked and killed by a 7 m (23 ft) long python in Bombana Regency, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. The incident took place near a waterfall at Mount Kahar in Rumbia sub-district. The victim was separated from his four friends in the woods. When he screamed, his friends came to help and found him encoiled by a large python. Villagers came to help and managed to kill the snake using a parang machete. However, the victim had already suffocated.[56]
In October 2022, a 52-year-old woman in Terjun Gajah village, Betara Subdistrict, West Tanjung Jabung Regency, Jambi, Indonesia, was killed and swallowed whole by a 6 m (20 ft) reticulated python. She went to tap rubber sap on 23 October 2022 and did not return home after sunset. After she was reported missing for a day and a night, a search party discovered a large python with a bulge in its body in a jungle near the rubber plantation. The villagers immediately killed and dissected the python and discovered the intact body of the missing woman inside. Villagers were alarmed, fearing more large pythons might be lurking in the rubber plantation, because farmers previously had reported two goats missing.[57]
In captivity
Reticulated python with an unusual color pattern: Various color patterns are found in captive-bred specimens – some brought about by selective breeding.
In Ragunan Zoo, Terrarium, South Jakarta, Indonesia
Increased popularity of the reticulated python in the pet trade is due largely to increased efforts in captive breeding and selectively bred mutations such as the "albino" and "tiger" strains. Smaller variants such as the "super dwarf" variants found on small islands are likewise popular due to their smaller size, as they grow to a fraction of the lengths and weights of their mainland kin due to genetics, limited space and prey availability.[58] It can make a good captive, but keepers working with adults from mainland populations should have previous experience with large constrictors to ensure safety to both animal and keeper. Although its interactivity and beauty draws much attention, some feel it is unpredictable.[59][60] The python can bite and possibly constrict if it feels threatened, or mistakes a hand for food. While not venomous, large pythons can inflict serious injuries by biting, sometimes requiring stitches.
In popular culture
In Moonraker (1979), a reticulated python tries to suffocate James Bond (Roger Moore), but Bond kills the snake with a hypodermic pen.
My favourite Monty Python clip!
Simple hilarious with an amazing song!
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life - Monty Python's Life of Brian
Monty Python Uploaded on Nov 13, 2008
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, taken from Life of Brian.
:)
See the blog post for more info: Monty Python’s Holy Ale
This photo is licensed under a Creative Commons license. If you use this photo, please list the photo credit as "Scott Beale / Laughing Squid" and link the credit to laughingsquid.com.
Humour in the bar, candid.
Antiquity of jokes.
Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.
Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.
A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes: the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are:
A barber, a bald man and an absent-minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, and so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me."
There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."
Quite an impressive building for folks who believe in a mythical thing. The people who 'work' there have fancy costumes, endorse unproven so called events as facts and cherry pick sections from a book that almost seem plausible at best.
Here are a few actual facts.
:- It's a Grade I Listed Cathedral Church.
:- The original church, was built in in 943
:- Current church built c.1530–1725 renovated 1969–1975, 2015–2016
:- It has a tower that's 212 feet (65 m)
:- Derby Cathedral defended its decision to hold screenings of three films that between them show graphic sex scenes, paganism and a satirical depiction of a “naughty boy” who keeps being mistaken for Jesus Christ.
:- It also shown 1970s film classics The Wicker Man, Don’t Look Now and Monty Python’s Life of Brian on an inflatable big screen – despite opposition from some church wardens.
Day 6 of my 30 Days of Gratitude and Iain and I got to take dad out of hospital for the day. He wanted to go a wee run. Just the three of us. So we went to Callendar which is about 45 minutes from Glasgow. He's struggling to walk and is very frail at the moment, so we stayed in the car most of the time. We had a lovely drive and came back via Doune Castle which was the place used for Monty Python's Holy Grail movie, then up to Bridge of Allan, back past Stirling and home. Just before Bridge of Allan we stopped at a monument in the middle of nowhere. It was of a man named David Stirling who founded of the SAS. I took this picture of a poppy tied to his bootlace. It was nice because dad was reminiscing a lot about the old days and even managed to give us a couple of songs from the past. It was a day to be really grateful for.
I've worked with Johnny so many times, and I think this is definitely one of my favorite characters because we've always talked about old horror movies, and the idea of being able to create something like that and see Johnny play a monster in a way is fantastic!
- Tim Burton on Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd is angry.
After 15 years of imprisonment on a false charge, Barber Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) returns to London a changed man. Now called Sweeney Todd, he finds his old barber shop and prepares revenge against Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) for disrupting his unassuming life, throwing him in jail, and stealing his wife and child for himself. With razors in hand, Sweeney Todd aims to murder the judge and anyone who gets in his way. When Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) realizes that she's got a serial killer living in the barber shop above her meat pie bistro, she deduces a plan that solves both of their problems, disposing the bodies and perking up her failing business. Together, they refurbish and reopen both shops to plenty of eager customers. Don't ask what's in the pies.
Who is Sweeney Todd?
The origin of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street dates back to the 1600s. A combination of stories about crazy barbers over the years added to his legend. The character is first most prominently featured in a London serial magazine in 1846. Films followed in the 1930s, and Stephen Sondheim's musical is based on a play version from the 1960s. When it hit Broadway in 1979, it won eight Tonys, including one for Best Musical, and two Grammys.
I had no idea who Sweeney Todd was, but I had heard of Stephen Sondheim's musical starring Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett. (She won a Tony too.) When Johnny signed on for Tim Burton's film version, I assumed it would be a drama with no singing because Johnny doesn't do that. Because I love Angela Lansbury, I rented a DVD of that Sweeney Todd to get an idea of what Johnny signed up for. My reaction was unexpected: He's going to play that guy, that huge, scary, Frankenstein-looking guy with the booming voice and horrible haircut? Wait, what is Mrs. Lovett putting in the pies? This thing involved a lot of throat-slitting and cannibalism, and the audience was laughing about it. I didn't get it.
Get ready for a shock!
Leading up to the movie's release, I saw a photo of Johnny on the set. He had a glaring white streak in his hair. I didn't get that either. (Johnny later explained the obvious: Sweeney's been through a shock.) Still, I was excited to see this thing. I was thrilled to hear that Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman were his costars, and I was intrigued that Sascha Baron Cohen also snagged a key role. With Tim Burton in charge, I had no idea what to expect from all these intriguing choices!
I tried to avoid seeing anything else about the movie because I like to be surprised by the finished product. But, inevitably, I eventually caught a preview on TV. You must have heard when it happened because it was as if a Beatle showed up in my apartment: Johnny was singing!!!
"He's got the best job," Tim Burton says about Johnny in this role. "He just stares and broods and doesn't have much dialogue. I wish I could have that job! But he did have to sing, so that sort of balanced the whole thing out." I think only Tim Burton could get Johnny to do that.
Apparently, Johnny kept everyone in suspense about his hidden talent. "We're here at the studio, sets were being constructed, wardrobe was being made, other actors and commitments were being made," Producer Richard Zanuck remembers. "Literally, we were spending millions of dollars on the picture, and not one person on earth had heard Johnny sing--and he's the star of the picture!" Producer Walter Parks concurs, "I think, at the end of the day, Stephen Sondheim didn't hear him sing before he decided that he would accept the fact that Johnny was going to do it. You just look at Johnny's body of work and you realize that this is a man that holds himself to the highest possible standard, and we all knew that if he said he could do it, he could do it."
I don't think Johnny ever said he could do it, but he said he would try. "I wasn't sure if I'd be able to sing any of it! I certainly wasn't convinced I'd be able to sustain," he says. "That, in many cases, was the booger: holding a note for 12 beats, not easy! There were several instances when I thought, 'I'm just gonna hit the deck. I ran out of air 5 minutes ago.' It's beautiful stuff to sing. I can only imagine that it must be really nice if you're a singer!"
For help, Johnny called on his childhood friend Bruce Witkin. Johnny first moved to Los Angeles in the early 1980s with dreams of snagging a record contract with his band The Kids, and Bruce Witkin was the lead singer. Still working in music now, Bruce Witkin helped Johnny learn and record all the songs for Sweeney Todd. "We started knocking them down, one by one," Johnny recalls. "We started with 'My Friends.' That was the first song I ever sang in my life. I don't even sing in the shower. It was pretty weird. Yeah, scary!" (It's awesome!!!!!!!!!)
Bring on the music!
Producer Richard Zanuck remembers the moment when everyone's fears were put to rest. "One day, I was in my office on the phone. Tim burst in and lays down a little cassette player and his headphones--I didn't know what he was doing--and he walked out. So, I got off the phone, put them on, and listened to Johnny sing for the first time. And, I just put it down and went into Tim's office, and we just stared at each other with great relief. And, we had the biggest smiles at each other because we knew we had a great voice with Johnny!"
Unlike his other roles, Johnny found Sweeney Todd in the music. "The character actually came out of the singing, out of the words, Sondheim's words, his melodies, the emotion that the arrangements kind of evoke. I heard him before I saw him." Johnny didn't take any singing lessons to prepare for this role either. He didn't imagine Sweeney Todd was the kind of guy who would bother to take lessons. In Sweeney's case, singing was purely an emotional release.
It seems that Tim Burton was the only one who wasn't really concerned about his star's abilities. "I remember when I first heard Johnny. I thought, 'That's amazing! He sounds like some kind of rock star!' Just by the nature of him doing it brings something different to it. I'd say that about all the actors because they're not singers. They all bring a certain modern quality to it, which is in the piece, but it just pushes it that much further."
It's true! Aside from the actress who plays the beggar woman in the movie (Laura Michelle Kelly), singing was new to all of the actors, and they were terrified. "One of the more challenging moments in one's life is when you've got the music in your hand, and you're in a huge rehearsal room, and Stephen Sondheim walks across the room and says, 'Okay, let's hear it.'" Alan Rickman says.
Unlike Johnny, Helena Bonham Carter, who has always wanted to be in a musical (and to be Mrs. Lovett specifically), tackled her role with weeks of singing lessons. "If you're going to sing, and you're going to do your first musical, it's really stupid to be Mrs. Lovett," she says. If you watch, Mrs. Lovett has to go that extra mile: Some of her songs are fast and require multitasking, whether it's baking or interacting with other people in the scenes. Before filming began, she had to imagine what her musical scenes would be like, including what she thought the other actors involved might do. Then, she recorded the songs to fit the anticipated actions accordingly. As usual, she's amazing!
Excited about seeing this wonderful cast, all I was worried about was the blood. Surprisingly, the studios weren't so concerned: "It was an amazing thing," Tim Burton describes proposing this project to the powers that be. "You go, 'We're going to make an R-rated musical with lots of blood, with no professional singers, about a serial killer and cannibalism,' and they go, 'Great!' I've never had that happen in my life before. That gave me hope that there are still people in Hollywood that are willing to try different things."
It's splattered!
Sweeney Todd was released on Christmas Day. I knew that when I went home to Ohio for the holidays and Dad referred to it as "that slasher movie," no one in my family was interested in being dragged out in the middle of winter to see Sweeney Todd with me. So, I planned to see it as soon as I got back to D.C.
This delay turned out to be a blessing because, as a consolation prize, I allowed myself to watch all the Sweeney Todd specials on MTV, HBO, Starz and wherever else. I learned all the behind-the-scenes secrets about making the perfect mixture of "blood," the variety of razor blades, throat-slitting techniques, and stunts. I started to compare the gore to Monty Python's skit spoofing the violence in Sam Peckinpah movies. Somehow, that was comforting and made me feel more prepared for sitting in a dark theater to watch it on the big screen.
Eventually, my sister decided to see Sweeney Todd and asked me how bloody it was before she went. "It's not too bloody," I said. Post viewing, she called back, yelling, "Not too bloody?!" She claims that my vision was burred by my heart-shaped rose-colored Johnny Glasses. (Do those exist?!)
The truth is that my blood and gore tolerance preparation went out the window when I got to the theater, so I averted my eyes from all the blood the first time I saw Sweeney Todd. Instead of witnessing any of the murders straight on, I only saw red out of the corner of my eye as I focused on other things in the scene. What's going on outside that window behind him? What's that picture on the wall? I'm into details, after all.
There is a lot of blood.
But I'm in love!
Despite the gore, I love (love, love, love) this movie! At first glance, it's not my kind of movie at all but, in it's own weird way, it is my favorite kind: a modern musical that looks like a Gothic old movie. Apparently, that's what Tim Burton was going for: Drawing on his love of classic horror films, which he and Johnny both watched as kids, he looked to Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Lon Chaney, for inspiration. These great silent horror film stars were so expressive with internal emotion in their movies. He created that same look and feel for Sweeney Todd with the makeup's pale skin and dark, sunken eyes paired with the grayness of the beautiful Gothic sets.
The look of this movie is somehow just as I imagined it. Sweeney Todd is dramatic, tragic, funny, and scary all at the same time. Despite the dark subject matter, by all accounts, the set was a happy one. All of the actors reflect that in their fantastic performances. And, the film's magnificent score ties everything together. "This is Tim Burton's giant salute to classic horror films," Johnny says. "It's a beautiful marriage from two completely different worlds." It's a masterpiece!!!
Rest assured, Sweeney Todd is not all blood and guts or any kind of slasher film. This is a good story! "The violence is secondary to the motive," Stephen Sondheim explains. "It's a story about revenge, and it's about how revenge eats itself up. In that sense, it's a tragedy. It's the classic tradition of somebody who goes out for revenge and ends up destroying himself." Doesn't that sound great?
For those of you who don't like musicals, you might be okay with this one because it's not a faithful adaptation. The movie is filmed at a faster pace than the stage version, and many songs were cut to keep the story's intensity. "This is not a movie of the stage show; this is a movie based on the stage show," Stephen Sondheim clarifies. "That's the most exciting thing about this." (I don't know about that. Did I mention that Johnny sings in this?) This story is reinvented from Tim Burton's head. "Tim has taken it and adapted it to his vision, his version of Sweeney Todd," Johnny says. "It's a whole other animal."
Is the third time a charm?
Sweeney Todd was nominated for three Oscars, for costume design, art direction, and Johnny's spectacular performance! Alas, Daniel Day Lewis was nominated that year too, and whenever Daniel Day Lewis is nominated for anything, he wins it. I love Daniel Day Lewis just as much as the next person, but he already had an Oscar by then. Give somebody else a chance! Johnny played a psychotic depressed serial killer singing Sondheim with a cockney accent. I can't imagine anything being much harder than that! I blame the blood for deterring voters.
With his eighth nomination, Johnny did win his first Golden Globe for this performance! But, to my extreme disappointment, that was the year the writer's strike happened and the live televised Golden Globes event was cancelled. In addition to winning an Oscar for art direction and a Golden Globe for Best Picture, Sweeney Todd was nominated for and won a bunch of other well-deserved awards around the world. The film earned honors for Tim Burton, the actors (notably Johnny, Helena Bonham Carter, and newcomer Ed Sanders, who is excellent as Toby), and the crew (for art direction, production design, and costume design). I don't call it a masterpiece for nothing!
Gordon can sing too!
Drawing something for Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd was intimidating--not because of the blood but because I love nearly everything about it! Whatever lofty plans I had to capture the whole look and feel of this movie, Gordon was ready since he helped celebrate Sweeney Todd the first time around. After I first saw the movie, Gordon dressed up as Sweeney and tested out his lungs--putting all The Kitties in stitches! You can see the drawing here: melissaconnolly.blogspot.com/2008/01/illustration-friday-....
Watching the movie again recently, I noticed how reflections and mirrors are used as Johnny sings "My Friends." In that spirit, I made the panels look like broken mirrors. The first row highlights a few key moments in the film since I couldn't decide on a favorite. They are:
- Sweeney singing "My Friends" about his treasured razors (with Mrs. Lovett/Mini checking out her competition).
- An iconic moment in which Sweeney finally feels at home.
- And, Sweeney's determined look out his barber shop window at London and it's unsuspecting citizens--a climactic moment at the end of the scene.
Following those is an excerpt from Sweeney's "Epiphany," which kind of says it all. This story does not have a happy ending. (But it's awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Where else did Johnny show up that year?
Johnny participated in three documentaries in 2007, all of which I recommend! They are listed below.
- Brando. This documentary, which original aired on Turner Classic Movies, explores the life of Johnny's mentor and friend Marlon Brando.
- Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten. Learn all about the charismatic lead singer of The Clash. It'll leave you inspired to run out buy his music (or more of it), as I did.
