Following Michael Palin's claim that most of Monty Python's work was "crap" , John Cleese is further trying to dampen the incendiary levels of excitement over the comedy troupe's return. He's said that the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch, in which Cleese ludicrously perambulates to a job in the aforementioned ministry, won't be a part of the O2 show because "the only reason it became so iconic was the brilliance of my performance, because I never thought it was a very good sketch."

This reads arrogant but he's surely being tongue in cheek, as is Mick Jagger , who's also weighed in on the lack of merit to the Pythons. "Who wants to see that again, really?" he wonders in a new promotional video below. "It's a bunch of wrinkly old men trying to relive their youth and make a load of money ? the best one died years ago!" See what he did there?

All this isn't convincing anyone of course, because the Pythons' material remains timelessly funny ? particularly the silly walks sketch, which is a joke that straddles the decades, age demographics, and even the rocky British class system.

Cleese is as brilliant as he says he is, utterly deadpan as he takes the stereotypical bowler-hatted political drone and ruthlessly skewers him. All the self-importance, bureaucratic inefficiency and laughable circuitousness of Whitehall is summed up in one balletic extension of his slender leg. This is a department that slots in quite naturally alongside healthcare and defence, and has at ￡348m budget. But as well as sly satire, it's the kind of slapstick that even a five-year-old will laugh at, and rejoices in humans doing things they shouldn't. Reeves and Mortimer have basically made an entire career out of this sketch in various iterations.

The best sketches are ones that imagine a whole universe into which the sketch is merely a passing glimpse, and Ministry of Silly Walks does this neatly. It imagines what serving coffee must be like in a place where no-one can walk straight (it doesn't end well) and Cleese apologises, nevertheless with a note of pride, for his lateness being due to his immaculately honed gait. It's also fun to see the germ of Basil Fawlty in Cleese's officious, superior and yet faintly self-hating manner, contemptuous of Palin's inexperienced efforts.

So to celebrate the genius of the sketch, as well as the Pythons' return to the stage, we want you to share your own silly walks. Design a ridiculous arrangement of your limbs in motion, capture a photo or video of it, and upload it via the GuardianWitness assignment above ? we'll publish a gallery of the most truly silly. Just don't come asking us for a grant to help you develop it further.