It’s One of Those Days
Feel Free to Sing Along…
SERGEANT MAJOR: Don’t stand there gawping like you’ve never seen the Hand of God before! Now, today, we’re going to do marching up and down the square! That is, unless any of you got anything better to do. Well?! Anyone got anything they’d rather be doing than marching up and down the square?! Yes?! Atkinson. What would you… rather be doing, Atkinson?
ATKINSON: Well, to be quite honest, Sarge, I’d… rather be at home with the wife and kids.
SERGEANT MAJOR: Would you, now?!
ATKINSON: Yes, Sarge.
SERGEANT MAJOR: Right! Off you go! Now, everybody else happy with my little plan… of marching up and down the square a bit?
COLES: Sarge!
SERGEANT MAJOR: Yes?!
COLES: I’ve got a book I’d quite like to read.
SERGEANT MAJOR: Right! You go read your book, then! Now! Everybody else… quite content to join in… with my little scheme of marching up and down the square?!
WYCLIF: Sarge?
SERGEANT MAJOR: Yes, Wyclif?! What is it?!
WYCLIF: Well, I’m, uh, learning the piano.
SERGEANT MAJOR: Learning the piano?!
WYCLIF: Yes, Sarge.
SERGEANT MAJOR: And I suppose you want to go and practice, eh? Marching up and down the square not good enough for you, eh?!
WYCLIF: Well,–
SERGEANT MAJOR: Right! Off you go!
WYCLIF: Oh.
SERGEANT MAJOR: Now! What about the rest of you? Rather be at the pictures, I suppose.
SQUAD: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ooh, yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right.
SERGEANT MAJOR: All right! Off you go!
SQUAD: Oh. Ooh. Great. That’s great. What a day. I want to see the Merle Oberon picture. Eh hehheh.
SERGEANT MAJOR: Bloody army! I don’t know what it’s coming to. Right! Sergeant Major, marching up and down the square. Left, right, left. Left…
NARRATOR #1: Democracy and humanitarianism have always been trademarks of the British Army…
SERGEANT MAJOR: Rubbish!
NARRATOR #1: Shh! …And have stamped its triumph throughout history, in the furthest-flung corners of the Empire,…
[mayhem]
…but, no matter where or when there was fighting to be done,…
[patriotic music]
…it has always been the calm leadership of the Officer class that has made the British Army what it is.
Tags: D&C, Monty Python, Sergeant Major, The Meaning of Life
You have good taste
Classic! This skit always came to mind when we had to do D&C.
Hey, i’m a ‘Seargeant Major’ and I sure am not marching up and down the Drill Square! lol
Reminds me of way, way too many days in the 80s and 90s, when we didn’t have nearly enough mission focus and used busy-work to fill out days instead of training and preparing for war.
Oh don’t worry, those days are coming back.
Might be denial, but I have faith. I may be closer to the end of my career than the beginning, but that ALSO happens to mean that I advise on training schedules.
I will straight up monkey stomp the NCOIC of any Soldier on any line I troop who I catch wiping brake fluid on a HMMWV tire during “Sergeant’s Time.”
Plus, there’s all that Distance Learning…
When you riff this sketch and someone knows it, you know you’re in good company.