Monty Python's lone Welshman, purveyor of spam, succumbs to frontotemporal dementia.
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Monty Python’s Terry Jones joins the choir invisible
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FYI, if you send this through Google Translate (with one correction: "Nunstück") and attempt to go German -> English, you get the result:
FATAL ERROR
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The song "I'm a lumberjack and i'm okay" was written by Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Fred Tomlinson.
https://youtu.be/FshU58nI0Ts
https://youtu.be/FshU58nI0Ts
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I'm old enough (just) to have first seen Jones, Palin and Idle on "Do Not Adust Your Set" in the late 60s. I haven't seen it since but have very fond memories of the show. It also featured the incomperable Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band one of whom, (I'm the Urban Spacmen) Neil Innes, also died recently. I must be getting old...
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Sad news.
Perhaps, as often happens with artists, his less well-known work will get more attention soon after his death. His series Medieval Lives is a particular favorite of mine. Check it out if you get the opportunity.
Goodbye, Terry
Perhaps, as often happens with artists, his less well-known work will get more attention soon after his death. His series Medieval Lives is a particular favorite of mine. Check it out if you get the opportunity.
Goodbye, Terry
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steelcobra
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
Yeah, I was going to recommend that as well, BBC has it up on Youtube.
Apparently he also did a 4-part series a couple years later, Barbarians, along the same lines.
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Bugger.
I don't remember how old I was when I first saw Monty Python. It was on the telly when I was small (I can't have been more than 7 or 8 at the time) and the very first bit I can remember is actually Terry Jones' mouse organ sketch.
Weirdly, this doesn't appear to be on youtube in its original form, but the version they reshot for "And now for something completely different" is up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saY10AWXLIY&t=22s
I've been introducing my daughter to The Circus; we're currently part of the way through season 2. She's definitely inherited her Dad's sense of humour in a lot of ways, though it's still to be determined whether that's a good thing or not.
Anyway, rest in peace, mate.
I don't remember how old I was when I first saw Monty Python. It was on the telly when I was small (I can't have been more than 7 or 8 at the time) and the very first bit I can remember is actually Terry Jones' mouse organ sketch.
Weirdly, this doesn't appear to be on youtube in its original form, but the version they reshot for "And now for something completely different" is up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saY10AWXLIY&t=22s
I've been introducing my daughter to The Circus; we're currently part of the way through season 2. She's definitely inherited her Dad's sense of humour in a lot of ways, though it's still to be determined whether that's a good thing or not.
Anyway, rest in peace, mate.
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Papageno, aren't you restricted to the parrot sketch?Go with the nice man, Terry.
"And don't apologize! Every time I try to talk to someone, it's "I'm sorry" this, and "forgive me" that, and 'I'm not worthy'..."
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Well played, unknown Google engineer. Well played.
Oh, and fuck dementia, in all its forms.
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In the 90s Jones made a series on the Crusades. Very informative and entertaining.
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There are lots of Python stuff on Netflix so (re)watch episode 3 of the Monty Python's Personal Best. For some of the history see Monty Python's Almost the Truth and Monty Python: Before the Flying Circus.
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Somehow this is appropriate today:
Graham Chapman's Eulogy by John Cleese
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkxCHybM6Ek
Graham Chapman's Eulogy by John Cleese
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkxCHybM6Ek
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It's "Nunstück", otherwise you just get diarrhea instead of a massive heart attack.
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Confirmed!
Just to add, this episode of MPFC was on BBC America just last week and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9FzUI8998U
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Papageno, aren't you restricted to the parrot sketch?Go with the nice man, Terry.
"And don't apologize! Every time I try to talk to someone, it's "I'm sorry" this, and "forgive me" that, and 'I'm not worthy'..."
Given my handle, I probably should be. Excellent point!
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Always tough to lose such a brilliant and hilariously funny person like Terry Jones. May he RIP as he continues confusing cats and purveying Spam throughout the universe.
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I grew up with Monty Python, and cherished a kind of lunacy you rarely saw here in America. I have several of their comedy albums, including one which has an interesting trick. I had played the album a few times, and when I played it another time, I suddenly heard new sketches that I hadn't heard on the album before. They produced it such that if the needle dropped on one point on the record, you got one track, and if you dropped it in a slightly different place, you got a different track! My record player usually dropped it in one spot, so when it hit the other spot, bingo, new material!
