[purple_ducks]

Clearly the author does realise this as is evident by the rest of the sentence, which was included in the quote.

[weinzierl]

That doesn't make sense. In the movie the joke is clearly on Reg, the guy who says the words "What have the Romans ever done for us?". I still think the author didn't really get the joke...

[kwhitefoot]

They're German, many Germans are great Python fans. I think you can safely assume they have seen the Life of Brian and analysed it carefully. And yes they got the joke.