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Terry Jones has died
- dundercoder 7y agoHe’s on his way to deliver the Spanish Inquisition! Thanks for the laughs, Terry!
- anon463637 7y agoThe devil will never expect it and beg God to get rid of this ruffian, troublemaker layabout.
- clSTophEjUdRanu 7y agoYears of living in a shoebox in the middle of the road will do that to you. Rest in peace.
- jrimbault 7y agoMight also have to do with working 24 hours a day and being sliced in two. Rest in peace.
- deadbunny 7y agoA shoebox? Bloody luxury!
- arethuza 7y agoCardboard box?
- oblio 7y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE
- neilwilson 7y agoIf you love the Four Yorkshiremen sketch you'll love Capstick Comes Home https://youtu.be/I2AcJSkUw6M https://youtu.be/I2AcJSkUw6M They are only slightly exaggerated from the war stories you got as a kid.
- jaclaz 7y agoJust in case, adapted to computing: https://tinyapps.org/blog/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html https://tinyapps.org/blog/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html
- jcl 7y agoI was surprised to learn that the Four Yorkshiremen sketch actually predates Monty Python -- I guess this is why they only did renditions in their live shows. Of the original Four, only Cleese and Chapman went on to be Pythons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Yorkshiremen_sketch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Yorkshiremen_sketch
- mmusson 7y agoI was thinking that giant foot finally caught him.
- jaimebuelta 7y ago:____(
- lr4444lr 7y agoWow. Hope this gets a black bar.
- Angostura 7y agoNo no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! So long Terry and thank you for making the world a better place.
- alexgmcm 7y agoHe's pining for the fjords!
- Graham24 7y agoHe's not the Messiah, he's...
- BuildTheRobots 7y ago... the actor that played his mum.
- coldtea 7y agoI think the grandparent was just quoting what Jones (as the mum) said in the movie tho, not saying he played the Messiah: "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy".
- quirkafleeg3 7y agocant tell if you dont get the joke, or if i dont get your joke
- coldtea 7y agoI don't think there's much of a joke to get. My reading is: 1) Someone (person A) said "He's not the messiah, he's..." 2) Another (person B) thought A meant that Terry Jones played the messiah (Brian) and corrected them by writing "...he's the actor that played his mum". 3) I stepped in to say, I don't think A implied Terry did was the messiah in the movie, he just referenced one of Terry's lines from the movie. Makes sense? Was there some joke I've missed?
- SalientBlue 7y agoYes. The joke was that Person A's comment, replying to an article about Jones, makes it seem as if the 'he' in the line is referring to Jones, not the baby Messiah from the movie. B then subverted the expected conclusion of Jones' line "...he's a very naughty boy" with a fact about Jones himself: "he's the actor that played his mum". Person B was aware of Jones' line and played off it.
- Razengan 7y agoOne of the best "morbid motivations", from Terry: https://i.imgur.com/5J0AH6T.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/5J0AH6T.mp4
- raverbashing 7y agoRIP It's funny how Monty Python humor seemed to have struck a chord with a technical audience (of course, not only them). I wonder what the former-BDFL of Python has to say about it.
- PaulRobinson 7y agoThe type of dementia he had - FTD - sounds particularly painful for somebody who had such a strong personality and who clearly loved writing and language as much as he did. I've put together a JustGiving page to raise money for the leading charity in this area in the UK, with the hope that in Terry's memory a few people might be able to say thank you with a few quid. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Terry-Jones-RIP https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Terry-Jones-RIP RIP Terry.
- lentil 7y agoGreat idea. Thanks for setting that up!
- danabrams 7y agoI got to take a writing workshop with him once and I’m proud to say I made him laugh. He was very kind, and obviously had great stories. Python was very much a group effort, but I think he made an enormous difference behind the scenes.
- ryanmercer 7y agoI got Kevin Smith laughing hysterically on stage once without even trying, I felt like I'd unlocked some life achievement, it was awesome. I can only imagine how great it would be to get a laugh out of a legend like Terry Jones!
- danabrams 7y agoCan't say I got him hysterical, but yes, felt like a major life achievement. He was a generous laugh, and that's a really admirable trait from a comedy legend.
