“Stake Your Claim” from Monty Python’s “Not Another Python Record”
Host (John Cleese): Good evening and welcome to ‘Stake Your Claim’. First this evening we have Mr Norman Voles of Gravesend who claims he wrote all Shakespeare’s works. Mr Voles, I understand you claim that you wrote all those plays normally attributed to Shakespeare?
Voles (Michael Palin): That is correct. I wrote all his plays and my wife and I wrote his sonnets.
Host: Mr Voles, these plays are known to have been performed in the early 17th century. How old are you, Mr Voles?
Voles: 43.
Host: Well, how is it possible for you to have written plays performed over 300 years before you were born?
Voles: Ah well. This is where my claim falls to the ground.
Host: Ah!
Voles: There’s no possible way of answering that argument, I’m afraid. I was only hoping you would not make that particular point, but I can see you’re more than a match for me!
Host: Mr Voles, thank you very much for coming along.
Voles: My pleasure.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus “Upper Class Twit of the Year”
I cannot breathe I am laughing so hard.
OLIVER HAS RUN HIMSELF OVER! WHAT A GREAT TWIT!
But Confucius has answered them with the final whistle, it’s all over. Germany, having trounced England’s famous midfield trio of Bentham, Locke and Hobbes in the semi-final, have been beaten by the odd goal.
International Philosophy: Germany vs. Greece
“Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a prioriadjunct of non-naturalistic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx is claiming it was offside.”
Is it bad that I used to watch this sketch when I studied for philosophy exams?
Happy Birthday, John Cleese! (27th October, 1939)
Oh Mr. Cleese, if only you knew how much you’ve influenced me as an actor, director, and writer. I really don’t have the words.
Monty Python’s Oliver Cromwell, as howled by John Cleese on the Monty Python Sings Album. I say howled, because you can’t really call what John Cleese does on this track as “singing”
Can we appreciate for a moment that this undeniably excellent piece of music comes with silly lyrics, courtesy of Monty Python:
(spoken)
The most interesting thing about King Charles the First
is that he was 5 foot 6 inches tall at the start of his reign,
but only 4 foot 8 inches tall at the end of it.
Because of…
(sung)
Oliver Cromwell
Lord Protector of England (Puritan)
Born in 1599, Died in 1658 (September)
Was at first (only)
MP for Huntington (but then)
He led the Ironside Calvary at Marston Moor in 1664 and won
Then he founded the new model army
And, praise be, beat the Cavaliers at Naisby
And the King fled up North, like a bat! Toward the Scots…
(spoken)
But under the terms of John Pimm’s Solemn league and covenant,
the Scots handed King Charles the first over to…
(sung)
Oliver Cromwell
Lord Protector of England (and his warts)
Born in 1599, Died in 1658 (September)
But, alas! (Oy vey!)
Disagreement then broke out (between)
The Presbyterian Parliament and the military who meant
to have an independent bent and so,
the second Civil War broke out
And the Roundhead Ranks faced the Cavaliers at Preston Banks!
And the King lost again, silly thing (stupid git)
(spoken)
And Cromwell sent Colonel Pride to purge the House of Commons
of the Presbyterian Royalists, leaving behind only the rump Parliment.
Which appointed a High Court at Westminster Hall
To indict Charles the First for…
(sung)
TYRANNY!!! (Ooohhh!)
(spoken)
Charles was sentanced to death
Even though he refused to accept
That the court had…
(sung)
Jurisdiction.
Say goodbye to his head!
Poor King Charles, laid his head, on the block.
(spoken)
January 1649
Doooooown came the ax. (gasp)
And in the silence that followed, the only sound that could be heard
was a solitary giggle, from…
(sung)
Oliver Cromwell
Lord Protector of England (Ole!)
Born in 1599, Died in 1658 (September)
Then he smashed (Ireland)
Set up the commonweath (and more)
He crushed the Scots at Worcester
At beat the Dutch at sea in 1653, and then
He dissolved the Rump Parliament
And with Lambeth’s consent, wrote the Instrument of Government,
Under which Oliver was Lord Protector at last!
The End!
The Electric Mayhem (the Muppet band) also does a pretty fantastic cover.
Dinsdale !
My dad used to draw Spiny Norman on my lunch bags. My fellow first graders never understood.
By about age 11, I had this song completely memorized. I used to sing it at the top of my lungs, in public (I’d say “Oh my poor parents,” but it was really all their own doing.) This was, of course, long before I had any idea what it meant. All I heard was highly professional sounding singers singing with extreme seriousness about something that sounded vaguely naughty to my precocious eleven-year-old ears. Funnily enough, after a decade’s worth of life experience, I still find this song funny for the same reasons.
