Book Review: Eric Idle - Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, A Sortabiography

Eric Idle's A Sortabiography.

Of all the autobiographies I've read by Monty Python members so far Eric Idle's Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, A Sortabiography has been the easiest one to read. I'd even go so far as to say it's a bit of a page turner that's hard to put down.

I'm guessing it's because he made most of it up, probably... or maybe it's just the really, really good bits, I mean he has reduced a 50 plus year career in entertainment to a mere 272 pages.

I swear you could fit three of these books inside Michael Palin's published diary of just The Python Years. Admittedly Palin was too lazy to remove all the boring bits out of his diaries.

On the plus side you get a little more Python insight than you do with John Cleese's book, So, Anyway, largely because Eric, more than any other Python, continues to repurpose/repackage Python material for modern audiences, with stage shows like Spamalot, and the O2 Python reunion show.

Actually this book is a very easy read that really does cover a lot of highlights of Eric's entire career both publicly and behind the scenes. Eric isn't afraid to name drop a few famous names that have become good friends, and there is a particularly great chapter dedicated to his close friend Robin Williams, whose death was clearly a blindside to even those who knew him well.

Eric is known for many things but he will forever be known for the song, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, which I find is kind of strange to be the number one song requested at British funerals. It's kind of the theme song to the human experience rather than a song to go out on - even though they do in Life of Brian.

For a long time I thought Bright Side was a Max Bygraves song because it sounds like something he would sing (my Mum was a fan), until it takes a turn into death. I don't think I ever heard the whole song until several years after the release of Life of Brian when it came to home video perhaps? People generally don't sing the 'bright side of death' part too often, and I was a little too young to see Life of Brian in the cinema.

Anyway, it's a song that kind of sums up Eric's outlook over the years. It's hopelessly optimistic even about death, and that seems very much like Eric based on this book.

If you only ever buy one of the autobiographies from the members of Python, Eric's is the easiest, and most optimistic one I've read thus far. Noting that I've still to read Graham Chapman's (mostly lies by his own admission, probably), Terry Jones (not sure if he even has one), and Terry Gilliam's (of course he has one). Then I probably need to read the Python Autobiography so I can buy all the same words repackaged in a bumper collectors edition (clearly with all the boring bits from Michael's diaries taken out since it's only 368 pages).

* This article contains Amazon Associate commission links that help keep this site free.

Comments

New Cat Art Collaboration: TET's Cats Paintings and OpenArt AI Model Workspace (Photobooth)

TET's Cats AI generated art trained on my own art style. Way back in the early 2000's I started painting stylized cat artworks to illustrate some cat themed poems I'd written, that I exhibited and sold online in an exhibition titled 'Sleeping Cats' in 2004. You can see all these early works in my Flickr Album . Many are also available to buy as prints in my RedBubble Store . Leading on from that I began selling my paintings on ebay where the cat themed works were almost guaranteed to sell over any other subject I painted. As a result I became some what known for my cat art to the point where people would commission me to create images of their own pet cats in my cartoony style. Flash forward a decade (almost two at this point) and I haven't painted any cat themed art in years. To be honest I haven't done any traditional painting at all in years. In the last couple of years AI image generators have really caught my attention. Specifically that they are able t...

The Dukes of Hazard Movie - My Thoughts

The Dukes of Hazard is a movie that I wanted to see when it was released in 2005 but didn't because, well, I just didn't get around to it. Not only that but when I heard Johnny Knoxville and Jessica Simpson were in it my expectations were immediately lowered to "it's probably not going to be what I hoped it could be." Which is why I've never been pro-active about hiring the movie on DVD. Last night I saw it was being shown on free to air TV. I happened to have the time to watch, so I did. To sum up my experience... I didn't get fired up by the movie until I watched the 'bloopers' in the end credits. The Dukes of Hazard signature is the car. The General Lee flying through the air in some flat out impossible jumps. We know they're impossible jumps but they're just so cool you kind of want to believe the General Lee can do them. The point is, in the TV series, you never (or rarely) saw the General Lee not land safely and undamaged. Thus, seei...