- komali2 7y agoI vaguely remember Dan Harmon talking about this on his podcast, lord knows which episode. Basically about how his audience or random people he brings up on stage can spontaneously cause him to crack up more than any professional. He reasoned that since he's a professional, when he watches another comedian act, he pretty much knows what's going on under the hood. He can predict where a joke is going because there are tried and true formulas, he can see through their pacing, etc. But if a noob cracks one, even if it's a joke he's heard before, he knows there's probably none of the calculation that a pro puts into it. It was a genuine thing, which makes it all the more hilarious to him.
- toyg 7y agoThat might also be why he enjoys the company of that box of randomness going by the name "Rob Schrab".
- kirubakaran 7y agoNice. I got to ask John Cleese "if it's not a personal question, are you a virgin?". I count that as one of my lifetime accomplishments.
- goda90 7y agoSPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM... And hence we now call unwanted emails Spam. RIP Terry
- pseudolus 7y agoNot only a comedian/actor/writer but also a fine medievalist who engaged in original scholarship. Some years ago he caused quite a stir in Chaucerian circles by arguing that the Knight in the Knight's Tale (Canterbury Tales) was not actually the ideal of a knight but rather a mercenary and further, that the Knight's Tale, rather than being an ode to chivalry, "emerges...as a hymn to tyranny, dressed-up in the rags of a chivalric romance."[0] This sounds fairly minor but it's an interpretation, albeit one not wholly accepted by many scholars, that upended centuries of scholarship. An impressive achievement. [0] http://smuhlberger.blogspot.com/2007/03/chaucers-knight-by-terry-jones.htm http://smuhlberger.blogspot.com/2007/03/chaucers-knight-by-t...
- bmmayer1 7y agoFor anyone interested in reading Terry Jones' book: https://www.amazon.com/Chaucers-Knight-Portrait-Medieval-Mercenary/dp/0413777340 https://www.amazon.com/Chaucers-Knight-Portrait-Medieval-Mer... A true legend through and through. RIP.
- tomelders 7y agoBarbarians is a great read too. It was the first non-fiction I read got me hooked on history. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0031RDVRS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0031RDVRS/ref=dp-kindle-redirec...
- mcguire 7y agoAs was his Who Murdered Chaucer? (https://www.amazon.com/Who-Murdered-Chaucer-Medieval-Mystery/dp/0312335873 https://www.amazon.com/Who-Murdered-Chaucer-Medieval-Mystery...).
- ivanhoe 7y agoBBC show based of the book is also worth watching: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0905688/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0905688/
- vanderZwan 7y ago
- rhabarba 7y agoPretty sure that this is off-topic according to the rules. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- pseudolus 7y agoIt certainly "gratifies" my intellectual curiousity. I might also add that it's hard to work in IT and escape a Monty Python reference at one point or another during one's career.
- pdpi 7y ago> it's hard to work in IT and escape a Monty Python reference at one point or another during one's career. Borderline impossible if you ever work with Python
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- acdanger 7y agoSpam, too.
- toyg 7y agoIt's actually a bit sad how this element has been progressively forgotten through the years. In the early '00s, everything-python had to make an effort to drop a Monty Python reference somewhere, anywhere, even just in docs; but nowadays it's pretty hard to spot one in the wild. Popularity inevitably waters down this sort of eccentricity.
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- t0mk 7y agoI also think it is off-topic. It will be covered by TV news, and I just can't imagine why deaths of famous people stimulate intellectual curiosity. I really like what Terry Jones created, and I'm sorry that he's gone, but I don't come to Hacker News to read obituaries.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Carpetsmoker 7y agoThe real question now is what will happen to his two sheds.
- abinaya_b 7y agoNo, this is fake news. RIP
- presiozo 7y agoIf you’ve already watched Holy Grail, Life of Brian and Meaning of Life so many times, you know them by heart. You should watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus - Season 4 next. It’s the one they did without John Cleese. Some of the stuff in there is so surreal and out there, that it feels different from the other stuff they did as a group. It’s a great way to remember this beautiful man.
- ravenstine 7y agoI'm sad to hear this, but also glad for him because he lead a very accomplished life. For those of you who haven't seen Terry Jones' Medieval Lives, there are episodes on YouTube. Highly recommended.
- throwawaymanbot 7y agoHe is now an ex Terry Jones!
