Life is a comedy when watching and a tragedy when experiencing. I try and share anything I have.

Americans like to think 'Python' is how English people really are. There is an element of truth to that.

I pay taxes in three countries, but can't vote in any of them.

Everybody has their own free choice to do what they want.

So it became in my mind a nine-carol service; an oratorio and orchestral concert all in one, but with narration. That's something I've learned about, because it's the story that keeps you in there. I wrote a libretto and I gave it to John Du Prez. We normally don't work in this fashion but I said off you go, and he went off for about three months. He brought me back this demo which blew my mind.

You could feel the place going crazy because we hadn't been on stage together for maybe 35 years and the audience could just feel us in the darkness come on and they went nuts. It made the little hairs stand up on the back of my neck and we sang Sit on My Face, which I thought was wonderfully appropriate for George's memorial, and then we bowed and we showed our bare asses.

When I was 23 I started writing for I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and was paid three guineas for every minute's airtime.