Latest news with #HolyGrail
The Advertiser
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Advertiser
Eric Idle slams 'ungrateful' Monty Python co-stars
Eric Idle has blasted his Monty Python co-stars for being "miserable and horrible and bitchy" about royalty payments. The 82-year-old comic wrote stage show Spamalot, which is based on his 1975 movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and he thinks the rest of the comedy troupe - whose surviving members are John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, and Michael Palin - should be more "grateful" for the money they receive from the production. Asked if the other Pythons receive royalty payments, he told The Guardian newspaper: "They got more f***ing money than they've ever been grateful for. They got f***ing millions and they're miserable and horrible and bitchy about it. "I spent 20 years working for Python and then two years on the O2 show. They were there for two weeks. "I'm not really motivated by money, to be honest. Anyway, the producers get all the f***ing money and divide it up according to the contract. "Someone sued us for years, saying I was paying the Pythons money from my back pocket. And I said: why would I risk going to an American jail to give John Cleese more money?" Idle admitted there was a "lot of arguing and fights" between the Monty Python stars but he thinks that was good for their work. He said: "Some things in Python were very enjoyable and some were not. Holy Grail was cold and miserable. Sometimes that makes it funny. One of the worst things you can have in comedy is enough money. "Python was quite a lot of arguing and fights and good work is often like that. The best thing about showbiz is when it's over. I think if you're enjoying yourself, then you're not acting or giving, you're just having a good time. Well, that's not funny." Eric Idle has blasted his Monty Python co-stars for being "miserable and horrible and bitchy" about royalty payments. The 82-year-old comic wrote stage show Spamalot, which is based on his 1975 movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and he thinks the rest of the comedy troupe - whose surviving members are John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, and Michael Palin - should be more "grateful" for the money they receive from the production. Asked if the other Pythons receive royalty payments, he told The Guardian newspaper: "They got more f***ing money than they've ever been grateful for. They got f***ing millions and they're miserable and horrible and bitchy about it. "I spent 20 years working for Python and then two years on the O2 show. They were there for two weeks. "I'm not really motivated by money, to be honest. Anyway, the producers get all the f***ing money and divide it up according to the contract. "Someone sued us for years, saying I was paying the Pythons money from my back pocket. And I said: why would I risk going to an American jail to give John Cleese more money?" Idle admitted there was a "lot of arguing and fights" between the Monty Python stars but he thinks that was good for their work. He said: "Some things in Python were very enjoyable and some were not. Holy Grail was cold and miserable. Sometimes that makes it funny. One of the worst things you can have in comedy is enough money. "Python was quite a lot of arguing and fights and good work is often like that. The best thing about showbiz is when it's over. I think if you're enjoying yourself, then you're not acting or giving, you're just having a good time. Well, that's not funny." Eric Idle has blasted his Monty Python co-stars for being "miserable and horrible and bitchy" about royalty payments. The 82-year-old comic wrote stage show Spamalot, which is based on his 1975 movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and he thinks the rest of the comedy troupe - whose surviving members are John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, and Michael Palin - should be more "grateful" for the money they receive from the production. Asked if the other Pythons receive royalty payments, he told The Guardian newspaper: "They got more f***ing money than they've ever been grateful for. They got f***ing millions and they're miserable and horrible and bitchy about it. "I spent 20 years working for Python and then two years on the O2 show. They were there for two weeks. "I'm not really motivated by money, to be honest. Anyway, the producers get all the f***ing money and divide it up according to the contract. "Someone sued us for years, saying I was paying the Pythons money from my back pocket. And I said: why would I risk going to an American jail to give John Cleese more money?" Idle admitted there was a "lot of arguing and fights" between the Monty Python stars but he thinks that was good for their work. He said: "Some things in Python were very enjoyable and some were not. Holy Grail was cold and miserable. Sometimes that makes it funny. One of the worst things you can have in comedy is enough money. "Python was quite a lot of arguing and fights and good work is often like that. The best thing about showbiz is when it's over. I think if you're enjoying yourself, then you're not acting or giving, you're just having a good time. Well, that's not funny."
Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Eric Idle brands Monty Python co-stars "miserable and b****y" as feud erupts
Eric Idle labelled his fellow Monty Python co-stars "miserable and b****y" over an ongoing money feud after being quizzed about the royalties for Spamalot, which is a musical based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail Eric Idle has hit out at his surviving Monty Python colleagues, branding them "miserable and horrible and b****y" amid ongoing tensions over royalty payments. The comedy icon, 82, opened up about his frustrations in a new interview where he revealed that disputes over money have strained relationships within the legendary comedy troupe, whose remaining members include John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, and Michael Palin. Idle, who penned the hit stage musical Spamalot based on Monty Python's 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, feels his fellow Pythons should be more appreciative of the substantial income they've received from the production. When asked if his colleagues receive royalties from Spamalot, Idle told The Guardian: "They got more f****** money than they've ever been grateful for. They got f****** millions and they're miserable and horrible and b****y about it. "I spent 20 years working for Python and then two years on the O2 show. They were there for two weeks. I'm not really motivated by money, to be honest. Anyway, the producers get all the f****** money and divide it up according to the contract." He also spoke about a protracted legal battle that was sparked by accusations that he was secretly paying his fellow Pythons out of his own pocket. Idle explained: "Someone sued us for years, saying I was paying the Pythons money from my back pocket. And I said: why would I risk going to an American jail to give John Cleese more money?" Despite their financial rows, Idle acknowledged that creative friction previously fuelled the troupe's success. He admitted that the group's comedic brilliance sometimes emerged from tension and conflict. He shared: "Some things in Python were very enjoyable and some were not. Holy Grail was cold and miserable. Sometimes that makes it funny. One of the worst things you can have in comedy is enough money. "Python was quite a lot of arguing and fights and good work is often like that. The best thing about showbiz is when it's over. I think if you're enjoying yourself, then you're not acting or giving, you're just having a good time. Well, that's not funny." Idle also voiced concerns about the future of performers' likenesses in the era of artificial intelligence. "I always felt that we ought to protect our images after I saw that tacky advert with Fred Astaire and the vacuum cleaner," he admitted. He added: "I felt very bad about that. So I felt that we Pythons ought to have done something to protect our image in a way that's appropriate. But I don't think there is a way that's appropriate. "I have had my image done in one of those extraordinary machines where 40 cameras capture you from every angle. It was for a film they wanted to make sure they could finish. "But it worries me. I don't trust AI. I mean, look at how many times you have to correct a word. It completely misreads you. ChatGPT writing essays really bothers me. The point is to find out what we think, not what a machine thinks."
Perth Now
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Eric Idle slams ungrateful Monty Python co-stars
Eric Idle has blasted his Monty Python co-stars for being "miserable and horrible and b****y" about royalty payments. The 82-year-old comic wrote stage show Spamalot, which is based on his 1975 movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and he thinks the rest of the comedy troupe - whose survivng members are John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, and Michael Palin - should be more "grateful" for the money they receive from the production. Asked if the other Pythons receive royalty payments, he told The Guardian newspaper: "They got more f****** money than they've ever been grateful for. They got f****** millions and they're miserable and horrible and b****y about it. "I spent 20 years working for Python and then two years on the O2 show. They were there for two weeks. "I'm not really motivated by money, to be honest. Anyway, the producers get all the f****** money and divide it up according to the contract. "Someone sued us for years, saying I was paying the Pythons money from my back pocket. And I said: why would I risk going to an American jail to give John Cleese more money?" Eric admitted there was a "lot of arguing and fights" between the Monty Python stars but he thinks that was good for their work. He said: "Some things in Python were very enjoyable and some were not. Holy Grail was cold and miserable. Sometimes that makes it funny. One of the worst things you can have in comedy is enough money. "Python was quite a lot of arguing and fights and good work is often like that. The best thing about showbiz is when it's over. I think if you're enjoying yourself, then you're not acting or giving, you're just having a good time. Well, that's not funny." Meanwhile, Eric is also concerned they didn't do enough to "protect" their image amid the rise of AI technology. He said: " I always felt that we ought to protect our images after I saw that tacky advert with Fred Astaire and the vacuum cleaner. I felt very bad about that. So I felt that we Pythons ought to have done something to protect our image in a way that's appropriate. But I don't think there is a way that's appropriate. "I have had my image done in one of those extraordinary machines where 40 cameras capture you from every angle. It was for a film they wanted to make sure they could finish. "But it worries me. I don't trust AI. I mean, look at how many times you have to correct a word. It completely misreads you. ChatGPT writing essays really bothers me. The point is to find out what we think, not what a machine thinks."
