When news arose yesterday in the UK that a paleontologist from the Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service was publishing in the Journal of Paleaontology the discovery in Denmark of a 55 million year old parrot fossil, and nicknamed it the Danish blue and said it could have been blue (who knows?) and could have lived in Norway, all hell broke loose.

Monty Python fans know why instantly. Reporters there wrote sure yes yes it’s interesting news from the fossil boffins and all that … and then with immense and gleeful energy, and spurred on by a press release, recycled as much as they could from the most famous sketch in the history of BBC.

Stories (with selected passages):

Times Fran Yeoman (bleedin’ demised) ; Telegraph Laura Clout (bereft of life) ; Glasgow Daily Record Aidan McGurran (pinin’ for the fjords) ; This is London (Shuffled off its mortal coil and joined the choir invisible) ; Norfolk 24 Hr News Richard Batson (demised, passed on, resting, ex-parrot) ; Metro (stiff, kicked the bucket) ;

Grist for the Mill: University College Dublin Press Release ; And if you really have time to burn the sketch is found in abundance, where else?, under Dead Parrot at YouTube.

-CP

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