From the Telegraph:
Monty Python comedian John Cleese is to offer his services as a speechwriter to Barack Obama if he wins the Democratic nomination to become US president.
Cleese, who lives in California, told the Western Daily Press newspaper that his jokes could help the Illinois senator get into the White House.
I don't know whether an Obama-Cleese pair-up is a good fit. A few more laugh moments during the loooong campaign season would be most welcome, but I can't quite wrap my head around Obama doing Monty Python humor. Of course, perhaps Cleese is talented enough to tailor his humor to Obama's personality so that the result is Obama humor.
Cleese lives in California because the English winters give him chest infections and diverticulitis.
Seven years of writing all Bush's speeches ought to be enough for him.
ReplyDeleteI'm just wondering how winters give you diverticulitis?
ReplyDeleteLapin, right. LOL. Too bad Bush did not permit Cleese to deliver them.
ReplyDeleteDoxy, I wondered about that myself. I think that Cleese just wants to live in California and makes up excuses to mollify his mates in England.
It's the English food as gives you diverticulitis.
ReplyDeleteThis is so funny that I really can't think of a proper comment. My favorite Cleese quote of all time: "If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?"
ReplyDeleteCheers!
this is so funny. I just told my husband Jim's quote about animals, and we both had a good laugh.
ReplyDeleteCan't imagine Cleese writing for Obama. But, he (Obama) does need a sense of humor, I think.
It's all funny, including the comments. Lapin and Jim, "Bravo!"
ReplyDeleteDiane, I'm glad you enjoyed it and found a laugh for your husband, too.
English winters can give you any and every imaginable malady, from diverticulitis to catatonia. It starts with seasonal affective disorder (depression) due to lack of sunlight, which weakens your immune system, blurs your thinking, drains your energy and spoils your disposition. Then you start comng down with this and that. Then you get a light box to treat the SAD and your corneas get damaged and you can't see properly. Thank God I am about at the end of my last English winter (I thought it was over, but it snowed the other day) and about to head back to sunny North America, where I will relish laffing at John Cleese making fun of English weather or writing political speeches or whatever.
ReplyDeleteI truly don't understand how the English have survived in this climate, and why there are not more axe-murders taking place here on a weekly basis.
Mary Clara, thanks for the skinny on English winters. I don't think I could live in the gloomy land of winters with little light and warmth that stretch out into many months of the year.
ReplyDeleteI've been fortunate in finding good weather whenever I've been in England, but I've never gone in winter. I believe late May is the earliest I've visited and early September, the latest.
It would seem to me that our entire political system has done a fair job of degenerating into a Monty Python production all on its own without any assistance whatsoever from Mr. Cleese. OCICBW.
ReplyDeleteBoocat, exactly.
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued at the thought.
ReplyDelete"If life were fair, Dan Quayle would be making a living asking 'Do you want fries with that?'"
If Cleese said "... then why did he make them out of meat?" he lifted it from the '60's Flanders & Swan song "The Reluctant Cannibal" - an argument between a traditional father and a son who refuses to eat humans.
ReplyDelete"But people have always eaten people,
What else is there to eat?
If the Juju had meant us not to eat people,
He wouldn't have made us of meat!"
"I give up, I give up, you used to be a regular anthropophaguy."
Can't find audio or video of "Reluctant Cannibal" but here's "Madeira M'Dear", one of Flanders & Swan's most popular songs:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW_zi8n4HDQ
Mary Clara is clearly not headed back to Rochester, NY.
ReplyDeleteMissy, that's where Dan Quayle would be. Whatever happened to him?
ReplyDeleteLapin, I remember Flanders and Swann. Fun-nee.
LJ, are y'all still having cold weather? Poor baby.
Lapin, I love the line, "Have you been talking to one of your mothers again?" And I can't listen to Mozart's Fourth Horn Concerto straight up any more.
ReplyDeleteIt's a sign of changing perceptions and values that "Madeira M'Dear" is now a humorous song about date rape, if you think about it.
ReplyDeleteFlanders & Swan were preceded in the 30's by a now almost forgotten duo called Flotsam & Jetsam. The exceedingly clever wordplay of their short song "The Spooning of the Knife & Fork" forms the soundtrack of this Emilie Autumn video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGYtLy_le1Y
Mimi,
ReplyDeleteNo, I live in NC now, where my people are all from, but I lived in Rochester for 10 years (and Chicago for 3) and those damp, gray days were endless. April was the most depressing because I knew that forsythia and daffodils and hyacinth and weeping cherries and tulip and pear trees were rioting out in other states. But not up there until the end of May. If you were lucky.
That said, other than the gray and damp and cold, Rochester is a very nice town.
Lapin, thanks for the YouTube links. I didn't have a chance to watch until today. Excellent.
ReplyDeleteLJ, a clump of bloggers and blog visitors seem to be located in and around the Carolinas. Y'all should have a meet-up.
We've talked about an NC blogger meet-up. In the meantime, I've met Jane R. and Wormwood's Doxy and will probably see them again in the not too distant future. Yup, good folk down in these parts.
ReplyDeleteWell then, LJ, good for you. I hope you get together again soon.
ReplyDelete