- Runnin' Down a Dream: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. If you're not already a fan of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, this 4-hour documentary will make you one. You might remember that Johnny appeared in the band's video for "Into the Great Wide Open" in 1993. I mentioned it while celebrating Film #7, Arizona Dream; you can see the video in that blog post here: melissaconnolly.blogspot.com/2011/04/johnny-kitties-celeb....
What's next?
Johnny trades in his razors for guns and goes gangsta in Public Enemies.
For images from Sweeney Todd or information about Johnny Kitties, see my blog post here: melissaconnolly.blogspot.com/2013/09/johnny-kitties-celeb....
There's this amazing vintage couch on the second floor of Meadows (the SMU art department) that I want to steal so bad.
Cardigan: thrifted from Salvation Army
80s stretch belt: vintage, Dolly Python's
Floral dress: vintage, Twitch Vintage on Ebay
Leaf necklace: estate sale
Spectator pumps: vintage
It is easy to laugh and think of Monty Python's "Ministry of Silly Walks" when viewing this serious and important ceremony; however one can't help but be impressed by it. Respect to these men and the tradition. If in Athens, make sure you catch this event. They change on the hour, the whole thing only takes 5-10 mins and it's well worth it.
Trust in me, just in me
Shut your eyes and trust in me
You can sleep safe and sound
Knowing I am around
Slip into silent slumber
Sail on a silver mist
Slowly and surely your senses
Will cease to resist
Trust in me, just in me
Shut your eyes and trust in me
The Python's song in The Jungle Book.
The Indian python (Python molurus) is a large python species native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It is also known by the common names black-tailed python, Indian rock python, and Asian rock python. Although smaller than its close relative the Burmese python, it is still among the largest snakes in the world. It is generally lighter colored than the Burmese python and reaches usually 3 m (9 ft 10 in). Like all pythons, it is nonvenomous.
The rock python's color pattern is whitish or yellowish with the blotched patterns varying from tan to dark brown shades. This varies with terrain and habitat. Specimens from the hill forests of Western Ghats and Assam are darker, while those from the Deccan Plateau and Eastern Ghats are usually lighter. All pythons are non-venomous.
The nominate subspecies occurring in India typically grows to 3 m (9 ft 10 in). This value is supported by a 1990 study in Keoladeo National Park, where 25% of the python population was 2.7–3.3 m (8 ft 10 in – 10 ft 10 in) long. Two individuals even measured nearly 3.6 m (11 ft 10 in).
Because of confusion with the Burmese python, exaggerations, and stretched skins in the past, the maximum length of this subspecies is difficult to tell. The longest scientifically recorded specimen, collected in Pakistan, was 4.6 m (15 ft 1 in) long and weighed 52 kg (114 lb 10 oz). In Pakistan, Indian pythons commonly reach a length of 2.4–3.0 m (7 ft 10 in – 9 ft 10 in).
Differs from Burmese python (Python bivittatus) by the following signs:
the presence of light "eyes" in the centers of spots located on the sides of the trunk;
reddish or pinkish color of light stripes on the sides of the head;
a diamond - shaped spot on the head blurred in the front part;
usually lighter in color, dominated by brown, reddish-brown, yellowish-brown and grayish-brown tones;
unlike P. bivittatus, which inhabit moist and meadow habitats, it usually prefers drier and arid places;
The Indian python occurs in nearly all of the Indian Subcontinent south of the Himalayas, including southern Nepal and Bhutan, Sri Lanka, southeastern Pakistan, Bangladesh, and probably in northern Myanmar. It lives in a wide range of habitats, including grasslands, swamps, marshes, rocky foothills, woodlands, open forest, and river valleys. It needs a reliable source of water. It hides in abandoned mammal burrows, hollow trees, dense water reeds, and mangrove thickets.
Lethargic and slow moving even in their native habitat, they exhibit timidity and rarely try to attack even when attacked. Locomotion is usually with the body moving in a straight line, by "walking on its ribs". They are excellent swimmers and are quite at home in water. They can be wholly submerged in water for many minutes if necessary, but usually prefer to remain near the bank.
Like all snakes, Indian pythons are strict carnivores and feed on mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians indiscriminately, but seem to prefer mammals. Roused to activity on sighting prey, the snake advances with a quivering tail and lunges with an open mouth. Live prey is constricted and killed. One or two coils are used to hold it in a tight grip. The prey, unable to breathe, succumbs and is subsequently swallowed head first. After a heavy meal, they are disinclined to move. If forced to, hard parts of the meal may tear through the body. Therefore, if disturbed, some specimens disgorge their meal to escape from potential predators. After a heavy meal, an individual may fast for weeks, the longest recorded duration being 2 years. The python can swallow prey bigger than its diameter because the jaw bones are not connected. Moreover, prey cannot escape from its mouth because of the arrangement of the teeth (which are reverse saw-like).
Oviparous, up to 100 eggs are laid by a female, which she protects and incubates. Towards this end, they are capable of raising their body temperature above the ambient level through muscular contractions. The hatchlings are 45–60 cm (18–24 in) in length and grow quickly. An artificial incubation method using climate-controlled environmental chambers was developed in India for successfully raising hatchlings from abandoned or unattended eggs.
The Indian python is classified as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List due to a likely population decline of ~30% over the decade 2010–2020, caused by habitat loss, over-exploitation, and lack of conservation actions.
A genetic study published in 2017 showed that the Burmese pythons in Florida are hybrids with P. molurus.
In the literature, one other subspecies may be encountered: P. m. pimbura Deraniyagala, 1945, which is found in Sri Lanka.
The Burmese python (P. bivittatus) was referred to as a subspecies of the Indian python until 2009, when it was elevated to full species status. The name Python molurus bivittatus is found in older literature.
Kaa, a large and old Indian python, is featured as one of Mowgli's mentors in Rudyard Kipling's 1894 collection The Jungle Book.
On a suggestion from Steffe, HyperBob borrows Big Al's Fez and assuming wrongly that snakes are mezmerised by the movement of the black tassels on the fez, he enters the python's den in a rash and foolhardy manner to take a snapshot, only to meet his doom.
The Postcard
A postcard bearing no publisher's name that was posted in Walton-on-Thames on Sunday the 30th. August 1908 to:
Mr. N. Bodiam,
Upper Street,
Hollingbourne,
Maidstone,
Kent.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Dear N,
Just a P.C. to let you know
I am getting on all right.
I like everything very well
so far.
I have got a very nice car.
I have driven it three times
and manage it all right so
far.
I feel a bit strange today,
I don't know many people
yet, and no nice walk after
church tonight.
Best wishes,
P.H."
The Palace Theatre
The Palace Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster in London. Its red-brick façade dominates the west side of Cambridge Circus behind a small plaza near the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. The Palace Theatre seats 1,400.
Richard D'Oyly Carte, producer of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, commissioned the theatre in the late 1880's. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt, and was intended to be a home of English grand opera.
The theatre opened as the Royal English Opera House in January 1891 with a lavish production of Arthur Sullivan's opera 'Ivanhoe'. Although this ran for 160 performances, followed briefly by André Messager's 'La Basoche', Carte had no other works ready to fill the theatre.
He leased it to Sarah Bernhardt for a season, and sold the opera house within a year at a loss. It was then converted into a grand music hall and renamed the Palace Theatre of Varieties, managed successfully first by Sir Augustus Harris and then by Charles Morton. In 1897, the theatre began to screen films as part of its programme of entertainment.
In 1904, Alfred Butt became manager and continued to combine variety entertainment, including dancing girls, with films. The Marx Brothers appeared at the theatre in 1922, performing selections from their Broadway shows.
In 1925, the musical comedy 'No, No, Nanette' opened at the Palace Theatre, followed by other musicals, for which the theatre became known. 'The Sound of Music' opened in 1961 and ran for 2,385 performances at the theatre. 'Jesus Christ Superstar' ran from 1972 to 1980, and 'Les Misérables' played at the theatre for nineteen years, beginning in 1985.
In 1983, Andrew Lloyd Webber purchased the Palace Theatre, and by 1991 had refurbished it. Monty Python's 'Spamalot' played there from 2006 until January 2009, and 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert' opened in March 2009 and closed in December 2011. Between February 2012 and June 2013, the Palace hosted a production of 'Singin' in the Rain'.
From June 2016 the play 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' ran at the theatre until performances were suspended in March 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
David Clarke
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, the 30th. August 1908 marked the birth of David Gainey Clarke. He was an American Broadway and motion picture actor.
The Life and Career of David Clarke
A native of Chicago and graduate of Butler University, Clarke started his career as a stage actor during the 1930's. He made his first film 'Knockout' in 1941.
David is best known for his film noir roles as a character actor during the 1940's and 1950's. He also played at the Biltmore Theatre in Los Angeles, and was featured on Broadway in the original productions of 'A View from the Bridge', 'Orpheus Descending', 'The Ballad of the Sad Cafe', 'Inquest', and 'The Visit'.
On television, Clarke appeared as Abel Bingley in 'The Waltons' and as Tiso Novotny in the soap opera 'Ryan's Hope'.
Personal Life and Death of David Clarke
David Clarke was married to Nora Dunfee. He lived in Belmont, Ohio for several years until he sold his house and moved to Arlington, Virginia to be with his two daughters. He died in Virginia from pneumonia on the 18th. April 2004, aged 95 years.
Pat Rooney and Michael Palin in a book shop on 42nd Street in New York on the 6th June 2005. Normally I would not allow the big stars in entertainment to have their photo taken with me. As Michael is a nice guy and we had a few things in common, like travel, I relented and was delighted and it made his day.
Seriously, he is a gentleman and a lovely guy and it was just a bit of luck that I met him as he had finished signing his latest book. I came into the book shop almost by accident. We had a chat he told me he was off in a few weeks to stay in Lismore Castle in Waterford.
Michael Edward Palin, CBE, FRGS ( born 5 May 1943) is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries. Palin wrote most of his comedic material with Terry Jones. Before Monty Python, they had worked on other shows such as the Ken Dodd Show, The Frost Report and Do Not Adjust Your Set. Palin appeared in some of the most famous Python sketches, including "Argument Clinic", "Dead Parrot", "The Lumberjack Song", "The Spanish Inquisition", and "The Fish-Slapping Dance".
Palin continued to work with Jones after Python, co-writing Ripping Yarns. He has also appeared in several films directed by fellow Python Terry Gilliam and made notable appearances in other films such as A Fish Called Wanda, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.[1] In a 2005 poll to find The Comedians' Comedian, he was voted the 30th favourite by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.[2]
After Python, he began a new career as a travel writer and travel documentarian. His journeys have taken him across the world, including the North and South Poles, the Sahara Desert, the Himalayas, Eastern Europe and, most recently, Brazil. In 2000 Palin was honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to television.[3] From 2009 to 2012 Palin was the president of the Royal Geographical Society.[4] On 12 May 2013, Palin was made a BAFTA fellow, the highest honour that is conferred by the organisation.[5]
Early life and career[edit]
Palin was born in Broomhill, Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, the second child and only son of Mary Rachel Lockhart (née Ovey) and Edward Moreton Palin.[6][7] His father was a Shrewsbury School and Cambridge-educated engineer working for a steel firm.[8] His maternal grandfather, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Lockhart Ovey, DSO, was High Sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1927.[9] He started his education at Birkdale Preparatory School, Sheffield, and later Shrewsbury School. His sister Angela was nine years older than he was. Despite the age gap the two had a close relationship until her suicide in 1987.[8][10] He has ancestral roots in Letterkenny, County Donegal.[11]
When he was five years old, Palin had his first acting experience at Birkdale playing Martha Cratchit in a school performance of A Christmas Carol. At the age of 10, Palin, still interested in acting, made a comedy monologue and read a Shakespeare play to his mother while playing all the parts.[12] After his school days in 1962 he went on to read modern history at Brasenose College, Oxford. With fellow student Robert Hewison he performed and wrote, for the first time, comedy material at a university Christmas party.[13] Terry Jones, also a student in Oxford, saw that performance and began writing together with Hewison and Palin.[12] In the same year Palin joined the Brightside and Carbrook Co-Operative Society Players and first gained fame when he won an acting award at a Co-Op drama festival.[14] He also performed and wrote in the Oxford Revue (called the Et ceteras) with Jones.[15]
In 1966 he married Helen Gibbins, whom he first met in 1959 on holiday in Southwold in Suffolk.[8] This meeting was later fictionalised in Palin's play East of Ipswich.[16] The couple have three children and a grandchild. His youngest child, Rachel (b. 1975) is a BBC TV director, whose work includes MasterChef: The Professionals, shown on BBC2 throughout October and November 2010.[17][18] While still a baby, his son William briefly appeared in Monty Python and the Holy Grail as "Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film". His nephew is the theatre designer Jeremy Herbert.[citation needed]
After finishing university in 1965 Palin became a presenter on a comedy pop show called Now! for the television contractor Television Wales and the West.[19] At the same time Palin was contacted by Jones, who had left university a year earlier, for assistance in writing a theatrical documentary about sex through the ages.[20] Although this project was eventually abandoned, it brought Palin and Jones together as a writing duo and led them to write comedy for various BBC programmes, such as The Ken Dodd Show, The Billy Cotton Bandshow, and The Illustrated Weekly Hudd.[21] They collaborated in writing lyrics for an album by Barry Booth called Diversions. They were also in the team of writers working for The Frost Report, whose other members included Frank Muir, Barry Cryer, Marty Feldman, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Dick Vosburgh and future Monty Python members Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Eric Idle. Although the members of Monty Python had already encountered each other over the years, The Frost Report was the first time all the British members of Monty Python (its sixth member, Terry Gilliam, was at that time an American citizen) worked together.[8] During the run of The Frost Report the Palin/Jones team contributed material to two shows starring John Bird: The Late Show and A series of Bird's. For A series of Bird's the Palin/Jones team had their first experience of writing narrative instead of the short sketches they were accustomed to conceiving.[22]
Following The Frost Report the Palin/Jones team worked both as actors and writers on the show Twice a Fortnight with Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn, and the successful children's comedy show Do Not Adjust Your Set with Idle and David Jason. The show also featured musical numbers by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, including future Monty Python musical collaborator Neil Innes. The animations for Do Not Adjust Your Set were made by Terry Gilliam. Eager to work with Palin[23] sans Jones, Cleese later asked him to perform in How to Irritate People together with Chapman and Tim Brooke-Taylor. The Palin/Jones team were reunited for The Complete and Utter History of Britain.
During this period Cleese contacted Palin about doing the show that would ultimately become Monty Python's Flying Circus.[8] On the strength of their work on The Frost Report and other programmes, Cleese and Chapman had been offered a show by the BBC, but Cleese was reluctant to do a two-man show for various reasons, among them Chapman's reputedly difficult personality. At the same time the success of Do Not Adjust Your Set had led Palin, Jones, Idle and Gilliam to be offered their own series and, while it was still in production, Palin agreed to Cleese's proposal and brought along Idle, Jones and Gilliam. Thus the formation of the Monty Python troupe has been referred to as a result of Cleese's desire to work with Palin and the chance circumstances that brought the other four members into the fold.[24]
Monty Python[edit]
Main article: Monty Python
In Monty Python, Palin played various roles, which ranged from manic enthusiasm (such as the lumberjack of the Lumberjack Song, or Herbert Anchovy, host of the game show "Blackmail") to unflappable calmness (such as the Dead Parrot vendor, Cheese Shop proprietor, or Postal Clerk). As a straight man he was often a foil to the rising ire of characters portrayed by John Cleese. He also played timid, socially inept characters such as Arthur Putey, the man who sits idly by as a marriage counsellor (Eric Idle) makes love to his wife (Carol Cleveland), and Mr. Anchovy, a chartered accountant who wants to become a lion tamer. He also appeared as the "It's" man at the beginning of most episodes.
Palin frequently co-wrote sketches with Terry Jones and also initiated the "Spanish Inquisition sketch", which included the catchphrase "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" He also composed songs with Jones including "The Lumberjack Song", "Every Sperm is Sacred" and "Spam". His solo musical compositions included "Decomposing Composers" and "Finland".[25]
Other work[edit]
After the Monty Python television series ended in 1974, the Palin/Jones team worked on Ripping Yarns, an intermittent television comedy series broadcast over three years from 1976. They had earlier collaborated on the play Secrets from the BBC series Black and Blue in 1973. He starred as Dennis the Peasant in Terry Gilliam's 1977 film Jabberwocky. Palin also appeared in All You Need Is Cash (1978) as Eric Manchester (based on Derek Taylor), the press agent for the Rutles.
