Michael Palin's Around The World in 80 Days

Cafe Society
1

Through a happy accident in which I didn’t read the author’s name on the audiobook I’m currently listening too, I’ve recently been enjoying Michael Palin narrate his adventure following in Phileas Fogg footsteps around the world in (hopefully) less than eight days (I’m up to where he arrives in Singapore). Doing a web search to find out more information, I’m extremely happy to find the full text of it online at http://www.palinstravels.co.uk/static-7, along with photographs (including the cockatoo) and other adventures.

Since the part of Passepartout was played by various BBC filming crew through the trip, I find myself desiring to watch the results of this documentary. Unfortunately, my only source of DVDs at this time (due my unfortunate profession) is NetFlix, which doesn’t carry it. Does it ever show on the BBC America or PBS?

2

I’ve seen it pop up on Bravo now and again.

Also check out “Pole to Pole” and “Full Circle”.

3

His more recent trips, following Hemingway’s footsteps, and his trip across the Sahara, aren’t quite as good, IMHO. They lack the urgency and adventure, and seem to be more pedestrian, and even dull.

4

His stuff is absolutely wonderful to watch.

5

It was on PBS, but several years ago. The BBC site shows a European-standard DVD available, but not a North American format one.

6

I’ve seen it in several branches of the public library. Sometimes the local PBS affiliates will show it during pledge drives.

7

I saw the DVD on the BBC website but forgot to even consider the region encoding. Damn them all! They’ll make me hook up my Linux box to my TV yet!

8

It’s available from amazon.co.uk for £15. In PAL and region 2. However, making your player region free is easy, and legal, and most modern TVs handle both NTSC and PAL. dvdrhelp.com has a lot of useful information.

9

It’s also available in VHS from Amazon.

10

If you’re in the US, request it from the library. My mom did, and it came from somewhere in Illinois or Iowa in a couple of days. The entire series. It was great.

11

While it’s true that making some DVD players region free is possible, most North American TV sets are NTSC only. I believe most European TVs handle both formats, though.

12

After re-checking (I do a lot of NTSC to PAL, so I had to back track), it seems quite a few players can convert PAL to NTSC, thus eliminating the need for any special TV. Googling returns a lot of results and anyone interested is sure to find a solution.

13

He most recently did Crossing the Sahara.
One of the cool parts was when he went to Tanzinia to where they had filmed Life of Brian.

14

That would be Tunisia (Tanzania is in south eastern Africa, a long way from the Sahara).

The only aspect of Around the World in 80 Days that got on my nerves was the tendency to pretend, from time to time at least, that he was alone (i.e. no crew). I won’t spoil it, Skott, but the end is worth waiting for.

15

Thanks for the idea! I didn’t know our library did out-of-county requests, but they do apparently, so it’s on its way! Looking forward to it.

P.S. Finished the audiobook. Really enjoyed it, although having the club closed was a bit of a letdown.

16

Watch out for the “dubious science” on this otherwise entertaining offering. The bit about the whirlpools at the equator was just hilarious.