GUARD #1: Halt! Who goes there? ARTHUR: It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeator of the Saxons, sovereign of all England! GUARD #1: Pull the other one! ARTHUR: I am. And this my trusty servant Patsy. We have ridden the length and breadth of the land in search of knights who will join me in my court of Camelot. I must speak with your lord and master. GUARD #1: What, ridden on a horse? ARTHUR: Yes! GUARD #1: You're using coconuts! ARTHUR: What? GUARD #1: You've got two empty halves of coconut and you're bangin' 'em together. ARTHUR: So? We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this land, through the kingdom of Mercea, through- GUARD #1: Where'd you get the coconut? ARTHUR: We found them. GUARD #1: Found them? In Mercea? The coconut's tropical! ARTHUR: What do you mean? GUARD #1: Well, this is a temperate zone. ARTHUR: The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plumber may seek warmer climes in winter yet these are not strangers to our land. GUARD #1: Are you suggesting coconuts migrate? ARTHUR: Not at all, they could be carried. GUARD #1: What - a swallow carrying a coconut? ARTHUR: It could grip it by the husk! GUARD #1: It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a 1 pound coconut. ARTHUR: Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here. GUARD #1: Listen, in order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings 43 times every second, right? ARTHUR: Please! GUARD #1: Am I right? ARTHUR: I'm not interested! GUARD #2: It could be carried by an African swallow! GUARD #1: Oh, yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European swallow, that's my point. GUARD #2: Oh, yeah, I agree with that... ARTHUR: Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court at Camelot?! GUARD #1: But then of course African swallows are not migratory. GUARD #2: Oh, yeah... GUARD #1: So they couldn't bring a coconut back anyway... [clop clop] GUARD #2: Wait a minute - supposing two swallows carried it together? GUARD #1: No, they'd have to have it on a line. GUARD #2: Well, simple! They'd just use a standard creeper! GUARD #1: What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers? GUARD #2: Well, why not? ========================================================================================= ARTHUR: Halt! Hallo! Hallo! GUARD: 'Allo! Who is zis? ARTHUR: It is King Arthur, and these are the Knights of the Round Table. Who's castle is this? GUARD: This is the castle of [something] Louis de Whopper ARTHUR: Go and tell your master that we have been charged by God with a sacred quest. If he will give us food and shelter for the night he can join us in our quest for the Holy Grail. GUARD: Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll be very keen... Uh, he's already got one, you see? ARTHUR: What? GALAHAD: He says they've already got one! ARTHUR: Are you sure he's got one? GUARD: Oh, yes, it's very nice-a {Aside to the other French, "I told him we already got one. (Assorted giggling)} ARTHUR: Well, um, can we come up and have a look? GUARD: Of course not! You are English types-a! ARTHUR: Well, what are you then? GUARD: I'm French! Why do think I have this outrageous accent, you silly king! GALAHAD: What are you doing in England? GUARD: Mind your own business! ARTHUR: If you will not show us the Grail, we shall take your castle by force! GUARD: You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-calledArthur-king, you and all your silly English kaniggets. (knight pronounced weirdly) Thpbpbppbbt! GALAHAD: What a strange person. ARTHUR: Now look here, my good man! GUARD: I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food t rough whopper! I fart in your general direction! You mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries! GALAHAD: Is there someone else up there we could talk to? GUARD: No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time-a! ========================================================================= ARTHUR: Old woman! DENNIS: Man! ARTHUR: Man, sorry. What knight live in that castle over there? DENNIS: I'm thirty seven. ARTHUR: What? DENNIS: I'm thirty seven - I'm not old! ARTHUR: Well, I can't just call you 'Man'. DENNIS: Well, you could say 'Dennis'. ARTHUR: Well, I didn't know you were called 'Dennis.' DENNIS: Well, you didn't bother to find out, did you? ARTHUR: I did say sorry about the 'old woman,' but from the behind you looked - DENNIS: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior! ARTHUR: Well, I AM king... DENNIS: Oh king, eh, very nice. An' how'd you get that, eh? By exploitin' the workers - by 'angin' on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic an' social differences in our society! If there's ever going to be any progress - WOMAN: Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here. Oh - how d'you do? ARTHUR: How do you do, good lady. I am Arthur, King of the Britons. Who's castle is that? WOMAN: King of the who? ARTHUR: The Britons. WOMAN: Who are the Britons? ARTHUR: Well, we all are. We're all Britons and I am your king. WOMAN: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective. DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship. A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes - WOMAN: Oh there you go, bringing class into it again. DENNIS: That's what it's all about if only people would - ARTHUR: Please, please good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle? WOMAN: No one live there. ARTHUR: Then who is your lord? WOMAN: We don't have a lord. ARTHUR: What? DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week. ARTHUR: Yes. DENNIS: But all the decision of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting. ARTHUR: Yes, I see. DENNIS: By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, ARTHUR: Be quiet! DENNIS: - but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more - ARTHUR: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet! WOMAN: Order, eh - who does he think he is? ARTHUR: I am your king! WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you. ARTHUR: You don't vote for kings. WOMAN: Well, 'ow did you become king then? ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake, [angels sing] her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. [singing stops] That is why I am your king! DENNIS: Listen - strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. ARTHUR: Be quiet! DENNIS: Well you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you! ARTHUR: Shut up! DENNIS: I mean, if I went around sayin' I was an empereror just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away! ARTHUR: Shut up! Will you shut up! (Arthur throttles democratic Dennis) DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system. ARTHUR: Shut up! DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP! HELP! I'm being repressed! ARTHUR: Bloody peasant! DENNIS: Oh, what a give away. Did you hear that, did you here that, eh? That's what I'm on about - did you see him repressing me, you saw it didn't you?