In 1980, Palin co-wrote Time Bandits with Terry Gilliam. He also acted in the film.
In 1982, Palin wrote and starred in The Missionary, co-starring Maggie Smith. In it, he plays the Reverend Charles Fortescue, who is recalled from Africa to aid prostitutes.
In 1984, he reunited with Terry Gilliam to appear in Brazil. He appeared in the comedy film A Fish Called Wanda, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.[1] Cleese reunited the main cast almost a decade later to make Fierce Creatures.
After filming for Fierce Creatures finished, Palin went on a travel journey for a BBC documentary and, returning a year later, found that the end of Fierce Creatures had failed at test screenings and had to be reshot.
Apart from Fierce Creatures, Palin's last film role was a small part in The Wind in the Willows, a film directed by and starring Terry Jones. Palin also appeared with John Cleese in his documentary, The Human Face. Palin was in the cast of You've Got Mail, the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romantic comedy as a subplot novelist, but his role was eventually cut entirely.[26]
He also assisted Campaign for Better Transport and others with campaigns on sustainable transport, particularly those relating to urban areas, and has been president of the campaign since 1986.[27]
Palin has also appeared in serious drama. In 1991 Palin worked as producer and actor in the film American Friends based upon a real event in the life of his great grandfather, a fellow at St John's College, Oxford.[28] In that same year he also played the part of a headmaster in Alan Bleasdale's Channel 4 drama series G.B.H..
Palin also had a small cameo role in Australian soap opera Home and Away. He played an English surfer with a fear of sharks, who interrupts a conversation between two main characters to ask whether there were any sharks in the sea. This was filmed while he was in Australia for the Full Circle series, with a segment about the filming of the role featuring in the series.
In November 2005, he appeared in the John Peel's Record Box documentary.[29]
Michael Palin, Nightingale House, November 2010
In 2013 Michael Palin appeared in a new First World War drama titled The Wiper Times written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman.[30
Television documentaries[edit]
Travel[edit]
Palin's first travel documentary was part of the 1980 BBC Television series Great Railway Journeys of the World, in which, humorously reminiscing about his childhood hobby of train spotting, he travelled throughout the UK by train, from London to the Kyle of Lochalsh, via Manchester, York, Newcastle upon Tyne, Edinburgh and Inverness. At the Kyle of Lochalsh, Palin bought the station's long metal platform sign and is seen lugging it back to London with him.
In 1994, Palin travelled through Ireland for the same series, entitled "Derry to Kerry". In a quest for family roots, he attempted to trace his great grandmother – Brita Gallagher – who set sail from Ireland 150 years ago during the Great Famine (1845–1849), bound for a new life in Burlington, New Jersey. The series is a trip along the Palin family line.
Starting in 1989, Palin appeared as presenter in a series of travel programmes made for the BBC. It was after the veteran TV globetrotter Alan Whicker and journalist Miles Kington turned down presenting the first of these, Around the World in 80 Days, that gave Palin the opportunity to present his first and subsequent travel shows.[31] These programmes have been broadcast around the world in syndication, and were also sold on VHS tape and later on DVD:
Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days (Travel 1988; Programme release 1989): travelling as closely as possible the path described in the famous Jules Verne story without using aircraft.
Pole to Pole (Travel 1991; Programme release 1992): travelling from the North Pole to the South Pole, following as closely as possible the 30 degree line of longitude, over as much land as possible, i.e., through Europe and Africa.
Full Circle with Michael Palin (Travel 1996/97; Programme release 1997): in which he circumnavigated the lands around the Pacific Ocean anti-clockwise; a journey of almost 50,000 miles (80,000 km) starting on Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait and taking him through Asia, Oceania and the Americas.
Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure (1999): retracing the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway through the United States, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.
Sahara with Michael Palin (Travel 2001/02; Programme release 2002): in which he trekked around and through the world's largest desert.
Himalaya with Michael Palin (Travel 2003/04; Programme release 2004): in which he travels through the Himalaya region.
Michael Palin's New Europe (Travel 2006/07; Programme release 2007): in which he travels through Central and Eastern Europe.
Brazil with Michael Palin (2012) in which he travels through Brazil.
Following each trip, Palin wrote a book about his travels, providing information and insights not included in the TV programme. Each book is illustrated with photographs by Basil Pao, the stills photographer who was on the team. (Exception: the first book, Around the World in 80 Days, contains some pictures by Pao but most are by other photographers.)
All seven of these books were also made available as audio books, and all of them are read by Palin himself. Around the World in 80 Days and Hemingway Adventure are unabridged, while the other four books were made in both abridged and unabridged versions, although the unabridged versions can be very difficult to find.[citation needed]
For four of the trips a photography book was made by Pao, each with an introduction written by Palin. These are large coffee-table style books with pictures printed on glossy paper. The majority of the pictures are of various people encountered on the trip, as informal portraits or showing them engaged in some interesting activity. Some of the landscape photos are displayed as two-page spreads.
Palin's travel programmes are responsible for a phenomenon termed the "Palin effect": areas of the world that he has visited suddenly become popular tourist attractions – for example, the significant increase in the number of tourists interested in Peru after Palin visited Machu Picchu.[32] In a 2006 survey of "15 of the world's top travel writers" by The Observer, Palin named Peru's Pongo de Mainique (canyon below the Machu Picchu) his "favourite place in the world".[33]
Palin notes in his book of Around the World in 80 Days that the final leg of his journey would originally have taken him and his crew on one of the trains involved in the Clapham Junction rail crash, but they arrived ahead of schedule and caught an earlier train.
Art and history[edit]
In recent years, Palin has written and presented occasional documentary programmes on artists that interest him. The first, on Scottish painter Anne Redpath, was Palin on Redpath in 1997. In The Bright Side of Life (2000), Palin continued on a Scottish theme, looking at the work of the Scottish Colourists. Two further programmes followed on European painters; Michael Palin and the Ladies Who Loved Matisse (2004) and Michael Palin and the Mystery of Hammershøi (2005), about the French artist Henri Matisse and Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi respectively. The DVD Michael Palin on Art contains all these documentaries except for the Matisse programme.
In November 2008, Palin presented a First World War documentary about Armistice Day, 11 November 1918, when thousands of soldiers lost their lives in battle after the war had officially ended. Palin filmed on the battlefields of Northern France and Belgium for the programme, called the Last Day of World War One, produced for the BBC's Timewatch series.[34]
Activism[edit]
In July 2010, Palin sent a message of support for the Dongria Kondh tribe of India, who are resisting a mine on their land by the company Vedanta Resources. Palin said, "I’ve been to the Nyamgiri Hills in Orissa and seen the forces of money and power that Vedanta Resources have arrayed against a people who have occupied their land for thousands of years, who husband the forest sustainably and make no great demands on the state or the government. The tribe I visited simply want to carry on living in the villages that they and their ancestors have always lived in".[35]
On 2 January 2011, Palin became the first person to sign the UK-based Campaign for Better Transport's Fair Fares Now campaign.
Recognition[edit]
Class 153, no. 153335 'Michael Palin' at Cambridge.
Each member of Monty Python has an asteroid named after him. Palin's is Asteroid 9621 Michaelpalin.[36]
In honour of his achievements as a traveller, especially rail travel, Palin has two British trains named after him. In 2002, Virgin Trains' new £5 million high speed Super Voyager train number 221130 was named "Michael Palin" – it carries his name externally and a plaque is located adjacent to the onboard shop with information on Palin and his many journeys.[37] Also, National Express East Anglia named a British Rail Class 153 (unit number 153335) after him. In 2008, he received the James Joyce Award of the Literary and Historical Society in Dublin.
Palin was instrumental in setting up the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children in 1993.[38]
In recognition of his services to the promotion of geography, Palin was awarded the Livingstone Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in March 2009, along with a Fellowship to the Society.[39] In June 2013, he was similarly honoured in Canada with a gold medal for achievements in geography by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.[40]
In June 2009, Palin was elected for a three-year term as President of the Royal Geographical Society.[41]
Because of his self-described "amenable, conciliatory character" Michael Palin has been referred to as unofficially "Britain's Nicest Man."[42
Bibliography[edit]
Travel books[edit]
Around the World in 80 Days (1989) ISBN 0-563-20826-0
Pole to Pole (1992) ISBN 0-563-37065-3
Full Circle (1997) ISBN 0-563-37121-8
Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure (1999) ISBN 0-297-82528-3
Sahara (2002) ISBN 0-297-84303-6
Himalaya (2004) ISBN 0-297-84371-0
New Europe (2007) ISBN 0-297-84449-0
Brazil (2012) ISBN 0-297-86626-5
All his travel books can be read at no charge, complete and unabridged, on his website.
