Just in case you’ve never come across any of this (and if you haven’t, where have you been? In a cave in Judea?) When I was growing up there was a hard core of us in school (and in every school) for whom referring to dead parrots, the Spanish Inquisition or what the Romans had ever done for us was de rigeur.

I may be slightly older now but that doesn’t make any of this any less funny. I even sprinkle occasional references into the show. Nobody notices but me 🙁

Come to the days before Michael Palin was a travel presenter, before Terry Gilliam a movie director, before John Cleese was Fawlty, before Terry Jones made history shows, before Eric Idle was a voice in cartoons and before Graham Chapman was an ex-person…

If you have never seen any of this, I hope you’re about to have your head opened forever. Almost all modern comedy comes from this…

I wonder if teenagers these days still quote things like this to each other much to the disgust of their cooler mates? Possibly not. And that’s a shame.