Making the Ukulele Cool Again By Inventing One That Transforms Into a Guitar Mid-Performance

Mattias playing the Ukulele that turns into a guitar in ukulele mode. Y ouTuber, Mattias Krantz , set out to solve one of the biggest problems with ukuleles, and that is, they are ukuleles. As he points out in his video they're one of the only instruments that people respect you less for the better you get at playing them. As someone who bought a ukulele because I wanted to learn an instrument, and I couldn't really afford a guitar (plus I found a ukulele that I think is pretty cool, but only in comparison to other ukuleles) you can imagine my interest would be really piqued by a ukulele that transforms into a guitar. Anyway, there is not much that needs to be said other than, a ukulele that transforms into a guitar isn't a thing you can just buy off the shelf, which is why Mattias set out to invent one. Nothing I say will be more interesting than just sitting back and watching his video below. It's a fascinating journey that I wanted to share and, maybe one day, eith...

Review: ArtHelper - The All-In-One AI Writing + Marketing Assistant for Artists - 'ChatGPT for Artists'

ArtHelper prides itself on being all 'human-made' art. T he idea of an AI, trained specifically on art business marketing, that can not only offer advice on marketing your work, but also assist with creating all the content too, is certainly appealing. Especially to those of us who would rather spend more time creating our art than trying to sell it. ArtHelper does just that whilst attempting to be your 'home' on the internet. A destination for your profile and portfolio, a marketplace for your art, and a directory of artists as well, with one distinction - all the art must be human made. Which, for you AI artists, doesn't count the prompt for AI generated art - because the idea, according to ArtHelper's creators, isn't the art. Which is a fair point, in terms of promoting art 'made by a human', but can get kind of murky when you understand that not all AI art is generated from a single prompt... and 'found object art' isn't actually ...

Who Even Reads This?

W riting this blog is largely both a labor of love and a discipline. Since about 2006 (the blog started in 2004) I have written a minimum of two posts per month. Sometimes I've posted more, particularly in the last 4-5 years, where I've tried to write and post at least one article a week without fail. Unfortunately it's not a niche blog, unless the niche is things that interest me. Which means my blog is either too broad to have regular readers or too niche to have anyone other than my mum reading it. Which she does (hi Mum) as we established back in January of 2014 in the post Ya Mum Reads it... That said, this blog overall regularly gets 6-7k views every month, mostly through people finding various articles through search engines. By far the largest traffic source is 'Other' which is basically unknown sources. I'm willing to bet a large percentage of that is the dead internet. Bots testing my comments to see if they're spamable or Illuminati spammers. Whil...

Embarrassing Yourself with Doof Doof Music

Ever since Spinal Tap popularized the notion of turning an amp up to eleven audio systems have been rising to the challenge of louder, more awesome sound. In particular, car audio systems have embraced the notion of the bigger the noise the better the sound must surely be. What I'd like to know is, if these sound systems are so good, why do they make all music sound the same... Doof, Doof, Doof? You've all heard them. Pimped up cars, with audio systems seemingly worth more than gold, volume blasting way past eleven. Sound waves booming long before you make a positive visual on the car... Doof, Doof, Doof. It has to be the audio system right? Surely all these people can't be playing the same tune? Doof, Doof, Doof. Could it be that the more money spent on a car sound system the less musical range it will actually play? Maybe these people can't afford to buy music after purchasing the audio system so they all play the same demo track? Doof, doof, doof. In my own car I hav...

Try My Free Solo and Multi-player Game of SKATE App - A Skateboard Session Score Tracker for Mobile Devices - gameofskate.tet.life

My skateboarding time is often limited to short solo sessions in my driveway and I wanted to make that a little more fun. O ne thing I've wanted for a long time is a solo version of Game of S.K.A.T.E. As someone who mostly skateboards in my driveway, by myself, it can be a bit tedious to run through the tricks you know every session, then maybe spend time learning something new. I've often thought, what might make a solo session more fun is an app that gamifies practicing the tricks you know, and allows you to add tricks as you learn them, or encourages you to try tricks that are pretty much skateboarding basics any skateboarder would aspire to learn. The idea has been in my head for more than half a decade at this point. While I was a computer programmer back in the day (we're talking late 1980s) I haven't kept up with coding. At least nothing more complex than HTML and Java script bashing. I did try to learn one of the many game creators ( Construct for a different ...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog