Rather depressingly, Terry Jones, original member of the Monty Python team, has suggested that, with the apparent upsurge in religion, the team might now find it harder to make Life of Brianthan they did in 1979.

"I took the view it wasn't blasphemous," he told the Radio Times. "It was heretical because it criticised the structure of the church and the way it interpreted the Gospels. At the time religion seemed to be on the back burner and it felt like kicking a dead donkey. It has come back with a vengeance and we'd think twice about making it now." Groan.