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A DIRECT ancestor of Monty Python's renowned "Dead Parrot" sketch has been found in a book of jokes dating back to Greece in the fourth century AD. A new English translation of Philogelos: The Laugh Addict contains a joke in which a man complains that a slave he has just bought has died. "By the gods," answers the slave's seller, "when he was with me, he never did any such thing." In the Python sketch, written 16 centuries later, the shopkeeper claims the parrot, a "Norwegian Blue," is not dead, but just "pining for the fjords."

t's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke...