Jamala Wild Life LodgeSaturday 5th March.

I’m woken to a golden sunrise by the screeching a of a dozen white cockatoos, standing in the tree outside my room, head feathers held high. In the distance lions roar. In the lobby, some closer ancestors, two large colobus monkeys with long white feathered tails try and pretend it isn’t morning.

Thursday afternoon we came bouncing into Canberra via Melbourne through some heavy thunderclouds and dramatic flashes of lightning, and were left sitting on the Tarmac for a while, as it was deemed too dangerous for the ground crew to approach our Qantas flight. Even when they let us off it would be another two or three hours before anyone was permitted on to the apron to unload our bags. Fortunately for us St. Simon whisks us into a People Carrier and sends us barrelling off down the road beyond Canberra to our extraordinary destination, a wild life safari lodge perched beside the dam of a beautiful reservoir. For the public it’s the National Zoo and Aquarium of Canberra, but for we lucky few who get to stay here two whole nights it’s the Jamala Wild Life Lodge, where for the even more fortunate you can get to share your quarters with a Bengal tiger, brown lions, a brown bear, a sun bear or a cheetah. Richard Tindale the owner has built special bungalows with glass walls abutting their dens where your animal sleeps right beside you. We sit in one with an extraordinarily beautiful Bengal tiger who doesn’t bat an eye as he lies napping on his straw. After all this is his place. We are the visitors. You can take a bath beside him if you book this bungalow. In fact the place is so popular you can only stay three nights. John brilliantly found it in the Qantas Magazine and being, let us say, less than enamoured of the charms of Canberra suggested we stay here. Mercifully we got the last two rooms, John in the Lemur suite and me the Hyena. I haven’t yet even seen Canberra, though according to our personalised tour guides we play there tonight at a sold out Royal Theatre.

Our day off begins with breakfast on the terrace. Two very beautiful spotted hyenas idly watch us. Shortly we will get to feed these beautiful and friendly animals, who are not the only ones to have received a vile reputation from Hollywood. Meanwhile beneath us we watch four white lions released roaring from their pens each with huge chunks of meat in their mouths, which they take off into separate patches of shade in their pleasant grassy wooded enclosure. Next it’s another pair of white lions, a brother and sister, who romp into their own world. I watch the huge white male patiently ripping apart his fresh meat breakfast, his extraordinary jaws crushing and tearing the food, licking and probing, crunching and chewing, until nothing remains and they sit contentedly licking their chops. Both John and I have a picture taken with Jake, while Misha, the most beautiful female sits placidly by. You’ll be able to see the pictures we took of our trip on their website jamalawildlifelodge.com.au or more likely their face book jamalawildlifelodge.  It might take me a while to get mine over to them but they’ll probably post the Python Feeding Time picture soon.

All the staff led by Maurits de Graeff are charming and helpful but today our guides are Russell Jackson and Renee Osterloh, and they show us through the huge sea water tanks of sharks and the indoor aquarium, and then help us feed two most endearing spotted hyenas. Soon they whisk us away from the public where John is politely denying he is a zoo animal to tourists  wishing to photograph him and we head off on a golf cart to see the new areas under construction. As well as Emus and Elands, and capuchins and giraffes, and lemurs, and Tree Kangaroos from New Guinea, and a wonderfully odd Tasmanian devil, we get up close and personal with two adorable young dingos, we wander amongst the patient wallabies, and then get to meet a cheetah. That’s right. We get to meet a cheetah. Kyle and Amanda give us safety instructions and then we’re in through the gates, patting this most beautiful creature as he chews on a large leg. Luckily not one of ours. Sadly there are only 3,000 of these amazing animals left in the wild, and in fifteen years they may well become extinct. Kyle McDonald and Amanda Hadley explain that this petting programme is part of an outreach programme to teach people about these creatures, who are being killed off by farmers in Namibia and South Africa to protect their goats and sheep from predation. Perfectly understandable he says, and the only way we can save them is from a new programme of providing the farmers with a large breed of heavy dog, which protects the herds and which will see off any cheetah and predator. These dogs are provided free, and food and all vet costs are also supplied by the programme, and so far it appears to be working. No cheetah will risk an attack on a herd which is protected by a large dog, and will go elsewhere. You can contribute to this programme. John and I are considering a suitable name for a dog.

After many moving moments with the cheetah we pose inside the pen for pictures as Pythons, awaiting feeding time. Someone has thoughtfully provided a can of spam. We mug away, and the cheetah comes and sits behind us, perhaps puzzled by the antics of these antique comics. He makes a wonderful purring noise. We do what we can to spread the word. After all surely we cannot let all these wonderful animals just fade into extinction. This place is not only a tourist resort and a zoo, but also part of an integrated conservation programme, so please if you can, support them in the amazing work they are doing. Or imagine a world with no animals.

As a reward for being fed Spam for the cameras we are led to the bear enclosure where we spoon feed sweet food to a gentle and affectionate brown bear, who has, like many of these creatures, been rescued from a Circus. There is very little chance of John and I being rescued from our particular flying circus, but our hosts treat us so kindly and spoil us so much that we spend all day either being fed or feeding animals. Our final exploit of the day is in the Aquarium where an enormous tawny nurse shark is basking on the sand at the bottom of his tank, but is soon wakened by a kick on the side of the glass by Renee and comes racing up for a bucket of crayfish, which he eats with a loud plosive plop, the noise he makes as he sucks in the squid with extremely powerful suction from the reefs where he lives. John gets down and pats this very friendly but enormous tawny shark.

I don’t have time to tell you of all our adventures here, or all about the kind and friendly people who work here, or the great food served up by Sarah, and the amazing Chef, but thank you Teneal and everyone I haven’t mentioned for making us so at home. I can only encourage you all to come and visit this extraordinary place. I wish I was a bit more competent technologically to transfer our many great pictures to this blog, but I can’t dammit. We are going to try and show a few tonight in our stage show, and I’ll tweet a few but I have to rush right now, as it is feeding time with John Cleese and then sadly we have to pack up and run off back to join the Flying Circus…..

March 2nd Adelaide. Wednesday (I think)

I open my curtains to another glorious summer’s day in Adelaide. The beautiful trees that line the parkways surrounding the gleaming waters of Lake Torrens are already casting deep shadows on the grass. Boats of fours, their oars splashing in sync, are sprinting between the bridges that lead across to the golf courses and picnic sites that surround the inner square mile of this most attractive city. I’m happy to see that there is still so much of that wrought ironwork on balconies that used to define the suburbs of Sydney and which now seem to have been swallowed up by disappointing high rise development. I was always told the iron arrived as ballast in the sailing ships and was replaced by wool on the way home. I’m given a tour of the ex-woollen docks in Brisbane, which have now been converted into pleasant residential buildings. It gives me an idea for an outrageous rant I am developing about how ungrateful Australians are for we Brits bringing them here from the rainy shit hole of an island to a paradise home in the sun. They didn’t even have to pay for their passage. It goes over well and I’m working on it.

Across from my hotel lies the modernistic gleaming white stadium of the Adelaide Oval, a brand new sports facility where they play Cricket, Rugby, and Australian rules football.  Not at the same time obviously.   But Aussies are so into exercise it wouldn’t surprise me.    Stretched out across the background of my view lie the beaches and the sea. A plane drifts gently in towards the airport. I’m going exploring today. The hotel is filled with Castrol executives, who put on motivational tee shirts and attend lectures on motor oil, since there is a huge V8 street race starting here Thursday. I ponder what would have happened if Castro had just added an L to his name….

At night the Fringe Festival fills The Garden of Unearthly delights with food and tents and wine and comics. It looks a lot of fun except that we’re on stage at night and as I am still Sir Limpalot I can’t get out there and wander around freely by day, which is a pity as Adelaide is small enough to walk around and has only a million people. Perfect size.

On our flight in from Brisbane the Captain comes back and asks for a selfie. “I’ve had Prime Ministers, Film Stars, Rock stars and you’re the first people I’ve ever asked.” He’s so happy he ignores my slightly cynical “Who’s driving?”remark and John’s ironical farewell “Good luck with the landing.”

John had a question from the audience Sunday in Brisbane (they come on cards) which he read out: “What’s it like to be lizards?”

“That’s legends” John I say.