Autobiography (contributor)[edit]
The Pythons Autobiography by The Pythons (2003) ISBN 0-7528-5293-0
Diaries[edit]
Diaries 1969–1979: The Python Years. 2006. ISBN 0-297-84436-9
Diaries 1980–1988: Halfway to Hollywood – The Film Years. London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 2009. ISBN 978-0-297-84440-2
Fiction[edit]
Hemingway's chair (1995) ISBN 0-7493-1930-5
Bert Fegg's Nasty Book for Boys and Girls w/Terry Jones, illus Martin Honeysett, Frank Bellamy et al. (1974) ISBN 0-413-32740-X
Dr Fegg's Encyclopaedia of all world knowledge (1984) (expanded reprint of the above, with Terry Jones and Martin Honeysett) ISBN 0-87226-005-4
The Truth (2012) ISBN 978-0297860211
Children's books[edit]
Small Harry and the Toothache Pills (1982) ISBN 0-416-23690-1
Limerics or The Limerick Book (1985) ISBN 0-09-161540-2
Cyril and the House of Commons (1986) ISBN 1-85145-078-5
Cyril and the Dinner Party (1986) ISBN 1-85145-069-6
The Mirrorstone with Alan Lee and Richard Seymour (1986) ISBN 0-224-02408-6
Plays[edit]
The Weekend (1994) ISBN 0-413-68940-9
Television[edit]
Now! (October 1965 – middle 1966)
The Ken Dodd Show
Billy Cotton Bandshow
The Illustrated Weekly Hudd
The Frost Report. (10 March 1966 – 29 June 1967)
The Late Show (15 October 1966 – 1 April 1967)
A Series of Bird's (1967) (3 October 1967 – 21 November 1967 screenwriter (guest stars)
Twice a Fortnight (21 October 1967 – 23 December 1967)
Do Not Adjust Your Set (26 December 1967 – 14 May 1969)
Broaden Your Mind (1968)
How to Irritate People (1968)
Marty (TV series) (1968)
The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969)
Monty Python's Flying Circus (5 October 1969 – 5 December 1974)
Saturday Night Live (Hosted 8 April 1978 with Musical Guest Eugene Record, and 27 January 1979 with The Doobie Brothers)
Ripping Yarns (1976–1979)
Great Railway Journeys of the World, episode title "Confessions of a Trainspotter" (1980)
East of Ipswich (1987) writer
Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days (1989)
GBH (1991)
Pole to Pole (1992)
Great Railway Journeys, episode title "Derry to Kerry" (1994)
The Wind in the Willows (1995)
The Willows in Winter (1996)
Full Circle with Michael Palin (1997)
Palin On Redpath (1997)
Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure (1999)
Michael Palin On... The Colourists (2000)
Sahara with Michael Palin (2002)
Life on Air (2002)
Himalaya with Michael Palin (2004)
Michael Palin's New Europe (2007)
Around the World in 20 Years (30 December 2008)
Brazil with Michael Palin (2012)
Awards[edit]
BAFTA Awards[edit]
1984 Nominated – BAFTA Award for "Best Original Song" (the award was discontinued after the 1985 ceremonies) for Every Sperm is Sacred from The Meaning of Life (shared with André Jacquemin, Dave Howman and Terry Jones)
1989 Won – BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for A Fish Called Wanda (as Ken Pile)[43]
1992 Nominated – British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for G.B.H.
2005 Won – BAFTA Special Award
2009 Won – BAFTA Special Award as part of the Monty Python team for outstanding contribution to film and television[44]
2013 Won – BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award[45][46
References[edit]
^ Jump up to: a b "Film Nominations 1988". BAFTA. Retrieved 11 January 2008.
Jump up ^ Michael Palin Biography Yahoo.com. Retrieved 7 May 2012
Jump up ^ "Trio of Dames lead showbiz honours". BBC News. 31 December 1999. Retrieved 15 August 2006.
Jump up ^ People & Staff Royal Geographical Society. Retrieved 24 June 2012
Jump up ^ "Michael Palin To Receive Academy Fellowship At The Arqiva British Academy Television Awards".
Jump up ^ Nick Barratt (11 November 2006). "Family detective". The Daily Telegraph (UK). Retrieved 25 October 2008.
Jump up ^ "Michael Palin Biography (1943–)". Filmreference.com. Retrieved 2011-06-01.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e Chalmers, Robert (29 July 2012). "The dark knight rises: Perhaps Michael Palin isn’t the nicest chap in Britain after all...". The Independent. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
Jump up ^ The Pythons Autobiography by The Pythons, pg. 31
Jump up ^ "The wandering man". Thestandard.com.hk. Retrieved 2011-06-01.[dead link]
Jump up ^ "First Letterkenny heritage magazine launched". Donegal News. 14 March 2013. Retrieved 14 March 2013. "Over 100 people attended the official launch of Letterkenny Community Heritage Group’s new magazine in the Station House Hotel this week. [...] Did you know that Michael Palin of Monty Python fame has ancestral roots in the town?"
^ Jump up to: a b Ross, 200
Jump up ^ Michael Palin biography[dead link]
Jump up ^ "ABC TV Documentaries: Sahara episode 3/4". Australian Broadcasting Company. Retrieved 2 September 2006.
Jump up ^ Desert Island Discs, Radio 4, Sat 17 November 1979 - www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/castawa...
Jump up ^ Ross, 57
Jump up ^ Warman, Anna. "Travelling with Michael Palin". Retrieved 14 August 2006.
Jump up ^ "Home truths on Wanderlust". Camden New Yournal. 27 September 2007. Retrieved 7 September 2008.
Jump up ^ Michael Palin by John Oliver at BFI Screen Online, URL accessed 13 December 2006
Jump up ^ Hodgkinson, Tom (2006). "In Conversation with Michael Palin". The Idler. Retrieved 20 December 2006.
Jump up ^ Biography at Pythonet.org, URL accessed 17 December 2006
Jump up ^ "A Series Of Bird's". BBC Guide to Comedy. Retrieved 16 September 2006.
Jump up ^ Ross, 91
Jump up ^ The Pythons Autobiography By The Pythons; Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, John Chapman, David Sherlock, Bob McCabe; Thomas Dunne Books; 2003
Jump up ^ Monty Python Sings - Monty Python : Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards : AllMusic
Jump up ^ "NEWS 1999_01_17 - Michael Palin Dropped From Final Print of Hanks/Ryan Romantic Comedy". Daily Llama. Retrieved 2011-06-01.
Jump up ^ Campaign for Better Transport website[dead link]
Jump up ^ American Friends at Rotten Tomatoes.com, URL accessed 13 December 2006
Jump up ^ "John Peel's Record Box", 2005
Jump up ^ "Python Palin stars in BBC WWI drama". BBC News. Retrieved 2 July 2013.
Jump up ^ Vestey, Michael (6 August 2005). "Watching over Whicker". Findarticles.com. Retrieved 25 October 2008.[dead link]
Jump up ^ Webster, Ben (14 January 2005). "Globetrotter Palin brought down to earth by eco-lobby". The Times (London). Retrieved 14 August 2006.
Jump up ^ Wilkinson, Carl (8 January 2006). "My favourite place in the world". The Observer (UK). Retrieved 18 August 2007.
Jump up ^ "Timewatch – The Last Day of World War One". BBC. Retrieved 1 November 2008.
Jump up ^ Michael Palin sends message to support Dongria Kondh, Survival International
Jump up ^ "JPL Small-Body Database Browser". Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 17 October 2006.
Jump up ^ Virgin Trains, URL accessed 13 December 2006
Jump up ^ "Palin's centre for stammerers wins £340,000 grant". Retrieved 9 September 2008.
Jump up ^ "Royal Scottish Geographical Society: Medals & Awards". Retrieved 29 January 2010.
Jump up ^ Ouzounian, Richard (26 June 2013). "Michael Palin, from Monty Python to travel series host". The Toronto Star. Retrieved 26 June 2013.
Jump up ^ "Michael Palin announced as new president of Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)". Retrieved 25 November 2009.
