I'm sure it used to be funny... and other dreary complaints

I had no intention of referencing the wonderful Bill Bailey twice in two days. But then he wrote Why a Monty Python reunion is sure to be worth watching in today's newspaper.

Don't panic! I don't disagree with him. I'm not going to criticise him or them - or anyone else for that matter.

(I tried that once before - and it's not that it didn't end well, it's more that it was an interesting experiment, and I meant everything I wrote, but I'm not going back to that genre today.)

What do I think of Monty Python?

Who cares? It doesn't matter.

But the simple fact is that I was far too young to enjoy their programmes first time around. (Technically I wasn't even born when they started but I think that's included in 'far too young'.)

So I first watched their material on the umpteenth repeat. It wasn't new or fresh. I knew I was expected to find it funny and strange and original and breathtaking and freewheeling and so on. Sure, I didn't know the lines and the jokes and the punchlines (where provided) - but I knew to expect almost anything and so, when almost anything happened, it didn't feel unexpected.

That's not their fault. Clearly they were brilliant. I truly hope they still are. But I missed the chance to watch their shows when no one had any idea what was about to happen.

And, for that reason, they don't hold that special place in my laughter organ (whichever one that is - spleen?). No - Bill Bailey is in there. And Eddie Izzard. And Harry Hill. And Jo Brand. And Steve Coogan. I could go on.

Discovery

Bill and Eddie and Harry and Jo and Steve - these are the people that I saw when I first started watching live comedy in little upstairs rooms above pubs or smoky filthy basements below pubs or in rooms temporarily loaned out by the strip club that owned the building.

I didn't discover them (of course) - but I did discover I liked them, for myself, without being told by the huge crushing weight of acceptable public opinion that they were definitely to be liked.

I don't have memories of laughing at a late-night rerun of Monty Python on BBC2. But (I hope) I'll never forget the night that the headline comedian (whoever he was) failed to turn up and so Eddie Izzard, the compere, filled in with an extended set to close the show.

It might be all over YouTube now and almost memorised by some of the fans - but that night I heard his 'brought up by wolves' story for the first time and the tears were streaming and the muscles around my diaphragm were aching from pure, uncontrollable, wonderful laughter.

(No, it wasn't just me. Everyone was laughing that much. And it could also have been the night that Noel James set his hair on fire.)

And I couldn't even see Bill Bailey in a tiny, tiny room up a narrow staircase in a Soho pub when I first heard him sing 'The Leg Of Time'. It was standing room only and I wasn't as tall as the numerous (and probably fire-hazardous) crowd in front of me. So I didn't understand the laugh he got from his Dougal impression. But I remember the night and the show and the laughter.

This is the song, as recorded for his BBC2 series 'Is It Bill Bailey?'- still shockingly unavailable on DVD, despite my mentioning it yesterday.

Nostalgia

I admit it.

Original material

I can't criticise the new Monty Python project because I don't know what it's going to be and I probably won't want to criticise it once they announce it. (But I'm getting this blog post in now, beforehand, just in case.)

But, personally, I'm not in the right age bracket to go for a greatest-hits massive-arena tour. The thought of being in the middle of a crowd trying to simulcast Palin through the dead parrot sketch won't have me furiously refreshing my browser at 9am on whichever morning the tickets go on sale.

New material, in a venue where you can actually see the whites of their eyes - now that would be enticing. Then again, there are many, many comedians I'd see under those circumstances. Like Bill. But then, I did discover him*.

(* - see above. In case you've skim-read your way down here, I'm not claiming any particular skill or to have been involved in his success in any way except that I was one of the people who paid to see him and encouraged him by laughing like an idiot.)

Bananas with Bill, Barry and Raby

This is a true story about the utter joy in finding something unexpected, in a place that you know so very well and which, despite expectations, has concealed a secret over the decades.

But, since it is N's birthday, let's start a little earlier this morning. On the way to school, she was teaching us how to make bananas. This is a complex process, involving pre-heating your imaginary oven to precisely 304 (don't ask me which scale), gathering leaves (imaginary, and of various colours), beating them into a mould (I'm going to stop saying 'imaginary' now) with a variety of implements (wooden platter, sharp knife, etc), adding some gravel and weeds and then baking the whole thing for precisely ten seconds.

You might think this explains why she doesn't eat bananas whereas, in fact, the truth is far worse.

Let's back up a little further.

Raby

Many years ago, before N was even born, there was a sign. No, not that sort of sign.

There was a sign by the library in the Barbican inviting people to speak to a careers advisor called Raby Clingbine. Frankly, I didn't believe that name. Google doesn't seem to believe in it either. Hot news! Google has found the elusive person part-way down this webpage. (Yes, I appreciate that it's dated 2008 but I haven't been looking on a daily basis.)

Anyway, not thinking for a moment that it could be a real person - especially as the sign had gone by the next time I visited, making me wonder whether I'd imagined the whole thing, the name became the first choice when trying to put a random name onto a random person. (Everyone does this, right?)

