Palin and Jones, the Holy Grail of friendship...
HE is no longer able to speak thanks to the cruel effects of dementia – but Monty Python star Terry Jones still enjoyed a laugh during a visit from his old pal Michael Palin.
Sharing a picture of the pair online, Palin, 76, wrote: ‘Moving moment with Terry J.’
He described how during a visit to Jones’s home in London, he read from Dr Fegg’s Encyclopeadia [sic] of All World Knowledge, a ‘compendium of humorous facts’ they wrote together in 1985. ‘He can say very
little these days, but he can and did laugh as I read some of the pages,’ said Palin. ‘And what really impressed me was that he laughed only at the things he’d written!’
He has previously described how things still ‘click’ between them and that they understand each other.
Jones, 77, is suffering from a form of dementia that affects his ability to communicate but retained his
reasoning function. He directed Monty Python’s Life Of Brian and The Meaning Of Life, and co-directed The Holy Grail.
Palin told Radio Times that Jones is ‘the one I see most’ from the comedy troupe, which included Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Eric Idle and the late Graham Chapman.
‘Terry has a progressive form of dementia which is not going to get any better,’ he said last year. ‘But the spirit of Terry is still there. It’s rather wonderful.’