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AB 2
TOP TEN TRAVEL SHOWS: MICHAEL PALIN’S MIDDLE EARTH
Hello! Well, we’ve just made camp at the top of Page Five. I hope this journey will be as rewarding as Michael Palin’s Nude Europe, Michael Palin’s Palindrome Towns (Glenelg and Noyon were my favourites), Michael Palin’s Round the World Book Signing Junket and, of course, Michael Palin’s There’s More of These Jokes in the Page Footers.
Decisive Victory for Allies
PAPER
SCISSORS AM
Occultist Opens Gateway to Hull
Trainee occultist Neil ‘Soul Harvester’ Andrews last night accidentally opened a gateway to Hull, the fairly unattractive city in North-East England.
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bviously, I was quite disappointed,” said Mr Andrews from his mum’s basement this morning. “I’d just got to chapter five in my copy of Occultism For Dummies and everything seemed to be going okay. As expected, my incantations summoned a stone doorway, which hung ominously in the air, screeching with the voice of a despairing child. “So I popped it open and peered through, expecting to gaze upon a sulphurous hellscape of the damned,
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Was this some infernal manifestation of Lucifer?
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but instead finding myself staring at an old man on a park bench feeding the ducks. “At first I thought this might be some hideous manifestation of Lord Lucifer in human form, but after a short conversation I
had to concede that it was a retired history teacher called Geoff. He was quite nice about it, though.” Occult elders said these sort of mistakes are common amongst young apprentices. “Oh sure. It reminds me of that young wizard who climbed a stairway to Devon,” chuckled Grand Magus Alan. “They’re always messing up in one way or another. If they’re not using the wrong type of virgin’s blood, they’re putting too many corners
on the pentacle. One idiot even ended up drawing a parallelogram. “But in this case, young Neil here simply hadn’t offered up a large enough sacrifice. As soon as I saw it, I said to him: you’re gonna need a bigger goat.” AM WWW.MUSTARDWEB.ORG
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Sub-Editors Welcome Introduction of the Hypostrophe
the new ‘hypostrophe’, unveiled today
Reacting to increasing misuse of the apostrophe, linguiboffins have developed a new form of punctuation called the ‘hypostrophe’ which overrides all known grammatical laws, meaning that it can never be used in the wrong place.
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he development has been greeted with relief by the Sub-Editors’ Union, who have long regarded the outdated apostrophe as a serious work hazard. “Our members work long hours struggling with large, awkwardly constructed sentences based on flimsy rhetoric,” said a spokesperson this morning. “The last thing they need to be worrying about is whether they should be using its or it’s.” “Thankfully, now we can just use the hypostrophe and be confident that the sentence will hold together.” The move has faced opposition from
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You don,t need to worry whether it,s ‘its’ or ‘it,s’. pressure groups such as GRAMMA! and the Royal Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Sentences. However, it has been welcomed across the media, not least by Mustard magazine, whose own sub-editor was mangled in a horrific spelling accident during issue #01. AM
COMMENTS & CORRECTIONS
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* (PG 41): Les Dennis is not the official mascot of gay firewomen. * (PG 37, Ironside review): ‘Paralegal’ is not the official term for lawyers in wheelchairs. AM
Phew, What a lot of jokes we’ve seen over the past few pages! Reminds me a bit of the old days, though not quite as funny. Anyway, here we are at the border to Page Seven, so passports out!
AB 4
MICHAEL PALIN’S POLE TO POLE VIA THE EARTH’S CORE
Apathy Marchers Can’t Be Bothered to Bring London to Standstill
A tide of banner-waving protesters almost surged through central London this weekend in the largest apathy rally for over a decade. Amongst the hand-painted placards left half-finished in garages were slogans such as ‘Someone really should do something!’ and ‘Today is the last day of your life so far’. Intending to lead the demonstrators was Warren Blake, who ended up staying home to watch a Friends double-bill. During the adverts he issued a short statement, saying “I’ll
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probably get around to it next Sunday – although there is that barbeque round at Conrad and Julia’s.” All police leave in the capital was cancelled for the event, though Scotland Yard said it passed off almost without incident. AM
OVERHEARD
Robot Dad
#5
ENTIRE LIVES SUMMED UP IN ONE OVERHEARD REMARK
Shoppers in Sainsbury’s, Coventry Overheard by M.A.
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rganisers claimed two million nonattendees, though police put the number of people who didn’t turn up at only 1.5 million. The march saw people of all ages and backgrounds not quite getting around to reclaiming the streets, chanting ‘What’s the point?’ and ‘Does it really make any difference in the greater scheme of things?’
Today is the last day of your life so far.
JB
#64
There are only seven basic plots in movies: ‘The Quest’, ‘Rags to Riches’, ‘Overcoming the Monster’ and Lethal Weapons 1 through 4. AM
H.S.
did you know?
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Men Feeling Pressure of Unrealistic Media Portrayal Today’s men are stressed about having to conform to the media ideal of them as amiable, overweight dullards, says a new report.
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about it, that she’s not interested in that sort of thing and that the blokes in the adverts have most of their stupidity airbrushed in.” “But then I found a whole pile of magazines on her bedside table with titles like That’s Life! and Take a Break, which has a regular column called ‘Aren’t Men Daft!’. So what the hell am I supposed to think?” This concern is echoed by 40-year-old father-of-three
verywhere they look, modern men are bombarded by media images of them as podgy, lovable buffoons,” said psychology guru and international charlatan Toby Pretentious. “Advertisements on billboards, buses and television consistently portray men as chubby idiots; often standing next to a confident, beautiful woman who is raising an amused-but-tolerant eyebrow at their antics. Can you image how that makes men feel?” Web Designer Jeff Bloke, 28, agreed: “I guess I do feel a lot of pressure to live down to the ideal of a lovable pillock. My girlfriend tells me not to worry
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We must conform to the ideal of a lovable pillock.
A typical man, yesterday
out now in all good bookshops!
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HEADLINE NEWS
POLICE BELIEVE SUICIDE TO BE WORK OF SAME MAN
HEALTH & SAFETY OFFICER SUES OVER R.S.I. FROM LIFTING ‘INCREASINGLY HEAVY GUIDELINES’
AM Well, there were certainly a lot of words on that page, so we’re all feeling quite tired. Time for an early night, as it’s a 6am start to travel by Yak to page 13, and the ferry to take us over the page gutter.
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MICHAEL PALIN’S ORBITING THE WORLD IN THE MIR SPACE STATION
BLUNKETT OUTBURST! PRANKSTERS REPLACE SPEECH WITH CHEESE GRATER
AMERICA PLANTS ASBESTOS FLAG ON SUN ENERGY MONOPOLY RESTORED!
NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE VICTIM CLAIMS AFTERLIFE ‘NOT ALL IT’S CRACKED UP TO BE’
THIRD WORLD ADDED TO ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST NRA CHECKS CALENDAR
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Alan Fellah: “Often I catch myself helping around the house, doing something thoughtful for my wife or making an interesting comment. Then I feel really guilty and overadequate.” “Sometimes I even try and fake it. Like putting on a kind of ‘duhhh?’ expression of foiled surprise when she joined a women-only insurance company. I think this makes her feel good, but then... am I just living a lie?” AM
RF
WHITE HOUSE BURNS HAYSTACK TO FIND NEEDLE
E.X.I.T. SPONSORED BUNGEE JUMP “LEAST SUCCESSFUL RIDE EVER” SAY ALTON TOWERS
RSPCA CONSENT TO TESTING ON SLIMY ANIMALS PLUS SOME UGLY DOGS
HOME SHOPPING PRESENTER DESCRIBES ITEM 268 AS ‘A GOOD FIGHTING RING’
NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR DEAF OPENS TELEPHONE HELPLINE
GOVERNMENT UNVEIL PLAN TO REPLACE INTERNET WITH SHOUTING
, Writer s Block FIRST CHAPTERS fROM UNFINISHED NOVELS
#2: THE UNOBTAINABLE CHIMNEY SWEEP
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ERMIONE Peacehaven sat, perfectly poised, in the impeccably furnished study of her Kensington family home. Magnificent golden locks flowed round her sculpted ears and came to rest on her impetuous, milky-white bosom. Although just 19, Hermione was as stubborn as she was pert. Currently, she was furious at her father, Mr George Peacehaven, the well-respected physician, stern authority figure and vocal exponent of phrenology. Mr Peacehaven, who sported imposing sideburns and a curvature of the nose that suggested an unerring facility for backgammon, had ordered his youngest daughter to marry Hugh D’ArbanvilleJones, the social darling, man-about-town and almost certain rapist. Although he was universally admired, Hermione found D’Arbanville-Jones to be a troublesome bore, drunken cad and possessor of the most objectionable teeth. She didn’t care what Daddy and the others said; she would not marry this man. Outraged by the impossibility of it all, she began to take out her anger on her stitch work. At that moment, she was interrupted by Sally
