Eric Idle Complains about Travel - English Speech - Monty Python Live At The Hollywood Bowl

Mr. Smoketoomuch: (Eric Idle) Good morning. Secretary: (Carol Cleveland) Oh, good morning. Umm, have you come to arrange a holiday or would you like a ***? Mr. Smoketoomuch: I'm sorry? Secretary: Uh, oh, you've come to arrange a holiday? Mr. Smoketoomuch: Uh... yes. Secretary: Oh, sorry, sorry. Now, where were you thinking of going? Mr. Smoketoomuch: Uh... to India. Secretary: Ah, one of our adventure holidays. Mr. Smoketoomuch: Yes, that's right. Secretary: Well, you'd better see Mr. Bounder about that. Uh, Mr. Bounder, this gentleman is interested in the "India Overland" - and nothing else. Mr. Bounder: (Michael Palin) Ah. Hello, I'm Bounder of Adventure. Mr. Smoketoomuch: Oh, hello. My name is Smoketoomuch. Mr. Bounder: What? Mr. Smoketoomuch: My name is Smoketoomuch. Mr. Smoketoomuch. Mr. Bounder: Well, you'd better cut down a little then. [Laughter] Mr. Smoketoomuch: I'm sorry? Mr. Bounder: You'd better cut down a little then. [Snigger] Mr. Smoketoomuch: Oh, I see! Smoke too much so I'd better cut down a little then! Mr. Bounder: Yes. [Laughter] Ooh, it's going to get people making jokes about your name all the time, eh? Mr. Smoketoomuch: No, actually, it never struck me before. Smoketoomuch... [Laughter] Mr. Bounder: Anyway, umm, you're interested in one of our holidays, are you? Mr. Smoketoomuch: Yes, that's right. I saw your advert in the blassified ads. Mr. Bounder: The what? Mr. Smoketoomuch: In The Times Blassified Ads. Mr. Bounder: Ah, The Times Classified Ads. Mr. Smoketoomuch: Yes, that's right. I'm afraid I have a speech impediment. I can't pronounce the letter B. Mr. Bounder: Uh, C. Mr. Smoketoomuch: Yes, that's right, B. It's all due to a trauma I suffered when I was a sboolboy. I was attacked by a Siamese bat. Mr. Bounder: Uh, ah, a Siamese cat. Mr. Smoketoomuch: No, a Siamese bat. They're more dangerous. Mr. Bounder: Listen, can you say the letter K? Mr. Smoketoomuch: Oh, yes. Khaki, kettle, Kipling, Khomeini, Kellog's Born Flakes. Mr. Bounder: Well, why don't you say the letter K instead of the letter C? Mr. Smoketoomuch: What, you mean, pronounce "blassified" with a K? Mr. Bounder: Yes, absolutely! Mr. Smoketoomuch: Klassified! Mr. Bounder: Good! Mr. Smoketoomuch: Oh, it's very good! I never thought of that before. What a silly bunt. Mr. Bounder: Now then, umm, about the holiday... Mr. Smoketoomuch: Yes, well, I've been on packaged tours many times before, so your advert really baught my eye. Mr. Bounder: Good, good, jolly good, well, let me offer you this... Mr. Smoketoomuch: Why-why, what's the point of going abroad, if your just going to be treated like a sheep? Mr. Bounder: Mmm. Mr. Smoketoomuch: Carted around in buses surrounded by sweaty mindless oafs from Kettering and Boventry. Mr. Bounder: Absolutely. Mr. Smoketoomuch: Their blothed backs and their bardigans and their transistor radios, complaining about the tea or they don't make it properly, do they? And stopping at endless Majorcan bodegas selling fish and chips and Watney's Red Barrel and calamaris and two veg. And sitting in their cotton sunfrocks, squirting Timothy White Suncream all over their puffy, raw, swollen, purulent flesh, 'cos they overdid it on the first day. Mr. Bounder: Yes, I know just what you mean! Now, what we offer is... Mr. Smoketoomuch: Being herded into countless Hotel Miramars and Bellevues, Bontinentals with their international luxury modern roomettes... Mr. Bounder: Oh, yes. Mr. Smoketoomuch: ...and swimming pools full of draft Red Barrel and fat German businessmen pretending to be acrobats and forming pyramids and frightening the children and... Mr. Bounder: Oh, yes. Mr. Smoketoomuch: ...barging into the queues. And if you're not at your table... Mr. Bounder: Oh, yes. Mr. Smoketoomuch: ...spot on seven