Michael Palin
RIGHT, I'M OFF I began travelling (for television in 1988) because I wanted to see the world. Growing up in Sheffield, a grey industrial city in the north of England, I was taught by two charismatic geography teachers. I had always loved the idea of foreign countries, of being somewhere very different from home. Monty Python had run its course - we'd done four or five very productive years in television in the early 70s and three films; and I'd finished [writing for and acting in] seven films aside from that [including Time Bandits and A Fish Called Wanda]. At the time the offer to host Around the World in 80 Days came up, there was nothing else I really wanted to do.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE ... Hong Kong is a perfect example of an ever-changing world. The last time I was here was five years ago and I don't recognise 10 or 12 of the buildings I see now from [his hotel room]. When we travelled in 1996 for the series Full Circle, the Pacific Rim was in crisis - now look at it. China is probably the country that has changed faster than any in the 20 years since I've been travelling [for TV].
The question is whether our material wealth frees our minds to address problems. We know more about the dangers of climate change; we know we've got to start thinking about alternatives [because of energy] depletion. Yet we see the same movement of people from the countryside into the cities; we see people being cleared off their land for the mining of raw materials; it's like what happened in America in the days of the Wild West ... it's like we haven't learnt much. I'm an optimist. I believe in human ingenuity and that we will somehow survive - but I see my two little grandsons growing up and I wonder what problems they will have to deal with.
POOR CHOICE OF WORD 'Poverty' is sometimes used by people who have a lot of money to describe people ... who haven't. I realise that we are very much conditioned in our modern lives. I depend on the electricity company for light, on planes bringing food from 300 miles away, on someone to build the roads. I have just been to parts of Orissa, India, where people have little money yet are in control of everything they do. Their lives may not offer as many options as ours but they've lived on the land for 2,000 years. They know how to cultivate it; they are not destroying anyone else's livelihood; and they are creating in many cases a sense of contentment and fulfilment, which is rather enviable. A lot of the things we now think are important, like sustainable agriculture, development of community, lack of consumerism, are things they have and we don't. To destroy that way of life is to do so at our own peril.
HIGH SOCIETY Everyone who was anyone in British exploration over the past 170 years has probably worked for the Royal Geographical Society. I've been a fellow since 1978. As society president and part of the council, I help administer funds for the advancement of geography, whether that is encouraging field work, running seminars, advising the government or funding courses in schools and universities. I'm also keen on improving our facilities in London - a fine old house in Hyde Park, next to Albert Hall, with terrific libraries and archives.
THE FULL MONTY Almost the Truth is a very long [Monty Python] documentary: six hours. Bill Jones [Python team member Terry Jones' son] was part of the production team. It was his idea to do it exhaustively - from our births right up to the present. We all thought, 'This is overindulgent' but actually, once you get away from the usual story, you get quite a lot of revelations. John Cleese was well on his way to becoming a lawyer; it was quite a twist of fate that he ended up doing comedy. He would have ended up being one of those brilliant people in the courtroom, making people laugh and winning lots of cases, and very rich, I imagine. Terry Jones talks about how he thought everyone was terribly clever at Oxford [University] and how he wasn't - which surprised me; I always thought Terry was one of the cleverest people I knew.