Dawkins, the socially and spiritually inferior family maid; a woman kind of heart but plain of face. Hermione’s sisters, Charlotte, Tilly, Emma and Frances, were
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through his sweat-soaked, coal-grey top-shirt. He was a tall specimen, though not freakishly so. His arms were powerful yet tender; equally capable of thrashing a gypsy or delicately embracing a treasured sweetheart. His face was weathered and welcoming, possessing a
Iron-veined muscles throbbed beneath his sweatsoaked, coal-grey top-shirt often dreadfully mean to Sally, but Hermione made a point of treating her kindly. The maid clomped forward gracelessly: “I beg your pardon, if you don’t mind me interrupting, ma’am, I’d like to introduce the new chimney sweep, Mr Smith.” At this, the fragrant and currently undefiled young Hermione became aware of a confident figure framed suggestively in the doorway. It was a man. He strode into the room, manfully. Hermione breathed in sharply, pupils dilating, as she regarded his barrel chest and the gently throbbing iron-veined muscles, visible
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jaw that even an amateur physiognomist such as herself could see indicated strength, morality and a limitless supply of love seed. His turquoise eyes took her in, burning through her corset as she felt a deep and all-consuming swell in the well of her womanhood. Then he spoke. “A pleasure, Miss Peace’aven. Now if ya don’t mind, I better be getting up this ’ere chimbley.” Oh, what coarse elocution! Hermione’s dream shattered into a thousand tiny fragments, like an expensive vase foolishly entrusted to a mentally defective child.
She could never be with this man. Imagine what her father would say! She could hear him now: “This lumbering ox? In possession of neither an education nor the recommended levels of Vitamin C? A grubby oik whose eyebrows betray a predilection towards the French? He’ll never sully a daughter of mine!” Infuriated, Hermione thrust the stitching needle into her fingertip. A crimson torrent issued forth, causing her to faint, tumbling elegantly to the study floor. She came to in the achingly stoic breast of Mr Smith, a tempest of questions tossing the dainty vessel of her mind around a churning sea of possibilities. Could she convince father into letting her marry a fellow with only one surname? How could she avoid the mounting intentions of that scoundrel D’Arbanville-Jones? And just how would readers differentiate between her multitude of similarly mannered siblings? The only thing that she could be certain of was this: her heart ached for a man who had almost certainly never used an LL oyster fork. WWW.MUSTARDWEB.ORG
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THE MUSTARD INTERVIEW
Since writing and performing in the finest comedy team of all time, thIS ex-python has starred in NuMEROUS movies and TV shows, won a BAFTA and found a whole new fan base with his travel series.
Of all the roles you’ve had – sketch writer, novelist, screenwriter, actor, presenter – which is most you? I don’t see them as separate careers so much as splinters off a main block of wood. I was just living my life in the way I do without having to be a totally different person all the time. So the thing I’m most proud of, in a way, is the travel series. I spent longer on that than anything else and there was only meant to be one of them in the first place. We went our own way with our own small team, resisted attempts to glamorise or overdramatise them, and they worked. An instinct for simple, clear, reasonably honest kind of television has kept us ahead of the game all the time and I’m quite pleased about that. People go on about how television should be doing this or that and focus on award ceremonies and things, but in the end it’s what you do that counts and I’m really happy to be judged on how the travel series turned out. 10
MICHAEL PALIN’S TWICE ROUND THE CIRCLE LINE
Can you remember when you first became interested in comedy? Probably at school, when I was able to mimic the masters and make people laugh. From as early as I can remember, I enjoyed laughter and seeing people laugh, and I felt it was a nicer, more comfortable world when people were happy.