Kuwait Times
05-07-2025
- Science
- Kuwait Times
Eggs en Provence: France's unique dinosaur egg trove
At the foot of Sainte Victoire, the mountain in Provence immortalized by Impressionist painter Paul Cezanne, a palaeontologist brushes meticulously through a mound of red clay looking for fossils. These are not any old fossils, but 75-million-year-old dinosaur eggs. Little luck or skill is needed to find them: scientists believe that there are more dinosaur eggs here than at any other place on Earth. The area, closed to the public, is nicknamed 'Eggs en Provence', due to its proximity to the southeastern city of Aix en Provence. 'There's no other place like it,' explained Thierry Tortosa, a palaeontologist and conservationist at the Sainte Victoire Nature Reserve. 'You only need to look down to find fragments. We're literally walking on eggshells here.' Around 1,000 eggs, some of them as big as 30 centimeters (12 inches) in diameter, have been found here in recent years in an area measuring less than a hectare - a mere dot on a reserve that will span 280 hectares once it is doubled in size by 2026 to prevent pillaging. 'We reckon we've got about one egg per square meter (11 square feet). So there are thousands, possibly millions, here,' Tortosa told AFP. 'Eggs' is not in the business of competing with other archaeological sites - even though Tortosa finds the 'world record' of 17,000 dinosaur eggs discovered in Heyuan, China, in 1996 vaguely amusing. 'We're not looking to dig them up because we're in a nature reserve and we can't just alter the landscape. We wait until they're uncovered by erosion,' he said. 'Besides, we don't have enough space to store them all. We just take those that are of interest from a palaeontology point of view.' Thierry Tortosa shows dinosaur eggs found at the Mount Sainte-Victoire site. Children search for dinosaur eggs at the Mount Sainte-Victoire site. An adult and a child search for dinosaur eggs at the Mount Sainte-Victoire site. A person searches for dinosaur eggs at the Mount Sainte-Victoire site. Holy Grail Despite the plethora of eggs on site, the scientists still have mysteries to solve. Those fossils found so far have all been empty, either because they were not fertilized or because the chick hatched and waddled off. 'Until we find embryos inside - that's the Holy Grail - we won't know what kind of dinosaur laid them. All we know is that they were herbivores because they're round,' said Tortosa. Fossilized dinosaur embryos are rarer than hen's teeth. Palaeontologists discovered a tiny fossilized Oviraptorosaur that was at least 66 million years old in Ganzhou, China, around the year 2000. But Tortosa remains optimistic that 'Eggs' holds its own Baby Yingliang. 'Never say never. In the nine years that I've been here, we've discovered a load of stuff we never thought we'd find.' Which is why experts come once a year to search a new part of the reserve. The location is always kept secret to deter pillagers. When AFP visited, six scientists were crouched under camouflage netting in a valley lost in the Provencal scrub, scraping over a few square meters of clay-limestone earth, first with chisels, then with pointy-tipped scribers. 'There's always something magical - like being a child again - when you find an egg or a fossilized bone,' specialist Severine Berton told AFP. Unique Their 'best' finds - among the thousands they have dug up - include a small femur and a 30-centimetre-long tibia-fibula. They are thought to come from a Rhabdodon or a Titanosaur - huge herbivores who roamed the region. In the Cretaceous period (89-66 million years BCE), the Provencal countryside's then-flooded plains and silty-clayey soils offered ideal conditions for dinosaurs to graze and nest, and perfect conditions to conserve the eggs for millennia. The region, which stretched from what is now Spain to the Massif Central mountains of central France formed an island that was home to several dinosaur species found nowhere else in the world. Alongside the endemic herbivores were carnivores such as the Arcovenator and the Variraptor, a relative of the Velociraptor of Jurassic Park fame. In 1846, French palaeontologist Philippe Matheron found the world's first fossilized dinosaur egg in Rognac, around 30 kilometers from Eggs. Since then, museums from across the world have dispatched people to Provence on egg hunts. Everyone, it seems, wants a bit of the omelette. Despite efforts to stop pillaging, problems persist, such as when a wildfire uncovered a lot of fossils in 1989 and 'everyone came egg collecting', Tortosa said. Five years later the site was designated a national geological nature reserve, closed to the public - the highest level of protection available. The regional authorities are now mulling over ways to develop 'palaeontology tourism', a move Tortosa applauds. 'France is the only country in the world that doesn't know how to promote its dinosaurs,' Tortosa said. 'Any other place would set up an entire museum just to show off a single tooth.' — AFP