- growlist 7y agoWorth pointing out that the current political climate at the BBC would render Monty Python impossible to make today, and apparently this is considered progress.
- tajd 7y agoNot entirely sure about that. I enjoy listening to the shows "Dead Ringers" and "The Now Show" on Radio 4 which provide pretty accurate satire of current politics. Other enjoyable comedy sketch shows include "That Mitchell and Webb look" and "Harry and Paul". There remains hope.
- growlist 7y agoWell... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2018/08/04/bbc-wouldnt-dare-make-comedy-like-monty-python-today/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2018/08/04/bbc-wouldnt-d... https://metro.co.uk/2018/07/05/monty-python-actor-terry-gilliam-criticises-bbcs-move-towards-diversity-calls-black-lesbian-7687186/ https://metro.co.uk/2018/07/05/monty-python-actor-terry-gill... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5898519/BBC-boss-says-reject-Monty-Python-today-privileged-white-men.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5898519/BBC-boss-sa...
- nemo 7y agoTabloids and opinion pieces in deeply partisan papers are what they are, but they aren't at all reliable for establishing truth. Sadly, many Pythons got old, lost their edge, and wound up wealthy entitled out-of-touch conservative old men - their complaints reflect their own shortcomings more than anything else. Terry Jones was one of the exceptions, which makes his loss all the sadder.
- farazbabar 7y agoIts not what the tabloid said, it is what the senior leadership of bbc said. Specifically saying this sort of combination (regardless of talent or chemistry) is not going to happen today. Sad, that is.
- tempodox 7y agoMay Brian welcome him at the threshold of whatever comes after. He will not soon be forgotten here.
- WorldMaker 7y agoTerry Jones wrote the novelization (and voiced the audiobook of that novelization) of the videogame Starship Titanic. That novelization and its audiobook are two of the best things about the game Starship Titanic. The game is more associated generally with Douglas Adams, but the novelization was entirely Terry Jones. Worth a read or a listen if you get a chance, whether or not you have played or have any interest in playing the game. (The game is a weird relic of a Myst clone that wanted to be a Parser IF game and had delusions/experiments of using early chat bot AI/ML that mostly fall flat.) (The game was published through traditional book publisher Simon & Schuster, and requiring that novelization was probably the smartest thing they did. I will forever recommend the book.)
- 0xff00ffee 7y agoI remember getting emails from Stevedave and Davesteve for weeks after signing up! Sadly, shortly after that Adams died. I bought "Salmon of Doubt" and it took me almost 10 years to read it because I didn't want to read his final words.
- vmarshall23 7y agoSame. Read every other Adams book at least a dozen times. That one sits on the shelf untouched.
- vmarshall23 7y agoI have a copy of that game sitting in my basement. Loved it, the book, and the whole package. I must go dig it out.
- redleggedfrog 7y agoJust guessing, but he probably made people laugh millions of times. I know I did my part. What a great gift to humanity. I'll revisit his works for the rest of my life.
- pfdietz 7y agoTuring Award winner Robert Floyd also died of a form of FTD, Pick's Disease. He was only 65. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Floyd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Floyd
- drawkbox 7y agoNot ready for Monty Python crew to kick off, what legends that changed everything, for the better. Some Terry Jones quotes: > "Some people are passionate about aisles, others about window seats." > "The funny thing about history is that we imagine that people didn't laugh in the old days, but of course they did, at stupid things." > "Every age sort of has its own history. History is really the stories that we retell to ourselves to make them relevant to every age. So we put our own values and our own spin on it." > "I'm cheerfully optimistic about life. Optimism is very important!" We'll try to be optimistic Terry Jones, we'll try and thanks for helping by making us think critically and laugh at the absurdity of things. Always look on the bright side of life.
- 0xff00ffee 7y ago> "Some people are passionate about aisles, others about window seats." What did he have to say about reclining seats? https://www.gadgetduck.com/goods/kneedefender.html https://www.gadgetduck.com/goods/kneedefender.html
- mark-r 7y agoAlways look on the bright side of death.
- WalterBright 7y ago> "Some people are passionate about aisles, others about window seats." Isn't anyone passionate about center seats?
- inpdx 7y agoI passionately hate them.
- devpts11 7y agoI hope they dressed him in a women's costume for his part in the hereafter.