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Part of me would like to see an updated version of the Blackmail sketch... Part of me recognizes that reality TV has probably already surpassed it.
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Confirmed!
Just to add, this episode of MPFC was on BBC America just last week and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9FzUI8998U
That is such utterly crazy fake German, "I can't even..."
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My father in law has early-onset fronto-temporal dementia. It's been a rapid disintegration of who he was. Five years ago he was working as a safety engineer, when he began missing things. Two years ago he could still swing a golf-club at the driving range. Now he can barely hold a cup to his lips.
The popular perception of dementia is of a disease that makes you forgetful, but the truth is that it's a progressive degenerative disease that destroys your most important organ, with the ultimate endpoint being death (either directly or through complications such pneumonia). It's more like a cancer or untreated AIDS than a memory problem.
The other issue we have is that in comparison to cancer, there's very little funding, research, or treatment. Very little is known, even the aetiology of major dementias. I'm confident we'll get there in time, but for the moment we just have to take the ride and value those moments we have with the people we love.
Edit: typo.
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Sad to hear. A brilliant writer, actor, director, and comedian, who also was a damn good historian.
His "Crusades" and "Barbarians" series on BBC were both excellent and highly recommended.
My all time favorite Monty Python sketch is the classic: "I came here for an argument" sketch.
Side-splitting even to this day......
His "Crusades" and "Barbarians" series on BBC were both excellent and highly recommended.
My all time favorite Monty Python sketch is the classic: "I came here for an argument" sketch.
Side-splitting even to this day......
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On this side of the pond back in the 80s (and 90s), Monty Python was formative for us geeks/nerds. It was like an awesome secret club... going around quoting The Holy Grail, doing silly walks, etc. Sad to see another one of the group go 
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Barbarians was a very good series as well. Showing the Romans from the perspective of non-Romans, rather than standard “What the Romans did for us” scholarship.
Bloody Romans
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Harry "Snapper" Organs (of Q-Division).
The Bishop.
The Judge.
The nude man.
Arthur "Two-Sheds" Jackson.
The woman who got a new brain (because she was a looney).
El Mystico.
An Undertaker.
Mr. Keith Maniac (from Guatemala, who could put bricks to sleep by hypnosis).
Lev Davidovich Trotsky (in drag, singing "Old Fashioned Girl"). Cleese: "Should I seize him too?" Chapman: "No, we'd better keep him. He's going down well."
The Bishop.
The Judge.
The nude man.
Arthur "Two-Sheds" Jackson.
The woman who got a new brain (because she was a looney).
El Mystico.
An Undertaker.
Mr. Keith Maniac (from Guatemala, who could put bricks to sleep by hypnosis).
Lev Davidovich Trotsky (in drag, singing "Old Fashioned Girl"). Cleese: "Should I seize him too?" Chapman: "No, we'd better keep him. He's going down well."
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Yes. Having done end of life care for dementia sufferers, what makes it particularly cruel is that, as apparently in Jones' case, you lose the ability to communicate, so the care inevitably dengenerates too, as those around you lose the ability to be informed as to what your basic needs even are. Does putting on a particular piece of music help or not? You can't know.
Before then, even the concept of memory loss is, as you state, misunderstood. Short term memory tends to go first, and one client we cared for often became convinced she was still in school, not a care home, and her mother was trying to get through the snow to pick her up... in the middle of summer and maybe 50 years after her mother must have passed away. The memory had stayed with her for some reason we could only guess, and was all that was left of her near the end, even to herself.
I used to be dismissive of fame and fortune as an idealistic young man; but as I've got older, I've come to appreciate that by collectively remembering and honouring someone, we keep in the collective mind a true memory of who someone was, and what they achieved; not perfect, but better than one mind alone in some ways. And in that sense, there can be no doubt that Terry Jones, in being a Python, is rightfully honoured and loved. I hope those close to him, wife, family, and fellow Pythons can take some solace in that. As another famous comic, and fellow sufferer wrote;
The harvest of laughs that Jones' crop of comedy have sewn will exist as long as there's media to transmit it.
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Pretty sure he's an ex-Terry Fords at this point; he has ceased to be.
Unfortunately. Rest well, Mr. Fords, and thank you for the laughs.
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