Defending Life of Brian on TV:

A large Jaguar picks me up after lunch and takes me down to a BBC interview at Broadcasting House, this time with Gerald Priestland for the networked Today programme. John C is also on with me.

Priestland is enormous — he’s actually taller than John, but amiable and donnish. They play back his review of the film, which swings from great praise — “very funny – Python at their best” — to note of distinct criticsm for our handling of the “Crucifixion” sequences — or for the “Crucifixion’ sequences period. He equates it with “whistling at Auschwitz” and to him it appears that we are condoning suffering.

JC answers smoothly, as if he’s rehearsed. I become a little tongue-tied faced with Priestland’s penetrating stare and huge bulk…

— Michael Palin, Diaries 1969 – 1979: The Python Years