Monty Python

Last night I watched a documentary called Monty Python - (Almost) the Truth: The BBC Lawyers Cut. It was about the history of the "Monty Python" comedy troupe, set up to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Monty Python's Flying Circus TV series. A lot of people go on about the six members really hating each other, when from what I've heard and read, they really got on pretty well. There were arguements about what sketches were or were not included in the series, Terry Jones apparently used to get frustrated about the technical limitations of the TV show, and John Cleese left at the end of the third season to do other things, but it just seemed to be what you would expect from a group of talented witers and performers who all had their own ideas. It was funny though. I'm quite a big Monty Python fan so I knew most of it already. I remember I was eleven when I first saw the show and I really didn't find it funny at all. I didn't get the humour and the animation sequences just completely freaked me out, but when I saw it again four years later I thought it was hilarious. I used to have the video game for the Amstrad as well. That was the funniest video game I have ever played. You had to go through this "Name the Cheese" mini-game to get to the main one, and then you played this character going around this world styled around the TV animation scenes searching for the four pieces of your brain, which had run off and split up. Along the way you had to eat cheese and defeat killer Keep Left signs and attacking dead parrots by shooting fish at them. Also when you least expected it, the Spanish Inquisition would show up to torture you with comfy chairs and soft cushions.

I watched the end of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy which was very good and surprisingly faithful to a very difficult book for a TV adaptation. It's the kind of show that probably wouldn't be made these days, because it is so sedately paced, so you need to give it time and patience to work.My parents had returned from holiday on Friday and so this morning my Dad came round and we went along to the Ocean Terminal shopping mall, where we had a muffin and coffee at Starbucks before going back to my parent's house. My Dad had to go away early because he had some Golf coaching to do. The latest issue of Sight and Sound magazine had arrived. There was a really interesting article in it about the recent wave of vampire movies. It actually gave me afew ideas for this year's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). There was also an interesting article in one of the Sunday newspapers about Stanley Kubrick's unmade film about the life of Napolean, which he had managed to fill 88 boxes with thousands of pages of script, notes, designs and photographs for the film. Kubrick himself joked it was "the greatest film he never made." For lunch we had some sushi to start and then chicken and mashed potatoes in white wine sauce, followed by marshmallows in chocolate fondue.

After lunch, my Mum and I went out to town to look through the shops. I got some new posters and a graphic novel called The Sandman - Volume Seven: Brief Lives written by Neil Gaiman. Which means that I now have seven of the twelve main volumes in The Sandman graphic novel series.

I got home at around quarter past five and spent about an hour and a half putting up the new posters.