  This is from a book called `Could Do Better - School Reports of the Great and the Good` which was compiled in aid of the UK charity The Dyslexia Institute. It`s published by Pocket Books. Here`s MP's: SHREWSBURY SCHOOL, SHROPSHIRE 1960 Housemaster`s final report: There are doubts beginning to creep in here which have been noticeably absent from his work reports of the past. I very much hope this is a passing phase. Mr Brown tells me that it appears he has easily passed in Geography - a very commendable effort in so short a time . There may be a vestige of truth in Mr Charlesworth`s last remark. I too have noticed symptoms of the same sort of thing, a slightly put-on manner of affectation, perhaps a sort of aftermath of his fine performance in the School Play. We`re all for a bit of jollity and mild eye-flashing business, but he must not try to get away altogether with this slightly facile manner. He has the makings of a splendid person. Let him ensure that his foundations are thoroughly sound. Headmaster`s comments: I think he is just a teeny bit pleased with himself - or so I am prepared to hazard. "Once I took a day trip in Tunisia, when we were making Monty Python's 'Life of Brian.' It was just very tricky because everywhere you went, people thought: 'A man on his own. He must have money, or he must be looking for another man.' So I was sitting on this huge beach -- where for miles there wasn't anyone -- reading Thomas Hardy and this man walks right up and sort of sits very close to me and says, 'Hello. What is the book you are reading?' And I said it is a romantic story about old England. And right then, I knew I shouldn't have said that." - from Salon Wander Lust article from Tom Snyder's interview with Michael on The Late, Late Show: "...on the last DAY of our shows in New York, I woke up in the morning, two shows still to go, and I'd lost my voice. Actor's total nightmare. Could barely speak. And so during that day, they got various doctors along to the theatre to come and have a look at my throat, and a lot of them wouldn't look into my mouth until I'd PAID them $40 or whatever it was! And Graham Chapman, who is a doctor, wanted to help out. And in the first sketch of the show, Graham played a Mexican lady, so there was this man [gestures how tall Graham was] dressed in an enormous, pink Mexican outfit with a wig on, and scarlet lipstick, and, uh, a pipe, looking in my mouth. And the doctor sort of looked at Graham and said, "Excuse me! Could you mind going away?!" He said, "I AM a doctor, you know!" Anyway, the two doctors, Graham in his dress and the other doctor, finally abandoned all hope, and the only way I managed to actually get away with it was, a friend called Neil Innes gave me a quarter bottle of Scotch so I just drank that. He said, "Whether you lose your voice or not, you won't care!" And I had to do one very long speech fairly early on, and I got through it, just CROAKED my way through, FINALLY got to the end, and John, to whom I was delivering it, stopped for a minute and said, "Uh, sorry, didn't quite catch that." [TS and crew laugh out loud] ...TALL BASTARD! That's what happens when you're 5 inches...smaller than people!..."
The Virgin Super Voyager train number 221 130 is named after Michael Palin. As an actor, there is always the possibility that you could be appearing in your in-flight movie. This has happened only once to Palin. "Apart from `A Fish Called Wanda', most of the films I've made aren't suitable to be shown on airlines! But I was coming back from New York once and I was tucking in to my meal, when I looked up at the screen and there I was! It was a short film that I made called `The Dress' in which I play a randy husband with a mistress. It gets quite steamy and ends up with a bed scene. I felt this awful embarrassment and looked around but hardly anybody was watching it, so no one connected me with the film. It was a very strange moment." - from "Travelling with Michael Palin" from Tom Snyder's interview with John Cleese: JC: ...Did I tell you when we were filming with Monty Python? It's absolutely wonderful! We got back...we'd been filming, and we'd all had a little too much to drink. We got back to the hotel, and when I got to my room, they'd given me not the key to my room, but the key to Michael's. So I unlocked Michael's room, went down and got my key, and I thought, I've GOT to do something with this! And he was coming in...the next car. So I got into his room, put the lights on, had a look around, and I thought, I'll get behind the dressing table and sit there. So I switched the lights off, got behind the dressing table. Three minutes later, in comes Michael...and he comes into the room and he starts wandering round and putting things down. And I'm sitting there - the dressing table's like this, the mirror's like that, and I'm just peeking at him... [gestures peeking through the tiny space between]. And he does all the things that you do... He comes right over to the mirror and does, you know [makes funny faces], all that. And then he goes back and he starts getting undressed. And at this moment I think, Is this joke going wrong?!... TS: Yeah, exactly! JC: ...but he brushes his teeth... TS: I may not want to go where this is going! JC: ...That's right! But he gets into bed, and he...puts his glasses on and he starts reading, you see. And I'm sitting...I've been in the room at this point about twelve minutes! So I sit behind this dresser. I think, WHERE do I go with this now? I was sure that he would see me at some point! TS: We're waiting to see where you're gonna go with this! JC: WELL, I sat there another two minutes. I thought, this can't go on any longer, so I just got up and I said, "I'm awfully sorry, Michael, but I really have to go." And I'll never forget the look on his face as long as I live...
more Palin/Cleese mad ramblings at the "Palindrome" at the OFFICIAL Python site, PythOnline. (Michael hosted a VH1 top twenty countdown to promote "American Friends." There was a Paul McCartney song in the countdown...) "Now, Paul has said that he's almost never spent a night away from Linda, but people don't believe it. Well, I can tell you it's true. I've slept with Paul many times, and Linda was always there."
Michael Palin is concerned that his travelling days are numbered. Noting that John Cleese and Terry Jones both have hips of steel, he gasped: "Good God, that's quite a high proportion of us. I suppose John has spent all his life doing silly walks, which would wear the hips out, and Terry never used to worry about throwing himself about the set. I'm lucky. I've only been walking around the world for the last ten years!" - 03/20/02, The Times of London (Copyright Times Newspapers Ltd, 2002) Michael's liner notes for the Traveling Wilburys: The Original Wilburys were a stationary people who, realising that their civilisation could not stand still forever, began to go for short walks - not the "traveling" as we now know it, but certainly as far as the corner and back. They must have taken to motion, in much the same way as penguins were at that time taking to ledges, for the next we hear of them they were going out for the day (often taking lunch or a picnic). Later - we don't as yet know how MUCH later - some intrepid Wilburys began to go away for the weekend, leaving late Friday and coming back Sunday. It was they who evolved simple rhythmic forms to describe their adventures. A remarkable sophisticated musical culture developed, considering there were no managers or agents, and the further the Wilburys traveled, the more adventurous their music became, and the more it was revered by the elders of the tribe who believed it had the power to stave off madness, turn brunettes into blondes and increase the size of their ears. But as the Wilburys began to go further and further in their search for musical inspiration, they found themselves the object of interest among many less developed species - night-club owners, tour operators and recording executives. To the Wilburys, who had only just learnt to cope with wives, roadies and drummers, it was a blow from which many of them never recovered. They became hairdressers or tv rental salespersons. But a tiny handful survived - the last of the Traveling Wilburys - and the songs gathered here represent the popular laments, the epic and heroic tales which characterise the apotheosis of the elusive Wilbury sound. The message of the music travels, as indeed they traveled and as I myself must travel for further treatment. Good listening, good night, and let Thy Wilbury done... sleeve note (c) Hugh Jampton, E.F. Nori-bitz, reader in applied jacket, faculty of sleeve notes, University of Krakatoa (east of Java) Wilbury Record Company is a subdivision of the Trans-Wilbury Corporation of Bulgaria.
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