But it’s true, we are becoming comedy lizards. We are spoiled rotten everywhere we go. Simon micromanages our every move, from handling our baggage, to always having cars waiting, to being pre checked into hotels, to never having to pick up a check, and even then stuffing cash into our hands for per diem. No wonder it’s hard to go back home to a wife after this. Last time I got home I told Tania that in future I didn’t want a wife, I wanted a Tour Manager…. I’m not sure I was joking.

As if to make the point, on my arrival into a Presidential suite as big as any in Vegas, a perfect sun is setting into the sea. Dare I hope for a green flash? Yes! The sun turns pale green as it hits the ocean, and then becomes a pure brilliant emerald point, ending in a flash of almost purple. It’s the finest I have ever seen, perhaps because I’m on the 24th floor, or maybe that’s just the way it is in Australia, everything is greener and golder.

The only thing I don’t quite understand is why when we land they ask us to put our clocks forward half a hour. Are they kidding? Did they only half want summer time? I still haven’t found a satisfactory answer.

Australia is truly the land of irony. Not only are there comedy festivals everywhere but one glance at a wine list reveals a richness of weird and odd names for the very fine wines they serve here. I found these on the wine list from Sean’s kitchen, which fed me very nicely yesterday for lunch. I made up none of them.

Battle of Bosworth.

Not Your Grandma’s Reisling

Tolpuddle Chardonnay

Ladies Who Shoot Their Lunch. (I am not kidding,) and the same ladies, who apparently really do shoot their lunch also have a red called

Are You Game?

Impeccable Disorder

Down The Rabbit Hole

Two Hands Gnarly Dudes

The Dead Arm Shiraz

It’s endless.
 And the chef of this wonderful place is called Sean Connolly, which is I suppose what the Japanese called the original James Bond.    

Leaving Brisbane spared me watching the Oscars, which are the usual mixture of tedium and embarrassment. How many bearded men can you watch thanking their mothers? Three and a half hours of prize giving. What are they thinking? I’m a voter but I can never stand to watch the show. Or the Dead Carpet. I’m pleased at least for Alicia Vikander who is wonderful and I was happy Ex-Machina won something and The Big Short won best screenplay, introduced by a very funny bit from Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe, but I’m still puzzled how Samuel Jackson wasn’t nominated for The Hateful Eight. His magnificent performance held centre stage in that movie. Ah well, Award shows are always stupid, it’s like choosing between an Orange, a Banana and a Strawberry for Best Fruit. As I say all Awards are worthless, except the ones they give me.

On our first night in Adelaide we had a glorious dinner at Chianti and as if to karmically punish John, who gibes me nightly on the show for not eating meat, the rabbit he orders removes one of his crowns. I always respond that I do eat fish, but I have asked to be buried at sea to make up for it. Sounds like John should book a burial plot in Watership Down. Anyway he poor fellow has to face the dentist this morning while I take to the hills in search of scenery. If I were him I’d ask them to make his crown opal. I’ve already been busy purchasing these, as I love them, and on each of my trips I take back a souvenir. My son’s pal Ian, showed me one he’d hacked from the rock and then shaped and polished. It was brown with gleaming tints. And then of course he gave it to me. Did I mention Australians are very generous?

The show itself is sold out here for both nights and the crowd last night was noisy and friendly and responsive. John wanders a little in our new narrative, but it doesn’t matter, only we know, and I tug him back into shape only because of the film clip cues. Personally I prefer it when things go wrong. This time, in answer to a question about Terry Gilliam I tell the story of finding his new book “Gilliamesque” in a Sunshine Coast Bookshop, looking around cautiously, surreptitiously autographing it, and then putting it back on the shelf. This goes over really well with a surprisingly big laugh. I may have to make this a practice. In fact I think we should all do it for each other’s books…

Anyway, off to explore the delights of Adelaide, and stay away from the Ladies who shoot their lunch…

A Fun Sunday in Brisbane.
Last night was one of the best shows we have ever done. Our second show in Brisbane, our third in Australia but certainly one to remember. Saturday night at the Convention Centre was jumping and very full, but last night’s audience were as smart as a whip and with us from the start. Even when John’s radio mic started to make strange gun-shot noises it got funnier, as John dived under the desk to hide. I always love it when things go wrong, and so do the audience because you are really with them in that moment and they know you are ad libbing. As it was we were simultaneously relaxed and completely involved. The work we had done on the Saturday show brought the first Act down to 58 minutes, but last night we did it in 53. It was tight, and fast.

