Among other things, he's helped pen a song encouraging Britons to focus on football in the upcoming matches and forget the events of half a century ago. (lyrics below)
The title of the song is taken from a famous episode of Cleese's Fawlty Towers series. Cleese and Monty Python used the war and Germans in several sketches, including The North Minehead By-election and The funniest joke in the world.*
Cleese fans will also appreciate his new website, thejohncleese.com.
Don'’t Mention The War
Don'’t mention the war
That'’s what football is for!
In 1966 we were the winning team
We'’d rather not discuss what happened in-between
Don'’t mention the war
Just get out there and score
At the glorious moment
When the lions roar
Don'’t mention the war
Don'’t mention the war
That'’s what football is for!
They might have bombed our chipshop 60 years ago
But a billion pints of lager later, here we go (come on then!)
Don'’t call them rude names
It'’s such a beautiful game
At the glorious moment
When the lions roar
Don'’t mention the war
Don'’t mention the war
Bend that ball round the wall
Instead of saving Poland
we are scoring goals
After 40 years of extra time and bacon rolls (bacon rolls!)
copyright The First Eleven
* Trivia question: Name the Python episode in which The funniest joke in the world first appeared?
It was originally planned as the first episode of the series but was aired third.
E-mail your answers.