Observer
03-07-2025
- Science
- Observer
Eggs en Provence: France's unique dinosaur egg trove
At the foot of Sainte Victoire, the mountain in Provence immortalised by Impressionist painter Paul Cezanne, a palaeontologist brushes meticulously through a mound of red clay looking for fossils. These are not any old fossils, but 75-million-year-old dinosaur eggs. Little luck or skill is needed to find them: scientists believe that there are more dinosaur eggs here than at any other place on Earth. The area, closed to the public, is nicknamed 'Eggs en Provence', due to its proximity to the southeastern city of Aix en Provence. 'There's no other place like it,' explained Thierry Tortosa, a palaeontologist and conservationist at the Sainte Victoire Nature Reserve. 'You only need to look down to find fragments. We're literally walking on eggshells here.' Around 1,000 eggs, some of them as big as 30 centimetres (12 inches) in diameter, have been found here in recent years in an area measuring less than a hectare — a mere dot on a reserve that will span 280 hectares once it is doubled in size by 2026 to prevent pillaging. 'We reckon we've got about one egg per square metre (11 square feet). So there are thousands, possibly millions, here,' Tortosa said. 'Eggs' is not in the business of competing with other archaeological sites — even though Tortosa finds the 'world record' of 17,000 dinosaur eggs discovered in Heyuan, China, in 1996 vaguely amusing. 'We're not looking to dig them up because we're in a nature reserve and we can't just alter the landscape. We wait until they're uncovered by erosion,' he said. 'Besides, we don't have enough space to store them all. We just take those that are of interest from a palaeontology point of view.' Holy Grail Despite the plethora of eggs on site, the scientists still have mysteries to solve. Those fossils found so far have all been empty, either because they were not fertilised or because the chick hatched and waddled off. 'Until we find embryos inside — that's the Holy Grail — we won't know what kind of dinosaur laid them. All we know is that they were herbivores because they're round,' said Tortosa. Fossilised dinosaur embryos are rarer than hen's teeth. Palaeontologists discovered a tiny fossilised Oviraptorosaur that was at least 66 million years old in Ganzhou, China, around the year 2000. But Tortosa remains optimistic that 'Eggs' holds its own Baby Yingliang. 'Never say never. In the nine years that I've been here, we've discovered a load of stuff we never thought we'd find.' Which is why experts come once a year to search a new part of the reserve. The location is always kept secret to deter pillagers. When AFP visited, six scientists were crouched under camouflage netting in a valley lost in the Provencal scrub, scraping over a few square metres of clay-limestone earth, first with chisels, then with pointy-tipped scribers. 'There's always something magical — like being a child again — when you find an egg or a fossilised bone,' specialist Severine Berton said. Unique Their 'best' finds — among the thousands they have dug up — include a small femur and a 30-centimetre-long tibia-fibula. They are thought to come from a Rhabdodon or a Titanosaur — huge herbivores who roamed the region. In the Cretaceous period (89-66 million years BCE), the Provencal countryside's then-flooded plains and silty-clayey soils offered ideal conditions for dinosaurs to graze and nest, and perfect conditions to conserve the eggs for millennia. The region, which stretched from what is now Spain to the Massif Central mountains of central France, formed an island that was home to several dinosaur species found nowhere else in the world. Alongside the endemic herbivores were carnivores such as the Arcovenator and the Variraptor, a relative of the Velociraptor of Jurassic Park fame. In 1846, French palaeontologist Philippe Matheron found the world's first fossilised dinosaur egg in Rognac, around 30 kilometres from Eggs. Since then, museums from across the world have dispatched people to Provence on egg hunts. Everyone, it seems, wants a bit of the omelette. Despite efforts to stop pillaging, problems persist, such as when a wildfire uncovered a lot of fossils in 1989 and 'everyone came egg collecting', Tortosa said. Five years later, the site was designated a national geological nature reserve, closed to the public -- the highest level of protection available. The regional authorities are now mulling over ways to develop 'palaeontology tourism', a move Tortosa applauds. 'France is the only country in the world that doesn't know how to promote its dinosaurs,' Tortosa said. 'Any other place would set up an entire museum just to show off a single tooth.' — AFP
