KEY POINTS:
When British writer-comedian Michael Palin arrived in Perth two weeks ago to promote his new book and TV series New Europe, his luggage was delayed and he had to endure the first day of his Australian tour without clean underwear.
Then Palin, who spent part of last weekend in a Taupo luxury lodge, forgot to pack his smalls when he came to Auckland to start the New Zealand leg of his tour. "It's become a recurring theme," he quipped just before yesterday's Dymocks-NZ Herald lunch at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
More than 500 fans packed the hotel's ballroom to listen to Palin's potted guide to New Europe, a journey through 20 countries previously cut off behind the Iron Curtain. "It was like discovering a branch of the family you knew existed but had never met."
Palin described how he and his crew started filming on the mountain border between Slovenia and Italy, where he was geared up in heavy-weather clothing, making a grandiose speech as he pointed east and gestured towards the start of a momentous journey. "Then I went arse over tit into a snowdrift."
Palin, who first came to fame as part of the Monty Python team and has since forged a successful career as travel writer and documentary maker, is well known for series such as Around the World In 80 Days and Pole To Pole.
As an aside he spoke about the rigours of filming at the South Pole in - 56C conditions, where he had one chance to do a short introduction to camera. He was extremely proud of his efforts, he related, until he saw the smirk on the cameraman's face, who told him he'd better have a listen.
"I'd just said on camera that as a boy I'd loved reading about the exploits of Scott and Amundsen under the bedclothes at night."
There were some more sombre sides to Palin's talk. His visit to Bosnia "got to the heart of one of the most difficult stories" as he described the destruction of the Old Bridge at Mostar, built 400 years ago and blown apart in seconds by artillery in 1993. It reopened three years ago.
Among many amusing anecdotes, Palin told of how he and his crew travelled by boat from Dubrovnik to Albania, only to find the glamorous lady assigned to do their catering was fond of nude sunbathing on deck; how he rode on an early morning Romanian train full of drunk lumberjacks who "got off to work plastered, carrying chainsaws"; and how, in Estonia, he bonded with three leeches attached to his body, then bled profusely overnight all over the pristine white sheets in his boutique hotel. "Where was the horse's head?" he joked.
After an hour, Palin was disappointed to have no time for questions. He was whisked off to sign copies of New Europe for a very long line of fans.
* The New Europe series starts on TV One on December 9.
