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Dr David Waterhouse, assistant curator of Natural History at Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service, could not resist the Monty Python associations after the discovery of a fossil which he says is the oldest parrot ever found. The dead parrot in the classic sketch was a Norwegian Blue, but the one which Dr Waterhouse has been studying was found on the isle of Morse in the northwest of Denmark... Officially named Mopsitta tanta, the bird has already been nicknamed the Danish Blue, and like John Cleese in the sketch, his first task was to establish it actually was a parrot. He...

Parrot worker left untreated for days By Philip Edwards (Filed: 13/11/2005) Crucial treatment for a hospital worker exposed to Britain's first case of deadly bird flu through his other job as a quarantine worker was delayed by at least three days because of a blunder by government officials, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt. Officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are understood to have risked an outbreak of the disease by failing to alert local health authorities that Howard Savage urgently needed antiviral treatment. Mr Savage, who runs the quarantine centre where two infected parrots died, approached...

A South American parrot which died in quarantine in the UK had avian flu, it has been revealed. The parrot, which was imported from Suriname in mid-September, was infected with the H5 strain of the virus. The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) insists there is no cause for alarm. Chief Veterinary Officer Debby Reynolds said: "The confirmed case does not affect the UK's official disease free status." That was because "the disease has been identified in imported birds during quarantine."She said further tests were needed to see if the parrot had picked up the deadly HN51 strain...

If nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, then how about Monty Python's surreal humour brought to a London stage, in French, with English surtitles? That is exactly what a French troupe has done in the first and only authorised stage version of the television series that earned Monty Python international cult status. "It is like we have been adopted as knights of Camelot," said producer Remy Renoux, referring to "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" in which French soldiers taunt King Arthur and his companions with insults like "Your mother was a hamster!" "If Python fans are a little anxious they...

October 5 Today is the Anniversary of Monty Python's Flying Circus! The Flying Circus debuted this day, 35 years ago, on television at 10:50 PM on BBC-1. The world was never the same. (October 5, 1969)

So then a largish envelope comes in the mail and it's from my mother and it contains a single, well-used comic book sealed in a plastic Zip-Loc bag, a book from my childhood she found in a storage box in the garage in our family's cabin getaway up in northern Idaho. And my mother, being smart and attuned and with the times as she is, she noticed the comic's title, and the main characters, and her eyebrows went up and she thought I might want to see it. Here's why: It's a Spider-Man comic. It's from 1976. It's in excellent...

How good and refreshing and inspiring is it, in these war-drunk, anti-everything, BushCo-ravaged times, to discover a gem of pure unadulterated free-thinking humanity and funkiness and animal tenderness sitting just outside the teeming city walls? How life affirming and encouraging is it to stumble, quite randomly, quite unexpectedly, across what is probably the funniest, most caring, most quirky, most unexpected, most hugely popular, intensely local veterinarian in the entire Bay Area even though I can't verify that because I've only been to like, two, but I'm willing to risk saying it anyway? I am here with an answer: It is...

Hi I Am SmokeyWelcome to my establishment!

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The Homewood woman who sued Ed's Pet World for $5 million after an Amazon parrot bit her in the face last year has won a $3,000 jury award in the case. A Jefferson County jury this week issued the verdict following a two-day trial in the negligence lawsuit before Circuit Judge Allwin Horn III. Cynthia Powers claimed Charlie the parrot swooped down on her last August, bit her under the eye and left her bruised and scarred. She sued pet store owner Louie Edward Cosby II and Ed's Pet World. "We argued that the parrot was out of its cage...