• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Michael Palin

  • Home
  • Palin’s Posts
  • News
  • Photos
  • The Works
    • Into Iraq
    • North Korea Journal
    • The Erebus Log
    • My Diaries
    • Dr. Fegg’s Page
    • Watch
    • Listen
  • Shop
  • (0)
    • Empty
Hide Search

Palin's Posts

Select a year
All 202320222021202020192018201720162015
Select a Palin's Post
The Beautiful Game That Time Of Year Let’s Hear It For Iraq A Memory On The Road Again – again Nights in Belfast On Squatting Perfect Matches Things To Be Proud Of Change Of Heart The Bishops Finger A Day For The Diary Walk, Don’t Run London Lockdown Inspirational Eccentricity Marking Time Big Day For Erebus Fans Out Of The Window Pre-April Fool History Doesn’t Always Repeat Itself Knowing Terry Nancy Jones Ticker Tapes 3 Fifty Years On Ticker Tapes 2 The Ticker Tapes Bournemouth and Beyond Getting On A Bit End Of Term Surprise Down Under and Underground Archives and Anniversaries Erebus Sails On On The Road Again Calm Before The Storm Busy Summer The Last Lap Erebus Sails on into the New Year Death of Stalin Day North-West Passage Following The Fleet Spring Into Action A Weekend In Pakistan Cold Start Ten Days in Taiwan A Yorkshireman In Paris Brazil and Why the Thought of It Cheers Me Up June goes out with a groan May on The Way Still Travelling Martin Honeysett and Dr. Fegg Farewell to the Thirty Years Tour Warm in London Eurostar to Paris

2018

Palin's Posts

Down Under and Underground

Thursday, December 20, 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.

Down Under and Underground
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.
Down Under and Underground
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.

Down Under and Underground

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 22, 2018

Archives and Anniversaries

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!

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 23, 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.

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.

Flying to America, I caught this glimpse of magnificent Labrador landscape. Put me in the right mood for talking about Erebus.

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.

First night of the US tour was also my first visit to Providence, Rhode Island. Took the street name as a good omen as was the name of the theatre where I gave my talk about exploration.

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 1, 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.

Left: The beautifully elegant Millennium Bridge, Newcastle, at night. Right: Ripon Cathedral.

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.

Falmouth from my hotel room.

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 15, 2018

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

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.

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.

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

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.

1 2 »

Footer

About

  • About Michael Palin
  • Biography
  • Watch
  • Listen
  • Contact
  • Friends

Shop

  • Shop
  • Delivery
  • International Delivery
  • Returns
  • Payment

Important

  • Privacy Notice
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Cookie Policy
  • Credits

Other

  • Palin’s Travels
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Instagram

Copyright © 2023 Prominent Palin Productions Ltd · A Strand Design Website

This site uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience. By clicking 'Allow all', you consent to the use of all the cookies.
Cookie policy Manage cookiesAllow all
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT