A lot of people in this country pooh-pooh Australian table wines.
This is a pity, as many fine Australian wines appeal not only to the
Australian palate, but also to the cognoscenti of Great Britain.

Blacktown Bordeaux is rightly praised as a peppermint-flavored burgundy,
whilst a good Sydney Syrup can rank with any of the world’s best sugary
wines.
Chateau Bleu too has won many prizes, not least for its taste
and its lingering after burn.
Old Smokey 1968 has been compared favorably to a Welsh Claret, whilst the Australian Wino Society
thoroughly recommends a 1978 Cote du Rod Laver, which believe me, has a
kick on it like a mule. Eight bottles of this and you’re really finished.
At the opening of the Sydney Harbor Bridge Club, they were fishing them out of the
main sewers every half an hour.

Of the sparkling wines, the most famous is Perth Pink.
This is a bottle with a message in and the message is “Beware.”
This is not a wine for drinking. This is a wine for laying down and avoiding.
Another good fighting wine is Melbourne Old and Yellow, which is particularly heavy and
should be used only for hand-to-hand combat.
Quite the reverse is true of Chateau Chunder, which is an Appellation Controlee specially grown for
those keen on regurgitation.
A fine wine which really opens up the sluices at both ends.

Emetic fans will also go for a Hobart Muddy, and a prize-winning Cuvee Reserve
Chateau Nuit St. Wogga Wogga, which has a bouquet like a fast bowler’s
armpit.*

*This joke has been changed to recognize the amazing fact that while batting and facing the terrifying fast bowling of Thomo and Lillee in the 80’s David Gower would recite this sketch to himself!

The Address to the Weetabix.
Candacraig – August 1999

Fair fa your honest crunchy face
Great chieftain o’ the breakfast place
Yon Weetabix wi’ prickly bricks
Wi’ milk poured ower
Tae mek a grizzly mix.

Yon hairy food for thee I do forsake
The coco-pop and lowly corn flake
Yea hairy food, rude and no disgrace
Like a beard on a Scotsman’s face
Yon mucky muesli is far too foreign
Give me the food that looks like a sporran

Though we acknowledge the fabled porridge
And raise a dram to cheery Spam
There’s nobbit pleases wee Billy and Pam
Than Weetabix served by the gram (with a dram)

Yea muesli now that’s foreign muck
That looks like straw and tastes like.. f… duck
And yoghurt yuck it’s vile and bitter
And has a use that’s far more fitter
Let me add one final bitching
What can one say about a breakfast food
That cures vaginal itching?

A poet might well become depressed
To find a food category Robin Williams
Hasn’t already addressed
So here’s my broken shredded wit
The Weetabix is aptly fit
To grace our table aye so sweet
God bless us all and shredded wheat.

Eric Idle

Terence Bayler.
I think the thing I loved most about Terence Bayler was his gentle loving considerate humour. I met him early in my first wife time with his wife Bridget Armstrong and we became good friends. Then I used him mercilessly on Rutland Weekend Television and memorably as Leggy Mountbatten the hopping manager of the Rutles. I loved his commitment to a role and his high seriousness no matter how apparently silly the part. For a writer there is nothing finer than an actor taking your work and making it better than you imagined it. That’s why actors are very special people and cherished by scribes. Terence appeared in my play Pass The Butler in the West End in 1983 and was an important part of the little rep company we gathered to take to Tunisia to film The Life of Brian in 1979. He was a terrific dead pan comedian and great company and as always with such sad news I instantly miss being able to say hello. Or even goodbye. It was a privilege and a pleasure to know him. He enriched my life and I loved him. 
“Life’s a piece of shit

When you look at it.”

HUDSON So you see Inspector, it is Helena’s piano.
INSPECTOR How very touching. It reminds me of a wee ballad from my childhood called The Lonely Trout
WHOOPSIE Is he going to tell an anecdote?
MAGGIE Worse, I think he’s going to sing.
INSPECTOR Give me a C Chord Miss Schlegel.
WHOOPSIE Oh good grief. Is there to be no end?
MAGGIE No but there might be an intermission shortly.
 
Song The Lonely Trout

INSPECTOR 1
From the heelan hills and rills o bonnie Scotland
Fra the bogs and fogs and soggy lochs and braes
From the moontin tops where lonely jocks drink whiskey
To the dingy pond wherein the lone trout plays.
There was once a laddie wandered wi his lassie
When she told him that her love for him was dead.
As she left this lonely boy
Who’d now lost his only joy
The trout raised his head and this is what he said:

O rum ti tumti
Tickle yer monkey
Tickle di didle doo
Rumpy pumpy
Humpty dumpty
Tickle yer tivey too
Oh hankie pankie
Winkie wankie
Diddle de didle doo
Rinky dinky
Tiddley winky
Nicky nacky noo
the noo the noo the noo the noo the noo

O muckety buckety
Shmackety crackety
Sings the lonely trout
Tiggly wiggly
Higgly piggly
What is life about?
Mickety pickety
Wickety lickety
She was just a slut
Find yourself another lass
A nicer piece of butt.

Two Dancing Trout girls enter as the Words are lowered and the Audience sing along.
 
Oh packety wackety
Nickety nackety
Sings the lonely trout
Splickety wickety
Pickety nickety
What is life about?
Shackety mackety
Thwackety crackety
She was just a slut
Find yourself another lass
A nicer piece of butt.

INTERMISSION