So we had a little song, about a character (called Raby Clingbine) who ate a banana, which caused his ears to fall off and a variety of other complaints. The punchline was about bananas being made of leather. It made sense at the time.

The whole thing was sung in a demented-rumba style, complete with ching-chika-chika-CHING and chromatic bass riffs joining the lines and so on. A bit like this (from about thirty seconds, if you're short on time):

...but, clearly, with wholly original melody and lyrics.

Bill

We now need to go back (or forward - look it up if you're bothered) to Bill Bailey's wonderfully excellent BBC series entitled, one hopes rhetorically, "Is It Bill Bailey?". I believe it was.

(I also believe that it's a crime against comedy (and against his income) that people are still being deprived of the opportunity to buy a copy of the whole series on DVD, so the only winners are Google for selling advertising space alongside the many clips on YouTube.)

So, while exploring the contribution that cockneys have made to popular music, Bill considers the use of the classic turn-around, the 'have a banana'. And now you can give some clicks to Google:

Time permitting, I'll remove this sentence and tell you whereabouts in the clip you can fast-forward to if you're short on time.

He doesn't explain the origin of the 'have a banana' motif but does successfully discover it in all sorts of unexpected places. Speaking of which...

Barry

My parents own a copy of the vinyl album Manilow Magic, a veritable smorgasbord of thumping great Barry tunes which was part of the soundtrack of my early (and maybe mid) childhood. If this link still works, you can pick it up for a pound (plus £1.26 shipping).

We played that record a lot. Especially Copacabana which, although it's a tragic story of murder, alcoholism and wasted lives, is a groovingly splendid melange of disco, latin percussion and wailing backing singers.

I thought I knew the song thoroughly. I was wrong.

And so, this morning, at 8.45am, walking back from school, my MP3-playing phone scooped around its storage for random content and, wonderfully, produced Copacabana. And, at 8.48am, I heard this:

Yes, in the middle of the disco-tragedy-instrumental-wailing middle section, Barry got a bunch of singers (who probably knew better) to sing 'Have a banana'.

And this morning it literally (not literally meaning metaphorically - the real, classic 'literally' meaning, well, literally) made me stop in my tracks. I didn't quite punch the air but it was a close-run thing.

In conclusion

Look through the places and objects that you think you know well - for they contain many surprises that you may find quite delightful.


P.S. Legal disclaimer

If my appropriating fifteen seconds of Copacabana is deemed to constitute intellectual property theft, then I will, of course, be happy to take down the offending item. In mitigation, it will not satisfy anyone searching for the song and they would probably be drawn to the Amazon listing and therefore purchase the item. (I know, it's second-hand so only the seller will make anything from the whole sorry business but you can't have everything.)

P.P.S. Those aren't pyramids

They're the roofs of various blocks of flats. I couldn't figure out how to insert audio so I added a photo I'd taken and called it a video.

P.P.P.S. Join my mailing list

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How to fix everything

Yesterday, the head of MI6 (Britain's spying organisation), told a government enquiry that Edward Snowden's leaking of information about their spying capabilities now meant that:

"our adversaries are rubbing their hands with glee"

...while no doubt laughing an evil pantomime-style laugh and stroking their evil pointy beards (if that is possible while rubbing hands with glee).

It is difficult to argue with the contention that telling enemies about your spying capabilities makes it harder to spy on them because they'll stop doing some of the stuff they know you can monitor.

But why do we have so many adversaries in the first place?

Be nice to people

Imagine the scene in the playground. Big kid is hitting small kid. Occasionally he stops. Small kid then stabs big kid in the leg with point of his compass. Big kid adopts air of outrage and hits small kid again. Repeat ad nauseam.

Teacher steps in. "What do you think you're doing?" roars teacher. "It's him!" shouts the big kid, tearfully. "No matter how often I punch him in the face, he keeps stabbing me with his compass."

And, from the big kid's perspective, and the perspective of his friends, he's absolutely right and he'll keep on punching the small kid until he relents, hands over his lunch money and the status quo can be restored.

But when you're talking about global politics, maybe we could expect to look at it from the teacher's perspective instead.

How about, for every million pounds currently spent on bombing the hell out of people (even if they're evil - let's give 'our guys' the benefit of the doubt and assume some of the those killed really are bad guys), we instead spend half a million pounds giving them food, medical equipment and supplies, construction equipment, educational materials, etc, etc. Make sure it's all marked "A GIFT FROM YOUR FRIENDS IN THE UK".

And spend the other half million on domestic charities, just to keep the electorate happy.

We could try it for a bit. If it doesn't work, keep on doing it. If it gets stolen or destroyed or lost, keep on doing it. Something will get through eventually. Maybe spend two-thirds of a million and see if that's any better.

And before telling me that I'm hopelessly naive and that it wouldn't work, please try to produce at least one example of an occasion when it was tried.