I have met many Monty Python fans in and around the threads. One of my favourite skits is The Four Yorkshire men where they each try and beat each other to tell the tale of hardship of growing up.

I thought it might be fun to try a game of one-upmanship and see if we manage a laugh or two ourselves. If you're not familiar with the skit, look it up on youtube, it's worth a look even if you don't feel like joining in.

Edit: here's the clip below -CB

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When I was young if you wanted to write to a BB forum you had to use pen and paper and send it by snail mail. A team of moderators would review it and block out all the censored words with liquid paper and then they would pin it to a notice board in a central location in your city so you'd have to travel in to see if it got posted ;-)

Well that's nothing. When I wanted to communicate I had to first catch a pigeon, but the only one slow enough not to evade me only had one wing which gave a rather circular route to the message which was eventually deposited onto of the head of the statue of Charles Latrobe in a city park and read only by a council worker who returned it by post.

Well you're lucky! At least you could run to catch one. The last time I tried running to catch one, the pigeon flew around in a circle behind me and pecked my leg. I ended up with a staph infection and had to have my leg removed so I can't even chase pigeons.

You should consider yourself aristocracy! I may have chicken legs but I don't have the luxury of not chasing things why only today my school bag got caught on the tow bar of a car whilst crossing the road and I was forced to run a marathon just to retrieve my stale honey sandwich for lunch.

At least you had a honey sandwich. To get some honey, I had to wrestle a bear. It bit my arm off and I didn't get any honey. What's more, while I was wrestling the bear, that pigeon ate my bread so I couldn't have a sandwich with anything else in it either. Not that I could have made one anyway, you need two arms to hold the bread when you spread things on it.

You had bread! I went to the shop to get bread with coins from my money box only to be told they don't accept 1's and 2 cent coins anymore. As I left the shop a pigeon pooped on my head. I had to hop all the way home on my one leg, dejected and stomach grumbling from hunger. It took me all day to get home and when I got there I realised I left my house key at the shop so had to start hopping all the way back.....

A house? Well, aren't you lucky? I have to live in a hollow log, and I share it with 17 rabbits, 153 spiders and a bewildered-looking stoat. And do you know what? None of them get along. Especially when that pigeon's around. Bicker, bicker, bicker, all day and night. It's so loud and breezy in there I never get a minute's sleep.

At least you sleep. I haven't had sleep now for 37 years. My eyelids are so heavy that they need reinforced toothpicks to hold them up. I would give my right leg for even a minutes sleep.

What a luxury, having toothpicks. I tried to get some, once. I couldn't afford them, of course, so I had to steal them. Didn't get to use a single one, before they were purloined and wound up lining a pigeon nest. And I got sent to prison for stealing them. There weren't any toothpicks there either.

hmmm...I dont get it.....Monty Python....cool....I have only seen the one about the bible....I might do a high jump over Bluguru's big words and....just....quietly......fade......away.............back into 'the fort that Rob built'..... :-)

I'll embed a video of the sketch into Carol's original post for those who haven't seen it... it's very funny! Then everyone can join in.

Hey, thanks Chris!

Well weren't you spoilt. Luxury I tell you. You had teeth! I got caught stealing a tooth just so I could chew some stale bread. Did I go to prison? No! I was put in a stockade where people threw rotten vegetable and fruit at me all day and then at night it was so cold my toes froze on my one good leg.

Eyup nah! Si thi, all on thi: Ah dint get we-yer eye am bi stayin we-yer a wor an Ah dint get we-yer eye am bi callin a documentary a skit/sketch. It's tough beeyin a Yorkshireman te start wi, it's even tougher beeyin a Yorkshireman in Straya cos nary a one o thi speaks proper English, like as what me an queen talks in. An legs! dont talk te me abauht legs I'm a reyt proper Yorkie an dint ave any te lose, ah wor legless most of mi life an all mi friends an relies wor too. wi niver ad stocks niether, t'generation befoowor bunt em int war te keep warm s'when we got caught nickin teef wi just got kicked abauht tahrn bi t'local footy team. An that wor a proper footy teem too, not one that plays on t'cricket pitch. When ah wor a lad we'd ah got caned foh playin t'footy on t'cricket pitch, come t'think on it we did get caned foh playin t'footy on t'cricket pitch... regularly.

an you try tellin t'young uns t'day, (all together now) They won't believe thi!

Thanks Chris....:-)

Now Im with you Carol. Very funnyx

Aaahhh Bayleaf, I can see thi is a right proper Yorkshireman! Tha's not English laddie, not Strayan English leastways. But as this is a Yorkshiremen thread it's beaut! 😄 (Do they have Yorkshire as an option on Google translator?)

Avagoodaymate.

Ah ta Kaz, g'donthi.

Corrections:

"Thata reyt proper Yorkshireman."

"Laddies" wear kilts and paint their faces (or potions thereof) blue and thi yent Yorkshiremen.

Otherwise all good, tha's gerrin theeyre.

Hahaha, sorry Bayleaf - didn't mean to confuse you with a Scotsman, especially not a fictional version of William Wallace played by an Australian American called Mel.

