Vale, Terry Jones. Python.
Saddened to hear that Terry Jones has finally succumbed to the horrible form of dementia that first robbed him of his powers of speech and memory. A relief and release, perhaps, but a profoundly bittersweet one.
Jones was the most jovial of Pythons. Its avuncular spirit. (Not for nothing did he once memorably play Toad of Toad Hall in a Python-heavy filmic incarnation of Wind in the Willows.)
Even though Monty Python were indisputably the Beatles of comedy, Jones was so much more than a member of this immortal troupe. He was an author; a scholar of medieval history. He was a writer, a singer, a director. He wrote the screenplay to Jim Henson's film, Labyrinth; a charming little film featuring a chap called David Bowie.
And of course, he was a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a friend.
One of the great things about the Pythons is the collective irreverence towards the topic of death. In many ways, the Pythons were little more than an anarchic fusion of absurdism, schoolboy prankage and an Irish wake. Each part helping to create the others.
Terry Jones has dropped off the perch. Popped his clogs. Ceased to be. He is now an ex-Python. As John Cleese tweeted this morning, that's two down, four to go.
Perhaps it's easier to be flippant about death when one's immortality is assured. Or perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, there's no need to bother with individual grandness.
Terry Jones was not the messiah, and yet he was so much more than a very naughty boy. But in him, there was a LOT of naughty boy. And for that, we should all remain forever grateful.
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