diff --git a/CHANGES.current b/CHANGES.current
index efca7023b..84c5c6035 100644
--- a/CHANGES.current
+++ b/CHANGES.current
@@ -1,6 +1,14 @@
 Version 1.3.40 (in progress)
 ============================
 
+2009-04-29: olly
+	    [Python] Don't attempt to acquire the GIL in situations where we
+	    know that it will already be locked.  This avoids some dead-locks
+	    with mod_python (due to mod_python bugs which are apparently
+	    unlikely to ever be fixed), and results in smaller wrappers which
+	    run a little faster (in tests with Xapian on x86-64 Ubuntu 9.04,
+	    the stripped wrapper library was 11% smaller and ran 2.7% faster).
+
 2009-04-21: wsfulton
 	    [C#] Fix #2753469 - bool &OUTPUT and bool *OUTPUT typemaps initialisation.
 
diff --git a/Source/Modules/python.cxx b/Source/Modules/python.cxx
index ffeea430d..bd22e79a6 100644
--- a/Source/Modules/python.cxx
+++ b/Source/Modules/python.cxx
@@ -1739,7 +1739,6 @@ public:
     /* Last node in overloaded chain */
 
     int maxargs;
-    int allow_thread = threads_enable(n);
 
     String *tmp = NewString("");
     String *dispatch;
@@ -1762,8 +1761,6 @@ public:
     Wrapper_add_local(f, "argc", "int argc");
     Printf(tmp, "PyObject *argv[%d]", maxargs + 1);
     Wrapper_add_local(f, "argv", tmp);
-    if (allow_thread)
-      thread_begin_block(n, f->code);
 
     if (!fastunpack) {
       Wrapper_add_local(f, "ii", "int ii");
@@ -1780,19 +1777,8 @@ public:
 
     Replaceall(dispatch, "$args", "self,args");
 
-    if (allow_thread) {
-      String *ret = NewStringEmpty();
-      thread_end_block(n, ret);
-      Append(ret, "return ");
-      Replaceall(dispatch, "return ", ret);
-      Delete(ret);
-    }
-
     Printv(f->code, dispatch, "\n", NIL);
 
-    if (allow_thread)
-      thread_end_block(n, f->code);
-
     if (GetFlag(n, "feature:python:maybecall")) {
       Append(f->code, "fail:\n");
       Append(f->code, "Py_INCREF(Py_NotImplemented);\n");
@@ -1899,8 +1885,6 @@ public:
     kwargs = NewString("");
 
     int allow_thread = threads_enable(n);
-    if (allow_thread)
-      thread_begin_block(n, f->code);
 
     Wrapper_add_local(f, "resultobj", "PyObject *resultobj = 0");
 
@@ -2331,8 +2315,6 @@ public:
       }
     }
 
-    if (allow_thread)
-      thread_end_block(n, f->code);
     Append(f->code, "    return resultobj;\n");
 
     /* Error handling code */
@@ -2341,8 +2323,6 @@ public:
     if (need_cleanup) {
       Printv(f->code, cleanup, NIL);
     }
-    if (allow_thread)
-      thread_end_block(n, f->code);
     Printv(f->code, "  return NULL;\n", NIL);
 
 
@@ -3858,10 +3838,8 @@ int PYTHON::classDirectorMethod(Node *n, Node *parent, String *super) {
 
     int allow_thread = threads_enable(n);
 
-    if (allow_thread)
-      thread_begin_block(n, w->code);
-
     if (allow_thread) {
+      thread_begin_block(n, w->code);
       Append(w->code, "{\n");
     }