I understand some Yorkshire but am still learning. Wonder if you might give us a translation, for the game ...

Eyup nah! Si thi, all on thi: Hold on one moment please! Look (like proper Ausies start sentences wi - oops with) each and every one of you (contributors to this thread).

Ah dint get we-yer eye am bi stayin we-yer a wor an Ah dint get we-yer eye am bi callin a documentary a skit/sketch. I did not get where I am (a famous Yorkshire one-upmanship opener) by staying in that place in which I started and I did not get where I am at this moment by refering to the documentry footage (which underlies this thread) a skit or a sketch. We really do see life as the featured speakers do (and if they are indeed a bunch of mocking overpriviledged Oxbridge types they should be ashamed of their Yorkshire-phobic behaviour).

It's tough beeyin a Yorkshireman te start wi, it's even tougher beeyin a Yorkshireman in Straya cos nary a one o thi speaks proper English, like as what me an queen talks in.Needs no translation.

An legs! dont talk te me abauht legs And (traditional Yorkshire sentence opener) legs! Don,t talk to ma about legs (as in "Life, don't talk to me about life"*, a traditional Yorkshire "I've had it tougher than you-ism).

* With thanks to Douglas.

I'm a reyt proper Yorkie an dint ave any te lose, I am a genuine Yorkshireman (implicitly you are not and, logically therefore, a southern softie who does not know the meaning of hardship) and as a result of being a Yorkshireman was too impoverished to have legs in the first place.

ah wor legless most of mi life an all mi friends an relies wor too. Purely biographical asside and double-entendre.*

wi niver ad stocks niether, t'generation befoowor bunt em int war te keep warm s'when we got caught nickin teef wi just got kicked abauht tahrn bi t'local footy team. We no longer had stocks in my salad days as the previous generation had used them as winter fuel in a time of rationing and austerity (about to be reintroduced in the old country, I fear) so the punishment for tooth theft was a good bashing.

An that wor a proper footy teem too, not one that plays on t'cricket pitch. Austalians know nothing of proper football.

When ah wor a lad we'd ah got caned foh playin t'footy on t'cricket pitch, come t'think on it we did get caned foh playin t'footy on t'cricket pitch... regularly. Disciplne at my school was both harsh and violent.

an you try tellin t'young uns t'day, (all together now) They won't believe thi! Refers to the last line of the four Yorkshiremen interview.

Luxury!

Aye they won't believe thi!

A Yorkie! Ha! Luxury indeed. I was born at the bottom of the world so far away they don't even put my birth place on maps.

Being a Tasmanian has added to my difficult life. Do you know how hard it is trying to balance two heads with only one leg?

And football! We Tasmanians had to play football on a gravel oval (no word of a lie) as there was no grass in Queenstown. They grew us tough down in Tassie.

Ha! Yorkshiremen had it easy. You got caned for playing footy....you were lucky! We got caned everyday just to learn to be humble.

That's Straya for you :-)

Hey Carol :-)

I remember 'Life of Brian'.....but even with watching Chris's clip (which was a classic) I just dont get it....

Is it like the humour in Flying High?

'Do we have clearance clarence?'....and 'we have to get these these people to a hospital'....

Response ' what is it'?

Reply 'its a big building with patients but thats not important right now' :-)

I am a Fawlty Towers addict who are I think are the monty python writers.......ummm..same as 'A Fish called Wanda' or am I on the wrong track?

Bayleaf has made a mega post and good on him.....I just dont get it..at all...unless I have too much on my plate at the moment of course..

"Just dont mention the war"

:-) x

Hahaha, never mind Paul ... looks like we picked the wrong day to give up smoking 😄 (Flying High reference for others).

Carol - Two heads! Luxury! Where I was born we all had to share one brain between us!

xx

Thankyou Kazzl. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit my therapy/smoking...

Whatever you do......dont mention the war....(Reference Faulty Towers for others) :-)

Great thread Carol xx

Kaz, weren't you lucky to have people to share with.

I longed to have people to share things with. The nearest person was at the shop where it took a full day just to hop there and it woul dc be closed by the time I got there and then I'd have to camp overnight and wait for it to open, all the time keeping one eye open for the killer pigeon.....

Sounds like you had a choice of eyes Carol. You were lucky! We were so poor that we only had one eye for the whole family and we had to take turns using it. My turn was usually on Thursday so I never got to see the footy on Saturday, a fact which I blame for my lack of superstardom, and I was forever losing my pidgeon, which became seriously underfed and went feral left home.

Aye, we ad it tough.

Oh my lord...the Irish....Was Faulty Towers written by some of the Monty Python crew?....Aye

As far as I know, Fawlty Towers was written by John Cleese and his then wife Connie Booth (who played Polly), not by the whole Python crew. "Why would a lovely girl like this, be interested in a lily-livered, brilliantined, stick insect like you!!"

And I think the Python crew had disbanded way before Fish called Wanda came along -I don't know who wrote it. It also starred John Cleese and another Python, Michael Palin. (I have totally gotten off the thread of this thread....sorry folks but you're all so good at it.....I can't think of anything up to your standard....yet)