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I enjoy seeing people laugh and feel it,s a nicer, more comfortable world when people are happy.
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My earliest friends at school were people who laughed a lot. School is a place you make jokes all the time. I remember, early on, just liking observation – not jokes, so much; just watching the way people were. I think I was able to distil the way teachers behaved and then break the boredom with a bit of comedy. That was wonderful – I liked the fact I could make people laugh, and it’s sort of gone on from there. So do you think your famous ‘niceness’ would have been crushed out of you if you’d gone into a different career? Well, I don’t know. I think niceness is neither here nor there – it’s a journalistic thing I’ve been lumbered with – but I think I was just… an
agreeable sort of person, never very confrontational. I never joined a gang. I was the sort of person there on the sidelines, going along with things I probably shouldn’t have – I always just liked getting along with people. You learn more about people that way. I also think that, if you’ve got that actor/ performer thing in your genes, then you tend to see people as an audience rather than an enemy. (laughs) 60s TV was a hotbed for new comedy, were you given free rein to push boundaries and try new ideas? Well, we had a patron, director Humphrey Barclay, who began with I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, so he had a kind of street cred, and he encouraged talent. Terry Jones and Eric were doing Do Not Adjust Your Set for him and they said “we’ve got this friend, Michael Palin, we want him to come on the show too”. I don’t think Humphrey was too keen, but they kept on at him until he gave in, so some very good friends I had there. Eventually, he helped Terry and I get Complete and Utter History of Britain off the ground. There was a lot of experimentation and new kinds of shows during that period. There was an inheritance from Beyond The Fringe, the success of that kind of review-show humour. Suddenly the studios sought after people who’d written and performed at university, who’d never been near a TV studio before. Through the Oxford–Cambridge mix there was Do Not Adjust Your Set, Broaden Your Mind, and I did a show called How to Irritate People. I was hired on that as an actor by John
palin ILLUSTRATION: DM
You’ve had an extremely long and successful career. Was it luck, timing or lust for glory? (laughs) I think it was largely luck and good timing, there was never any planning. I’m a habitual list keeper, but when it comes to major life decisions, I don’t have any lists to help, so just followed my instincts. I guess it all started because I enjoyed acting and comedy; and, therefore, tended to mix with people who were going to become writers rather than bank managers. So generally speaking it was just meeting the right people at the right time and having the right sort of abilities which guided me on to the things I’ve done.
school days * life lists * being ‘nice’ * OXBRIDGE * sixties tv
Exclusive interview Cleese, Graham Chapman and David Frost. It was about annoying waiters, embarrassing wives who get you to tell a story and then interrupt you just as you get to the punchline, that sort of thing. That’s where the Dead Parrot sketch came from, because originally it was about an annoying mechanic of mine. So during that period there were various combinations of people working on the shows. We were all bed-hopping. The studios saw it as the bright, wacky face of comedy. It was very much part of the 60s movement of change, there was a general feeling of moving on, things being tried out. You had The Beatles with their music, theatre and films were going towards more working class themes, there was kitchen-sink drama on TV; yet, ironically, at the same time comedy was becoming more middle-class.
variety’. I said no, but that Terry Jones and I would like to write something. The series had a bit of an awkward birth. Terry’s brother came up with the idea for Boys’ Own adventure stories, and we wrote the pilot, Tomkinson’s School Days. It went down pretty well,
n’s pytho monty G OF LIFE MEANIN versal © uni
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After Python, how did you end up doing Ripping Yarns with Terry Jones? BBC producer Terry Hughes wanted me to do a show – he wanted ‘Michael Palin does
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That's all you get in this 10-page free preview! Buy the mag for just ÂŁ2 to see all 36 pages. www.mustardweb.org
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Buy the mag for just ÂŁ2 to see all 36 pages. www.mustardweb.org WWW.MUSTARDWEB.ORG
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