Adrian (Bohm) our thoughtful and kindly Promoter noticed too.

“Great show” he said at the end.

“I think we’re ready for Sydney” I said, ever the optimistic pessimist.  

A snobby thing to say I suppose since Brisbane had just given us three standing ovations on both nights. What I meant was, the larger cities demand more and you have to bring your best game. Yes we were funny in Florida but would we be funny in New York? I wasn’t sure. Now I think we might be getting there. Not that we’re going. Today we’re going to Adelaide, which is in the middle of a Comedy Festival, and we do two show’s tomorrow and Wednesday before heading on to Canberra. Our truck left last night and will only just make the show. Hopefully… 

Ours is an interesting evening because it is partly autobiographical and partly sketch comedy and partly ad lib sit down comedy. Now we are adding elements of bickering and banter, which the audience love. I got John totally in the Q and A, when he said he was thinking of coming to live a few months of the year in Oz with his wife.

“You’re going to live with your wife?” I asked naively and the audience howled so much John left the stage.

There is a sweet element of kindly bickering now, and even when we talk about the other Pythons there is a warmth to it. Yes we can stick the boot in, but it has affection, and recognises that we’ve known each other fifty years.
 

John telling my favourite story of his waking up Michael Palin on the phone in Helsinki and pretending to be a Norwegian journalist downstairs in his hotel waiting to interview him with a film crew is the best I have ever heard him do it. Michael protests that he is in his pyjamas, to which John says “The Norwegian audience will find that very amusing.” I won’t spoil it, because it has so many great lines in it, but John was masterful last night.

I started the day in the Opera Suite, yes honestly, at the Sofitel, by taking a car for a three hour drive around Brisbane. It’s a thing I like to do. You get some idea of where you are and Ray my driver was helpful and filled with useful information. For instance I didn’t know it was Queer Month in February here…

He drives me through Fortitude Valley and when I ask what on earth that was named after he says it’s the area the streetwalkers worked. Hooker Valley. Hm. Who had the fortitude? The girls or the customers? We pass Kangaroo cliff, and many odd pub signs, my favourites being The Bitter Suite, and The Foraging Quail. He takes me to The Avid Reader in West End, a lovely bookshop with a nice café, which seems to be hosting several reading groups. I pose for a photo with one of them, and ask what their book was like.

 “Not much good” says one chap, so I suggest they download The Writer’s Cut.

“It’s very short” I say.

“Oh we like short” he replies.

“And filthy of course.”

“Perfect” he responds.

Since I posed for a pikkie I think it’s the least they can do!

We pass the Four X Brewery, and Ray asks me why it’s called XXXX?

“Dunno,”

“Because they can’t spell beer.”

I laugh and tell him I’m going to knick that tonight, and I do in the Bruces and it gets a big laugh. Thanks Ray.

So we drive round the city and then on up to Mount Coot-Tha, which reveals splendid views of the entire area, and I finally get my bearings. There’s the Port, there’s the Gold Coast, that way to the Sunshine Coast. The broad Brisbane river threads like silver embroidery through the fast growing sky line. It’s only when you look at the display panels from 1866 that you realise just how fast Brisbane has risen. It’s wonderful at night Ray says, and I’m sure it is, but I have a date at the Convention Centre. However it starts a nice chain of thought about accusing Aussies of being ungrateful for their free passage out of the rainy shithole of England into their wonderful paradise. It goes over very well later.

“They didn’t even have to pay for their passage” I say in outraged terms.

“And what do they do to thank us?” John picks up, “Beat us at cricket.”

To end a wonderful Sunday, after the show I get back to the hotel to find the chef has left me some cheese and goodies and half a bottle of fine red and the Spurs game is kicking off live… doesn’t get better than that, with your pants on (as Mike Nichols would always add!)

BrisVegas.  