Jump up ^ Lee, Marc (24 August 2009). "Michael Palin: he's not a Messiah, just a very nice man". The Daily Telegraph (London).
Jump up ^ "BAFTA Film Awards - Best Supporting Actor 1989". BAFTA.
Jump up ^ "Monty Python Special Award". Retrieved 20 October 2009.[dead link]
Jump up ^ "TV Baftas 2013: all the winners". The Guardian. 12 May 2013.
Jump up ^ "Michael Palin To Receive Academy Fellowship At The Arqiva British Academy Television Awards". BAFTA.
"The loss of Heath Ledger was such a blow that it was a test of everybody involved in this film whether, in these kinds of incredibly difficult circumstances, we could continue and make a film worthy of Heath's last movie. I think because so many people loved him, respected him, we pulled it off. The contractual credit was "A Film by Terry Gilliam." We all agreed to call it "A Film for Heath Ledger and Friends." It's truly the honest, accurate, and right credit." Director Terry Gilliam on completing The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Be careful what you wish for!
Endlessly meditating in his monastery, Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) meets the devil Mr. Nick (Tom Waits) and gambles with him for immortality. Having won that bet, centuries pass. When Dr. Parnassus falls in love with a woman, he makes another deal with Mr. Nick: for his mortality and youth, he will send the devil his first-born child upon his or her 16th birthday. The scheme works and Dr. Parnassus wins the woman's heart, but she dies after giving birth to their daughter Valentina (Lily Cole).
Nearly 16 years later, Dr. Parnassus is part of a traveling sideshow, which includes his daughter and fellow performers Anton (Andrew Garfield) and Percy (Verne Troyer). Through the imaginarium, a magic mirror controlled by Dr. Parnassus, audience members can enter their own imaginations, where they can make choices to follow their wildest dreams but are also at risk of being lured by Mr. Nick.
Desperate to save Valentina, now that she is nearly of age, Dr. Parnassus makes another deal with the devil: He has two days to provide Mr. Nick with five souls in exchange for his daughter. Late one night, the troupe finds Tony (Heath Ledger), a mysterious stranger who breathes new life into the attraction to help Dr. Parnassus in his quest to save his daughter. But when Tony's past catches up with him, his true identity is revealed and affects everyone around him. In the end, everyone must face the consequences of their action and own up to their choices.
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus bends your mind in the most wonderful ways and still makes sense if you just let yourself go along with it. Johnny Depp describes it well: "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a uniquely ingenious, captivating creation, by turns wild, thrilling, and hilarious in all its crazed, dilapidated majesty." Welcome to the mind of Terry Gilliam and enjoy the ride!
This one's for Heath.
Terry Gilliam directed Heath Ledger before, in 2005's The Brothers Grimm. That movie's failure at the box office didn't concern Heath Ledger, "Success is relative, I guess, isn't it? That was a success to me because I was working with one of my heroes," he said of the experience. "Sometimes, you just have to kind of throw away the care. You have to not be too conscious of what will be a success and what won't be 'cause that's out of your power. That shouldn't, in my mind, dictate what your choice is. I just want to enjoy myself. I want to learn more. I want to work with good people - creatively and as people, really, just good people. That drives me more." Like Johnny, Heath Ledger remained close friends with Terry Gilliam since their first film together. "He's one of the greatest creative visionary minds ever in film history and a wonderful figure in my life and had done a lot for me," Heath Ledger said of the director. "He had given a lot to me, and if I can do anything to help him, then I will."
Heath Ledger died of an accidental prescription drug overdose in the middle of filming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and that's the only reason Johnny is in this movie. "Johnny, I supposed, was the most critical person in this whole combination of saviors," Terry Gilliam remembers. "I called him a day or two after Heath died to commiserate because he was a close friend of Heath's as well. I didn't know if I was going to continue with the film or just close it down. And he said, 'Well, whatever you decide, I'll be there.' And that was actually a turning point, I think, because the money people were all closing down the shop, and when they were told that Johnny Depp said he would be there to help, it slowed the retreat."
The tragic loss brought out the best in people. Along with Johnny, mutual friends Jude Law and Colin Farrell filled in as "Tony" in the scenes Heath didn't complete. "The crucial thing with Johnny, Colin, and Jude was that they were friends of Heath, and they were the only people I called because I wanted people who knew Heath very well to make the transition easier," Terry Gilliam explains. "They knew who he was. They knew what he was like." The three actors redirected their typical fees for film work to Heath Ledger's daughter, Matilda.
The finished product is kind of a miracle considering the star died halfway through shooting, but Terry Gilliam reworked the script so that the additional cast members' involvement makes perfect sense in the story. "It's been a rather incredible gathering of friends and dedicated people who were determined that Heath Ledger's last film was not going to end up on some floor unfinished," the director says. "I am grateful to Johnny, Colin, and Jude for coming on board and to everyone else who has made it possible for us to finish the film. I am delighted that Heath's brilliant performance can be shared with the world."
I wished Johnny weren't in this one.
News of Heath Ledger's death broke while I was at work. I walked into an office where my two friends were reading from a laptop, with horrified looks on their faces. "What happened?" I asked. When they told me, I thought they were joking. But why would anyone joke about Heath Ledger dying? Nobody wants that. This was not supposed to happen. I was officially depressed, and it wasn't even lunchtime yet.
I had mixed feelings going to see The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus in the theater. I love Terry Gilliam's films, but I was sad about these circumstances and watched in fear of reaching the cutoff point of Heath Ledger's last scene. I actually dreaded seeing Johnny in this movie because I figured his appearance meant we reached that end point. "A lot of people, when watching the film, assume that we're not going to see Heath again, but he always keeps coming back," Terry Gilliam says. "It wasn't just a matter of Heath stops, and Johnny, Colin, and Jude take over. It's the fact that he keeps reappearing, and he's never out of the film; that's why I think the film works as well as it does." It's true, so fear not! Heath Ledger stays with us all the way through with no real noticeable gaps in the scenes or story. With a big sigh of relief, I was so pleased with the result that I left the theater smiling and I think Heath Ledger was too.
Terry Gilliam's in his element!
Having grown up watching Terry Gilliam and his artwork on "Monty Python's Flying Circus," I always look forward to a Terry Gilliam film. He cowrote this one with Charles McKeown, whom he's collaborated with on Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchaussen. The latter is one of my favorites and now this one is too.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is so creative, I can hardly describe it. Whenever characters step through Dr. Parnassus's magic mirror into the imaginarium, they enter their own imaginations (and those of whomever else may be in the imaginarium with them). "Every time you go through the mirror, there's going to be something different," Terry Gilliam says. "I wanted to take advantage of the fact that we have this mirror that can provide us a surprise each time we go through so that one is never bored." If more than one person goes through the mirror at the same time, you will find competing imaginations. Whichever is most dominant takes over, causing the different worlds to literally split apart or expand in free form. "These kinds of worlds are me just letting my imagination run. I pretend I'm whoever the character is in there, and I just go with it," Terry Gilliam says. "Or, I have an idea that already exists that I'm trying to force onto the film, and I make sure the character becomes something that serves the ideas that I already wanted to get out of my system and get up on the screen." All sorts of imaginations are explored, including those of an alcoholic, a child, a criminal, and the main characters--Valentina, Anton, Tony, and even Dr. Parnassus himself.
These different worlds are fascinating and clearly drawn from Terry Gilliam's own imagination; at times, the movie feels familiar to his work for Monty Python. The imaginarium scenes are like paintings that remind me of his animation work for that show. And, who else but Terry Gilliam would think to have Russian criminals dumbfounded by a sudden song-and-dance number by cops in skirts, fishnets, and heels? Producer Samuel Hadida agrees. "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is a movie that will deliver all that Terry Gilliam has made up to now." The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus was nominated several production-related awards, including two Oscars for art direction and costume design.
Where does Johnny come in?
Three sequences in the imaginarium remained to be filmed after Heath Ledger's death. To adapt to the new terrible situation, Terry Gilliam established that, in the imaginarium, Tony's appearance could change to whoever is imagining him. Johnny's sequence is first for a reason. The director explains, "I felt that, if this idea of different people playing Tony was going to work, Johnny would be the best one to drag us across, and that's exactly what happened. So many people, when they watch the movie, actually think it's Heath for a moment, which was really a sign that we've pulled off something that worked." That is exactly what happened when I watched this movie for the first time in the theater!
