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Bournemouth and Beyond

Tuesday, June 25th 2019

Things are supposed to quieten down as you get older, but from celebrations of 30 years of one of my oldest and most valued charities – the Association For Research into Stammering Children – to a visit to Oslo for gin and tonics in the wardroom of Gjoa, the first ship to navigate the North-West Passage by sea, to a last-minute stand-in appearance with Michael Caine on the One Show, to a less last-minute appearance before a sword-wielding Prince William at Buckingham Palace, my 77th year could not have begun more noisily.

Sir Michael Palin — The knight after…Making my way home from the Palace.

And it looks to be set at full volume, at least for the next few weeks, as I have another seven dates left on my Erebus /Python stage tour, and a few days of acting in July. As yet, I’m not allowed to say exactly what part, but I am growing a beard, so it’s not Joan of Arc.

I must give very big thanks to all the audiences on the tour so far. The response has been so warm and generous that it’s like spending an evening with old friends. Opening night of the 2019 tour was at the Pavilion in Bournemouth. Which was, by coincidence, highly appropriate for Python’s anniversary year. My first memories of Python filming were all around Bournemouth. The It’s’ man made his debut crawling out of the sea at Poole Harbour.

There’s a flavour of those heady days in the Python Years volume of my diaries.

Friday July 11th 1969, Bournemouth.

“Drive over to Shell Bay, beyond Poole, along a flag-lined route – the Queen is visiting Poole today. In the afternoon filmed some very bizarre pieces, including the death of Genghis Khan, and two men carrying a donkey past a Butlins redcoat, who later gets hit on the head with a raw chicken by a man from the previous sketch, who borrowed the chicken from a man in a suit of armour. All this we filmed in the 80° sunshine, with a small crowd of holiday- makers watching.”

It seems like only 50 years ago.

Getting On A Bit

Thursday, May 9th 2019

76 last Sunday. 76 sounds an awful lot, but the best way to deal with the march of time is to fall in step with it and stop trying to pretend you’re 18 again.

Ahh! 18! 1961. Roy Orbison ‘Crying’, ‘Green Onions’, Booker T and the MG’s, and Elvis, my hero, driven to record mediocre stuff like ‘Return To Sender’.

Actually, come to think of it, I’m happier in 2019. And busier.

Instead of cramming for exams I’m turning out to promote films like An Accidental Studio, the story of George Harrison’s Handmade Films (Life of Brian, Time Bandits, The Missionary, Mona Lisa, Withnail and I, A Private Function), Final Ascent, a stunning documentary about the charismatic climber Hamish MacInnes, whose life-story makes James Bond sound really dull, and the we-welease of Life Of Brian, which still looks and sounds fresh.

Nate Merritt, my official portraitist, has maybe exaggerated my free soloing skills, but sadly, he has got the age right!

My own most recent project, Erebus, The Story Of A Ship, comes out in paperback at the end of May, and I’m doing a stage tour round the UK in June.

Next week to Norway to give an Erebus talk at the Fram Museum in Oslo. It’s one of those places I’ve always wanted to see as it’s built around the great Norwegian polar explorers Nansen and Amundsen. And I’ll get to step on board Amundsen’s Gjoa, the little ship that finally cracked The North West Passage, fifty years after Sir John Franklin and 129 men died trying to find it.

A potentially very nice acting role in July, followed by a busy autumn – travel filming and the publication in September of North Korea Journal, my diaries of the recent visit to that enigmatic country. Then a nice lie-down and some sweeties. 18? Been there. Done that.

End Of Term Surprise

Monday, January 7th 2019

Just as I thought that, after a very busy year, 2018 was going quietly, I hear I am to be elevated from a Knight who says ‘Ni!’ to a knight of the realm. I’m still adjusting to this, but first of all I want to send huge thanks to all those of you who have sent messages of support and congratulation. Too many to reply to every single one personally, but I’m reading and appreciating them all.

End of Term Surprise — Michael’s last knight.

2019 starts quietly. I shall be finishing off the chocolates from Christmas, preparing my North Korea journal for publication – and enjoying being a grandpa.

Wherever you are – let’s have a collective act of faith and wish each other a very Happy New Year.

Down Under and Underground

Thursday, December 20th 2018

H.M.S. Erebus has been on the last stages of her latest voyage – 179 years after her first one. In a whirlwind tour of Australia at the beginning of December, we went to Hobart, Tasmania, where a fantastic crowd turned out on a wet Monday morning at the State Bookstore, and from there to stage shows in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Thank you all for being fantastic audiences. It was the first time I’d done Erebus and Python in the same show.

Painting by Roland Wakelin — I’m a bit obsessed by the Sydney Harbour Bridge. On my latest visit I found this great painting of it half-built. It’s by Roland Wakelin.

On the road with Erebus. Day of the Enmore show in Sydney.

Back home to a big talk and signing in Bath, and my last Erebus evening of the year, at my brilliant local bookshop, the Owl in Kentish Town, which is one of the most memorable, with a small but perfectly-formed crowd and an introduction from ace TV Director and local Owl fan, James Strong, who directed me in Vanity Fair.

But perhaps the greatest excitement of the whole campaign has been Erebus on the Underground, reaching a whole new audience of tired commuters and after dark, really big rats. See photograph.

Thanks to all of you who have shown an interest in the book. It has been a great pleasure to write, but an even greater pleasure to connect with such a wide audience.

Happy Christmas one and all!

Archives and Anniversaries

Thursday, November 22nd 2018

Slipped into the British Library this morning to have one last look at the excellent mini-exhibition of bits and pieces from my archive, which closes on November 25th. As you can see, I couldn’t get near the display!

Last minute punters at the British Library.

Much of the material is in Terry Jones’s hand which made me aware of how much we’d written together, and how our collaboration lives on in our different and distinct handwriting, in a way which would never be the same in these digital days.

Saw Terry on Monday. Looking well, greets me with a smile. He’s less mobile now, but when we parted I said “See you soon” and he nodded and agreed. “See you soon”, he said softly.

Next year is Python’s 50th anniversary. Judging by what’s been dug up in my archive, there’s a lot of stuff that’s never seen the light of day. Some of it quite justifiably, but some quite funny and interesting to Python aficionados. Big Nose at the sermon on the mount went on for about four more pages!

Left: US and Canadian version of my Erebus book in gutsy company at an American book fair. Right: The Firean, Antwerp. Great little hotel in one of my favourite European cities. Family run and super-friendly.

2019 is also the 30th anniversary of Around The World In Eighty Days. Must find somewhere I haven’t been to celebrate. Do they do birthday cakes in the Gobi Desert? Off to Australia next week to do three Erebus and Python stage shows and hopefully catch a bit of sun by sticking my head out of the dressing room window.

Took a lovely walk along an old canal on my latest UK book tour. Can anyone identify the canal?

Erebus Sails On

Tuesday, October 23rd 2018

A happy surprise sandwiched between a signing in Belfast and an appearance at the Dublin History Festival was a detour to the town of Banbridge, County Down. This was the birthplace of one of my favourite characters in the story, Francis Crozier, captain of Erebus’s travelling companion, HMS Terror. Believed to be one of the last to perish in the Arctic, Crozier’s sacrifice on the fatal expedition to the North-West Passage is commemorated with a massive monument, featuring carvings of the ships and concrete polar bears, which looms over the town square, next door to the Crozier’s elegant Georgian family home, which is being restored.

Erebus Sails On — On the way from Belfast to Dublin took a detour to the home of Francis Crozier in Banbridge. He captained HMS Terror when she disappeared into the Arctic. His house is very fine, and the memorial outside is flanked by concrete polar bears.

Less than a week later I was in Providence, Rhode Island for the start of a week-long US and Canadian tour. Beautiful buildings on the hill but I gave my first transatlantic Erebus talk in an old snuff movie house, now reborn and called the Columbus – which seemed a good name for a talk on exploration. The Americans and Canadians don’t do understatement, so instead of the book being called Erebus The Story Of A Ship, over this side of the Atlantic it’s called Erebus, One Ship, Two Epic Voyages, and The Greatest Naval Mystery of All Time, and the cover is black.

More black halfway through my talk in Brooklyn. At one point all the lights went out and the screen went dark as the power cut off. Playing for time, I said that this was a recreation of the Polar winters, when, for five months of winter the sun never rose above the horizon.

Flew from Providence to Newark. A little touch of nostalgia as we skimmed low over the cranes of Newark Docks, where, thirty years ago, and by the skin of my teeth, I’d boarded the container ship that would carry me on the last leg of Around The World In Eighty Days. At the Explorers Club in New York I met a number of grizzled Arctic veterans. One of them winked and said “I can get you down to the wreck, Mike”. It’s been my dream to actually scuba down to Erebus and touch her sides, but Parks Canada seem to have put comedians low down the list of applicants! I learned that the ice was so bad up there this year that they could only manage a day and half’s diving onto the wrecks.

Great audiences at the Opera House in Toronto. An old vaudeville theatre, which had only recently hosted Tom Jones. My last speaking event of the tour was at the very smart new HQ of the Canadian Royal Geographical Society, looking out over the Ottawa River just beside the Rideau waterfall. The highlight of the evening, and probably of the whole tour, came as a complete surprise to me, when John Geiger, on behalf of the RCGS, presented me with the first ever Louie Kamookak medal. This was named after the great Inuit historian and explorer, who died, far too young, earlier this year. He made it his life’s work to find out valuable Inuit evidence of what happened to the Franklin expedition. In a small way, I feel we were fellow-travellers.

On The Road Again

Monday, October 1st 2018

It’s been a while since I enjoyed the full-on delights of a big book tour. There was Brazil in 2011, and a big post-Python At The O2 tour for my diaries in 2014, but since then I’ve been acting and writing rather than selling. This is the crunch time for any venture, the time when you leave the cosy comforts of pre-publication expectations behind and face the verdict from the public.

So far, so good. Erebus was officially available in the bookstores from Thursday September 20th. I was in the car crossing the border into Scotland on Tuesday 25th when I heard the news that we had sold enough to make the top ten in the Sunday Times Best-Seller list. I had a feeling from the reception in Harrogate and Newcastle that a lot of people were interested, and most of them were enthusiastic. The talk at St Boswells in the Scottish Borders went well and the terrific response from sell-out audiences in Falmouth, Dartmouth and at the Appledore Festival in North Devon, justified our Erebus-like course from the north to the far south in a single week.

The beautifully elegant Millennium Bridge, Newcastle, at night.

A bat joined me on stage in Dartmouth. I was looking down and didn’t see it. The audience saw it and laughed. I looked up thinking I’d done something funny, but I hadn’t. At Falmouth I addressed the congregation from a pulpit and remembered that for a few months between wanting to be a test pilot and an explorer, I’d toyed with being a vicar. Captive audience, that sort of thing.

All in all, it couldn’t have been a better first week. Great oysters at Rick Stein’s in Falmouth, discovering one of the great pubs of Britain- The Rat Inn near Corbridge, playing the Tyne Theatre in Newcastle which was opened only twenty years after Erebus disappeared into the ice.

I was working so hard I missed seeing both episodes of my North Korea journey, but heck, I didn’t expect to be still standing unaided at 75!

And there’s another week to go in the UK and Ireland, and then off to the USA and Canada. The North Korea documentary will have gone out in America on September 30th. Will I be allowed into the country? Watch this space.

Calm Before The Storm

Wednesday August 15th

On July 19th the very first copies of Erebus, The Story Of A Ship, came into the world at Clays the Printers in Bungay. There was a nice coincidence here for the first time I ever went to Bungay was on the water. I was seventeen and joint captain of a craft called the The Broadland Widgeon, on which two friends and myself spent a week navigating the Norfolk Broads. We spent one night moored up by the River Waveney at Bungay. It was 1960, and the printers were probably working round the clock to satisfy the demand for Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

The book is born. At Clays the printers in Suffolk with the first copy to come off the presses.

Less sexy, but with more icebergs, Erebus The Story of a Ship will be published soon. In America and Canada it has a different cover, adorned with a quote from Bill Bryson. “Beyond terrific, I didn’t want it to end”. Now that’s one to die for.

Right now I am re-training myself from author to salesman, making sales promotion videos, giving interviews to the national and local newspapers, TV and radio and generally, as they say, “putting myself about “.

There’s still five weeks to go to publication day, and to be honest, the time can’t go fast enough. The book looks very fine and I can’t wait to see it in the shops. I’ll be away to Majorca on a family holiday at the end of August, then back to face a triple whammy of Vanity Fair – the ITV drama series in which I appear as the author William Makepeace Thackeray, two hour-long documentaries on Channel Five made on my two-week trip to North Korea in April and May, and then Erebus, which goes down the slipway and into the viciously crowded waters of autumn book releases on September 20th.

Erebus The Story of a Ship, American and Canadian book cover.

However hard the work, none of it means anything until the public decide how much they like what comes out. So, my fingers, and everything else, are tightly crossed.

