Sideswipe: September 17: Real-life Fawlty

Photo / Supplied

John Cleese based the character of Basil Fawlty on Donald Sinclair, an eccentric owner of the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, England, where the cast of Monty Python stayed. Sinclair threw Eric Idle's briefcase out of a window because he mistook it for a bomb, and criticised Terry Gilliam's table manners because he was American. Sinclair's wife disagreed Donald was the muse for the iconic comic character, describing her husband as a "gentleman and a very brave man" and not "the neurotic eccentric that John Cleese made him out to be". She did acknowledge she was very much in charge of the business, just as Basil Fawlty was usually subordinate to his wife, Sybil. But a waitress at the Gleneagles under Sinclair said: "He probably wasn't neurotic but he was just so bad-tempered ... He thought it ridiculous that people wanted to drink at lunchtime. These were paying guests. They would be out by the pool looking for a drink and he hadn't opened the bar. He just wasn't cut out for the hotel business."

Sign at a rural pub in Ontario

Spotted by David Blaker, of Three Kings. Photo / Supplied

Birds, bees and bunk beds

Daughter: (rushing in from playing outside) "Mum, what's it called when you go on top of another person in bed?"

Me: "Erm, it's called sex."

Daughter: "Okay" (rushes back out).

Daughter (rushing back in): "Mum you're wrong — it's called bunk beds and Emily's mum wants a word with you." (Nicky Doherty @Ndoh71 on Twitter.)