A Cock and Bull Story A Cock and Bull Story A Cock and Bull Story (marketed in Australia, New Zealand and the United States as Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story) is a 2005 British comedy film directed by Michael Winterbottom. It is a film-within-a-film, featuring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing themselves as egotistical actors during the making of a screen adaptation of Laurence Sterne's 18th century metafictional novel "Tristram Shandy". Gillian Anderson and Keeley Hawes also play themselves in addition to their "Tristram Shandy" roles. Since the book is about a man attempting but failing to write his autobiography, the film takes
USS Tristram Shandy (1864) an attempt to take Fort Fisher and thus close the Confederacy's last major seaport, Rear Admiral David D. Porter deployed a large fleet of gunboats, ironclads, and transports off the fort and commenced laying down a heavy shore bombardment. Army forces slated to take part in the operation, under General Benjamin Franklin Butler, arrived from northward too late to commence operations on the first day. Ill feeling resulted between Butler and Porter, with the former officer returning to Washington, D.C., and the operation temporarily shelved. After participating in the initial December bombardments of Fort Fisher, "Tristram Shandy" took part in