At the time that The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus was being made, Johnny was in the middle of filming Public Enemies, and many people were upset that he committed to helping Terry Gilliam complete his movie while he was committed to another one elsewhere. But he flew to Vancouver to film his scenes anyway. "We only had him for one day and three-and-a-half hours the next day, which just tells you how brilliant he is," Terry Gilliam remembers. "He arrived; he was ready to go. There was no time to rehearse. We just dived in, and it's absolutely, utterly brilliant!" Despite flying through it, with all of the scenes completed in only one take because of his schedule, Johnny loved working on this film. "Though the circumstances of my involvement are extremely heart-rendering and unbelievably sad, I feel privileged to have been asked aboard to stand in on behalf of dear Heath," he said.
This cast shines bright!
The rest of the wonderful cast assembled The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus need to be highlighted too:
- Tom Waits is the devil! Isn't that an example of genius casting? Johnny aside, doesn't that alone make you want to see this movie? No? Okay, there are more!
- Christopher Plummer as Dr. Parnassus is amazing, as expected. "It seemed to me one needed a man of his kind of weight and gravitas and experience to give dignity to the shabby little show we were running," Terry Gilliam says. "I think it's Christopher's dignity and his ability to make even what might be a charlatan in the case of Parnassus into somebody that you believe does have extraordinary powers."
- Lily Cole, who plays Dr. Parnassus's daughter Valentina, is a successful fashion model. When I saw her photographs in magazines, I always thought she had a great face for movies. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is her first starring role, and I'm pretty sure she's safe to keep going!
- Andrew Garfield is in this movie! Yeah, Spider-Man. I didn't realize it until I revisited this film for Johnny Kitties. During filming, he learned and embraced the joy of improvising by watching Heath Ledger and caught on quickly. In his first comedic role here, Andrew Garfield is really fun to watch. I might have to see all his movies now.
- Verne Troyer, I admit, is someone I can't look at without thinking of Austin Powers' "Mini-Me" and laughing. I got over it with this movie, in which he plays a serious role quite admirably.
- Jude Law takes over as Tony after Johnny's turn in the imaginarium. Ironically, before Heath Ledger was chosen, Jude Law was considered for the role of Tony. As always, he is fantastic. An avid admirer of Terry Gilliam's films, participating in this one was obviously important for other reasons: "To help Terry finish his film was an honor paid to a man I adore," he says. "I had a great time on the job. Though we were all there in remembrance, Heath's heart pushed us with great lightness to the finish."
- Colin Farrell is perfectly suave and slimy as Tony in the final imaginarium sequence. He wrote about the experience on his blog, noting the sense of community everyone felt in Heath Ledger's honor. "Three of us had been asked to complete a task that had been set in motion by a man we greatly liked and respected as both a person and an artist. Being part of this film was never about filling Heath's shoes as much as seeing them across the finish line," he writes. "How I wish he had brought the film to its completion himself. Of course, the whole crew felt this way. And, the cast that we joined felt it too. It was this spirit of grieving the loss of Heath that Johnny and Jude and I joined. But there was also a sense of dogged insistence: insistence that Heath's last piece of work should not be kept in the shadow of the light of day. A community of people - caterers and actors, electricians and makeup artists - had been brought together in a recognized sense of love and obligation, for and to, one of cinema's finest actors and most generous of men. It will be the sense of love amidst the sadness that I will remember most. Such a gift and an honor, from Heath, to be part of the trail that he left behind."
Get ready for something completely different.
I recommend that you watch The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus more than once. Even Terry Gilliam agrees, "What does happen so often with my films is that it takes a second viewing for people to really see what the film is or understand it," he says. I discover something new and enjoy it more each time I see this one.
The big finish with Colin Farrell as Tony, mentioned earlier, could test some viewers. The finale, a battle in the imaginarium among four people with strong imaginations (Tony, Valentina, Anton, Dr. Parnassus), is a trip, so be ready for it! "The whole last sequence is about whose imagination is winning at any particular moment. Unless people understand that, what is going on, the whole thing probably becomes very confusing," Terry Gilliam explains. "To me, it's an absolute dream sequence - this whole finale - because one thing is flowing into the next, making very clear leaps. It's how dreams form and reform and transmute things, but unless you're willing to let go, and go into a kind of dream state, you're going to have trouble through this sequence. You've got to let it just take you where it goes 'cause each thing makes sense in its own way, but you're connecting a lot of things that may or may not make sense depending on who it is." All clear? Trust me, you'll understand when you see it! Just go with it.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus doesn't follow the typical logical flow or structure of a film. "It flows at a different level. It depends on whose mind you're in," Terry Gilliam explains. "Can you shift from character to character and understand why each world is what it is? I find children can do this easily, but the older people get, the more rigid they become, the more terrified of this, what seems to be chaos. They want things explained, and they even like things explained in advance or [to be] given a road map of where we're going. And, I think that is exactly what the imaginarium is not about. Those that go in there, and take this ride and hold on, have a wonderful time; so we're trying to encourage people to let go, even adults."
Rent The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and give it a try (or two, three, or more). It's worth the trip!
In the imaginarium, the Kitties can do the impossible!
Johnny's time in the imaginarium explores the mind of a wealthy middle-aged woman played by Maggie Steed. "Johnny loved working with Maggie," Terry Gilliam says. "The two of them just clicked, and he said he wanted to have her in every film he does. It was just a great combination." Here, the woman (The Mother Kitty) imagines Tony waltzing with her on lily pads among a few of her favorite things - brilliant jewels, magnificent shoes, and sweet perfumes. But Tony's own imagination conjures up the young and beautiful Valentina (Lily), who lures his attention away from his dance partner.
What's next?
Johnny is just slightly mad in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.
To see more Johnny Kitties and images from The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, please visit my blog: melissaconnolly.blogspot.com/2013/11/johnny-kitties-celeb....
Since everyone's been doing library photos I felt the need to jump on the bandwagon! I spend enough time there anyway- the libraries on campus are so old and wonderful to explore. This is in the west stacks... which are supposedly haunted, but I think that every university begs to have a ghost story, so i'm not sure of the credibility.
A-line secretary dress: Vintage, gift from my best friend Charles
Cardigan: Salvation Army
Velvet beret: Vintage from Dolly Python's
80s stretch belt: Mom's old
Tassel necklace: Estate sale
Tights: target
Jazz heels: Thrifted in Denver- they're my favorite!
NEW Python's Rope Belts at Veneno
Taxi: slurl.com/secondlife/Longwood/75/35/23/?title=Veneno%20%3...
The isolation of the machine is the least of his worries when that weight, like Monty Python's foot is about to descend on him. Just a thought dredged up from 0-level science days ( which were not yesterday) don't the tick rubber tyres insulate the machine. As in cars not getting struck by lightening or was that something else. I recall from sea scout days that in the case of being enveloped by a thunderstorm at sea one was to rig a cantenery of chain beneath the boat and suspend an anchor some twenty feet below one. I think in such circumstances I would be more likely to stick my fingers in my ears and go La-La-la...
Doune Castle was the home of Robert Stewart, the 1st Duke of Albany. He was ruler of Scotland, in all but name, from 1388 until his death in 1420.
The castle was long thought to have been entirely built for Albany, but recent research has shown there are significant remains of a earlier castle incorporated into the structure.
Doune’s most striking feature is the 100ft high gatehouse which includes the splendid Duke’s Hall with its musicians’ gallery, double fireplace and carved oak screen.
This impressive architecture has made it popular with production companies. It was Swamp Castle, Castle Anthrax and Camelot in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and more recently a location in the pilot for Game of Thrones and the fictional Castle Leoch for the TV adaption of the Outlander novels.
Discover the nature trail in the castle grounds or take an audio tour of the castle narrated by Monty Python’s Terry Jones. Hear the exciting history of the medieval castle and residents, as well stories of the making of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Josie has become very particular about being wrapepd up in a towel after bath. The corner of the towel is first placed on her left shoulder, and wrapped around her from the back the long way and then tucked in at the top.
We were lazy and left a towel laying around after bath, and she found it the next morning and demanded to be wrapped up. So we did, then she took off running and zoomed down the hallway with her arms bound to her sides. As expected she quickly face planted. But in the same fashion as Monty Python's invincible black night, she popped herself back upright using no arms at all. and continued to run, bouncing with a gleeful smile.