Around the world in 80 days - Hardcover

Michael-palin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0563208260 ISBN 13: 9780563208266

Publisher: BBC Books, 1989

Synopsis

In the autumn of 1988 Michael Palin set out from the Reform Club to circumnavigate the world, following the route taken by Phileas Fogg 115 years earlier. He had to make the journey in 80 days - accompanied by a BBC film crew - using only forms of transport that would have been available to Fogg. Their voyage took them from the opulence of the Orient Express to the stench of a Venetian refuse-collecting boat; from the lurching progress of an Egyptian camel called Michael to the heights of a hot-air balloon over Aspen,Colorado. Palin was attacked by a parrot in Hong Kong, given a close shave by an apparently blind Indian barber and accepted into the Brotherhood of Mariners by King Neptune himself - all recorded by the BBC film crew and resulting in a six-part television series on BBC1. This book is the story of, and the story behind, the making of that television series.

About this title

Reviews

For a TV series, the BBC dispatched Monty Python comedian Palin to travel the world in 80 days, following in the steps of Phileas Fogg--Jules Verne's hero in the novel Around the World in 80 Days --who made the voyage in 1872. Palin's notes on the journey are collected here in chronological order. Forbidden to use modern transport, he made the trip by means available to his predecessor--train, boat, camel, etc.--and handily crossed the globe in the time allotted, passing through Italy, Greece, Egypt, India, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and the U.S. The results in prose are improvisational, amiable, anecdotal and yet curiously flat--Palin's characteristic wit is missing. Photos are mostly conventional tourist shots, though a few color glimpses of Shanghai and other sights are vivid.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Palin, a member of the Monty Python comic troupe, is the most recent voyager to be inspired by Jules Verne's famous novel. His journey (filmed by the BBC), which barred airplane travel and tried to loosely follow Phileas Fogg's route, was much more of a lark than an adventure. It takes a fair amount of planning to circumnavigate the Earth in 80 days, even today: while technology has added greatly to travelers' comforts, political and bureaucratic obstacles may be even worse than in the past, and ocean travel is also more difficult to arrange. Palin writes in diary format, and he maintains his good humor throughout. The book is richly illustrated but needs a better map of the route traveled. Recommended for public libraries.
- Harold M. Otness, Southern Oregon State Coll. Lib., Ashland
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: BBC Books
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0563208260
• ISBN 13: 9780563208266
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 200