Travelling Diaries

I went to see Michael Palin tonight in Cardiff, as he’s on tour promoting his latest diaries book. These diaries take in the years of his travelling adventures such as ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ and ‘Pole to Pole.’ For the first half he took us through these travels and some of the amazing sights and memories that he had of those times. Even though ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ is like 25 years old now, it feels fresh in the memory but how the world has changed. Michael took us to places which in 1989 you were able to travel through relatively safe, but now in 2014 are no go areas because of terrorism and wars.

The second half focussed on his comedy career, how he was inspired by the comedy of the Goons, childhood memories and the meeting of the minds that were to become Monty Python. He did a Q&A session at the end and also sang the Lumberjack Song, although in German after the special German Python episode that they did.

Michael seems a really genuine bloke, really friendly, clearly very funny and a great storyteller. It was a really great way to end a busy day.

As in the morning I ran the Swansea 10k in a new personal best of 1hr 14min 39secs, knocking seven minutes off my previous best. It was a glorious day for it as well.

I’m bushwhacked by the end of the day though, but happy :)