Got in from the Gold Coast Friday and had a night off. I missed being by the sea and wished I’d stayed on a bit longer but time and tide… in this case a severe rip tide, the result of strong winds from a nearby cyclone, had closed all the beaches. So we took the Bruce Highway (yes honestly) to Brisbane, a city that has risen even faster in the eight years since I was last here. BrisVegas the locals call it although it seems to have very little to do with that sad artificial place in the Nevada desert. It’s a real city, with history, and old buildings and a lovely water front. It’s a far cry from the old corrupt Queensland, and is now multi-cultured with a huge Chinatown.
 Saturday night the young crowds seemed to be out doing what young people should:  getting out of their heads and replicating….

The most obvious thing about Australians, apart from their sense of humour, is they seem very fit. Also they all take their weekends off. There’s no question they’re going to skip out on not going to the beach, so they’re relaxed, and happy. It’s not the relentless American pursuit of happiness which seems now to equate only with fame and fortune, neither of which, incidentally, lead to happiness. The world seems to be watching the American election process and going “Really? This is what we are supposed to be admiring? But it’s nuts…” Although John did come out with a nice rant about Australians having a new Prime Minister every few days, but maybe that’s a good idea.
Or maybe no one wants to stay in Canberra that long.

John was tired and a little sick after our Gold Coast opening, and stayed in, while Camilla, his long, elegant daughter had booked herself into some comedy sets (at The Sit Down Comedy Club?) so Simon, our Passepartoutian tour manager, booked us into a very nice Italian restaurant, Tartufo, where we ate and I drank, very nicely. When it came to paying however the Chef Owner Tony Percuoco would not hear of it. He refused to accept our money and asked only that I sign a couple of bottles of wine. Most generous.
And he cleverly alibied himself, saying he was too busy to come to our show.  It’s not that bad Tony….

Saturday morning John was feeling much better and we attacked the opening of the show. We felt we hadn’t grabbed them sufficiently from the off on the first night, and so we cut and pruned and made the whole first act go a lot faster. In the event, this was the right thing to do. Of course the audience was a lot louder, and a lot bigger, 2,900 in a mini amphitheatre set up, and we had the benefit of close up cameras, so even those in the distant rows could see us clearly on the screens, but still we got them from the off, and the new running order is much clearer, and tells the story of our 53 years much more simply. So it was a tight, bright Act One. We do it again tonight, so we get a chance to see what more we can do. I cut The Getty Song, because The Goldies seemed to have no idea what that was about (art) and I replaced it with a short rude number from What About Dick. It worked a lot better. Almost all my songs seem to be filthy and thank heaven for Garfunkle and Oates coming along and performing much ruder songs than mine. Check them out on U Tube if you don’t believe me. Also they are a lot easier on the eye…
 

My son came by our hotel in the afternoon and gave John and I needles before the show, so we both felt good and ready. I had foolishly gone for a walk in search of a bookshop which I never found, and so by the time Carey arrived with healing ointments and well placed acupuncture pins I was Sir Limpalot. Too bad he isn’t coming with us on Tour.

Tomorrow we head for Adelaide, where I understand the Comedy Festival is in full swing. I heard The Umbilical Brothers were in town and we have always loved them in our family. Also the extremely funny Ross Noble, though I don’t think we’ll get time to go to other shows as we play two nights and then head off to Canberra. I’m looking forward to both these cities as I have never been to either, and we’re not actually staying in Canberra but in some animal lodge. I’m booked into the Wild Life Suite, which sounds like a room in the old Playboy mansion, when that was the place to be, and not a sad reminder of age and exploitation.

Talking of age I was in Maroomba or Maloomba or Maboomba or something of that ilk on the Sunshine Coast and I went in to an art gallery with Adrienne, my son’s lovely lady. The young artist in there took one look at me and said “Oh the life drawing classes are on Thursdays.” Clearly old men gather there for a chance to Iook at naked models and he mistook me for another one of them. Sadly I was busy Thursday.

It is a sad business getting old, not for the faint hearted as somebody observed, but one thing that never fades is the admiration for the young and beautiful. Of course you have become entirely invisible, but still, the admiration lingers on.

As I quote Tracey Ullman from my play What About Dick.

“I like my vibrator but I do occasionally miss the disappointment of a real man.”