Whatever happens I have had fun. And to turn 75 whilst digging with a farmer on a North Korean collective farm, was perhaps the high point of a very wacky year. And the travelling is far from over. Watch out Falmouth, Oswestry, St Boswells, New York, Providence Rhode Island, Ottawa, Hobart, Sydney, Dublin and Brussels – to name but a few. Erebus, and its author, is coming your way. Look busy.

Busy Summer

Wednesday, 27th June, 2018

Not much sun-bathing time ahead, as I begin a schedule of long-lead interviews for the Erebus book (which, incidentally, is looking very nice indeed, ) due for publication on September 20th. As the two North Korea shows for Channel Five are edited together I’ll be commentary recording and doing general publicity for those as well (transmission dates not yet finalised).

Then there are appearances at the Ledbury Poetry Festival on the 3rd July, reading Adrian Mitchell’s very funny, very angry, and occasionally very rude poems, The Idler Festival on the 14th July at Fenton House in Hampstead, and on the 28th two shows at The Great Yorkshire Fringe in York.

First meal in North Korea – on the train to Pyongyang.

After a year or more reading, writing and researching the book it feels good to be getting away from the desk. Yesterday we filmed and recorded some promotional material for Erebus at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. A perfect afternoon of unblinking sunshine hopping from one side of the Greenwich Meridian to the other.

Researching Erebus in the Falklands, came across Port Stanley’s most famous street.

I see that the head of Comedy at the BBC has assured the world that he would not commission anything like Monty Python again. This is evidently nothing to do with the fact that we were dreadfully unfunny and wisely avoided by anyone with a sense of humour, but that, after careful analysis of photographs of the team, we have been found to have white skin colour and worse still, to have gone to two of the most useless universities in the world, Oxford and Cambridge. We can only plead guilty and apologise to the BBC for blatantly disregarding the fact that there is nothing funny at all about white skin pigment and a good education. We were lucky to get away with it for as long as we did.

Talking of Python, I do still go and visit my friend Terry J. Last time we walked up to the pub together. The symptoms of his dementia will not miraculously disappear, but I continue to go and see him because there is a real glimpse of the old Terry there. He says very little, but I feel that we make contact still. There’s a lot there in his eyes, and he smiles and takes my hand, and that’s worth the visit any day. And he’s still walking miles each day. He’s looked after very well – if his carers can keep up with him!

The Last Lap

Friday, 13th April, 2018

As anyone whose ever had to write a book to a deadline will know, the closer it gets to that deadline the more reasons you find to make coffee, check your email, catch up on the last 15 minutes of that irresistible podcast, stare out of the window, or if you’re feeling really energetic, go to sleep. I’ve been fighting these psychological battles rather a lot recently, but thanks largely to the grumpy weather, I’ve never been tempted to stray far from my desktop, and I can report that after eight months of concentration, my book is just about complete.

Erebus research trip to the North West Passage August 2017.
Left: Greenland. Taken on the flight from London to Vancouver. Right: Rock stacks on King Leopold Island. It looks silent but home to thousands of birds and one of the noisest places on Earth.

It’s to be called Erebus The Story of a Ship and it’s my first foray into historical non-fiction. I think the reason I’ve been able to complete it at all is because I have grown more and more fascinated by the story. The more detail you unearth, the more you realise what exciting times those were in the 1840’s, when crews crowded onto small ships to explore the Great Unknown.

Left: Arriving at Resolute. One of the most northerly airports in the world. Right: Remnants of the old US refueling station at Resolute. Now living sculptures.

Left: I was given the pilot’s cabin. Right: Walking in the arctic can get quite warm.

The story is about facing the unknown, and Erebus did that not once but twice. Her Antarctic journey was a triumph. Her Arctic journey was a disaster. And three and a half years ago, she turns up again, in pretty good shape, on the seabed in the Canadian Arctic. All the elements for a great tale. I cross my fingers that the eight months writing has not been wasted. I have a terrific editor who is helping me whip it into final shape, so as spring struggles through and our resident flock of house sparrows perform gymnastic mating feats outside my window, I’m feeling in upbeat mood. Watch this space!

Beechey Island. Two of the graves of the first men to die on the Franklin expedition 1846.

The Death of Stalin is out there in the wider world, except if you’re in Russia, where it remains banned. The opening figures in the USA are promising, though I felt a bit like one of Stalin’s victims when I found they’d removed my face from the US poster. Still, maybe it’ll make it easier for me to get a Russian visa!

Hope you’re all well out there. Please keep in touch.