you miss your bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup, the first item in the menu of International Cuisine. Mr. Bounder: Absolutely. Now what we have here is... Mr. Smoketoomuch: Every Thursday night there's a bloody cabaret in the bar featuring some tiny emaciated dego with nine-inch hips and some fat bloated tart with her hair Bryll-creamed down and big *** presenting flamenco for foreigners. Mr. Bounder: Will you be quiet, please? Mr. Smoketoomuch: And an adenoidal typist from Birmingham with flabby white... Mr. Bounder: Will you be quiet? Mr. Smoketoomuch: ...legs and diarrhea trying to pick up hairy, bandy legged, whop degos called Manuel. Mr. Bounder: Be-be quiet! Mr. Smoketoomuch: And once a week there's an excursion to local Roman remains, where you can buy Cherry Aid and melted ice cream... Mr. Bounder: Be quiet! Mr. Smoketoomuch: ...and bleedin' Watney's Red Barrel. Mr. Bounder: Shut up! Mr. Smoketoomuch: And one night they take you to a typical restaurant with local... Mr. Bounder: Shut up! Mr. Smoketoomuch: ...atmosphere and color and you sit next to a... Mr. Bounder: Shut up! Mr. Smoketoomuch: ...party from Rhyl who keep singing "I love the Costa Brava!" Mr. Bounder: Shut up! Mr. Smoketoomuch: "I love the Costa Brava!" And you get cornered by some drunken green grocer from Luton with an Instamatic camera and last Tuesday's 'Daily Express'... Mr. Bounder: Please be quiet! Mr. Smoketoomuch: ...and he's on and on and on about how it is running the country and how many languages Margaret Powell can speak and she throws up all over the cuba libres. And spending four days on the tarmac at Luton Airport on a five-day package tour with nothing to eat but dry British Airways sandwiches. Mr. Bounder: Shut up! Please shut up! Mr. Smoketoomuch: And you can't even get a glass of Watney's Red Barrel because you're still in England with the bloody bar closes every time you're thirsty. And the kids are crying and vomiting and breaking the plastic ashtrays. They keep telling you won't be another hour, but you know damn well your plane is still in Iceland, because it had to turn back, trying to take a party of Swedes to... Mr. Bounder: Shut up! Mr. Smoketoomuch: ...to take a party of Swedes to Yugoslavia. Of course it loads you up there at 3 a.m. in the morning. And then you sit on the tarmac for four hours because of unforeseen difficulties, i.e. the permanent strike of airtraffic control over Paris. When you finally get to Malaga airport, everybody's queueing for the bloody toilet, and queueing for the bloody half-customs officers, and queueing for the bloody bus that isn't there, waiting to take you to the hotel that hasn't yet been built. When you finally get to the half-built Algerian ruin called the Hotel Limassol, while paying half the holiday money to a license Spaniard in a taxi, there's no water in the pool, there's no water in the bath, there's no water in the tap, there's only a bleeding lizard in the bidet, and half the rooms are doublebooked, and you can't sleep anyway, 'cause the permanent are in the jungles in the hotel next door. Meanwhile, the Spanish National Tourist Board promises that the raging cholera epidemic is merely a mild outbreak of the Spanish Conleigh, rather like the previous outbreak in 1616, even the bloody rats are dying from it! Graham Chapman: (Ready to start the next sketch) As early as the late 14th century, or indeed as late as the early 14th century, the earliest forms of japes were divisible in... Mr. Smoketoomuch: Meanwhile, the bloody guardia are arresting 16-yearolds for kissing in the streets -(something I can't make out) - everybody's buying little awful horrid donkeys with their names on, I can't tell you the -(something else I can't make out)- and when you finally get to Manchester, there's only another bloody bus to carry you another 60 miles...