Like The Jolly Christmas Lights Of Regent Street, They Are To Prove Sadly Deceptive

Around The World In 80 Days With Michael Palin: Dateline To Deadline (BBC1, 1989).

On Sunday 24th September 1988, Michael Palin temporarily signed off from his rigorously-maintained diary with “To bed about two o’clock and to sleep an hour or so before dawn – there’s no turning back now”. He was, as if this required any clarification, setting off on an attempt to recreate Phileas Fogg’s fictional attempt to traverse the entire globe in eighty days for the BBC, eventually returning – with hours to spare, and even then looking as though he might not quite make it – on 12th December, and although it never gets recognised as such, in many respects his return to the miserable weather and equally miserable populace of London is every bit as fascinating and revealing as when he got that old bloke on the dhow to listen to Bruce Springsteen.

Originally broadcast by BBC1 at 21.30pm on Wednesday 22nd November 1989 – the same evening as the first episode of what for a long time was the last ever Doctor Who story Survival, while over on Radio 1 his old schoolfriend John Peel was cueing up a session from an obscure lo-fi American band called Nirvana – Dateline To Deadline, the seventh and final episode of Around The World In 80 Days, joins Michael Palin on Day Sixty Three with the end of his quest in sight but still not really quite close enough in sight for comfort. It’s 26th November 1988, almost exactly twelve months before Dateline To Deadline actually went out, and TV’s Inspector Muffin The Mule is on board the Neptune Garnet, a commercial vessel headed across the Pacific from Singapore to Long Beach, California. He has in fact been on board for ten days and following skirmishes with turbulent weather conditions, wildly fragmented sleep patterns and a dream in which Margaret Thatcher was polite to him, you get the distinct impression that he may not exactly be crestfallen to see the back of it. Thankfully today Long Beach is in sight; literally in sight, in fact, as the gigantic hangar housing The Spruce Goose – an impractically oversized flying boat constructed by Howard Hughes in the days when billionaires got up to that sort of nonsense instead of buying social media platforms because they felt they were being discriminated against for having phenomenal amounts of money and influence and being alarmingly white – is all too visible on the horizon. He is, at this point, two days behind his fictional counterpart’s progress.

On disembarking at Long Beach, he is straight on to another boat – only this one isn’t actually going anywhere. Decommissioned in 1967, the RMS Queen Mary was once one of the most glamorous and exclusive of the Atlantic-crossing ocean liners, but after jet air travel became more affordable and indeed glamorous and exclusive it steadily decreased in popularity until finally setting sail for California to be converted into a suitably lavishly appointed floating hotel. Reminders of its glory days and the stage, screen and less excitingly political icons who lounged around on its decks and challenged each other to what were no doubt highly prestigious games of table tennis are everywhere, but as Palin notes, if you want to cross the Atlantic now, you either do it by cargo ship or you don’t do it at all; and that’s exactly what he’s looking for while staying there. Finding a cargo ship with spare passenger capacity on the appropriate route in fact proves to be quite easy – there’s one heading off on 3rd December – but they all leave from New York and getting across from the West Coast to the East is another question. The only real option is an Amtrak service leaving California in the afternoon on 28th November, which means he will have to leave in something of a hurry, make a precarious snow delay-prone connection on the 29th, and hopefully alight in New York on 2nd December. With plenty of stops along the way, there is every chance that this could end up Around The World In Frustratingly Just Over Eighty Days. Still, there are plenty of impressive diversions and distractions to hand while waiting including a massive bath with the settings ‘Freshwater Hot’, ‘Freshwater Cold’, ‘Seawater Hot’ and ‘Seawater Cold’, breakfast at the Sidewalk Cafe And Bookshop on Venice Beach, street performers entertaining the crowds including a man juggling chainsaws and a robot dancer with an alarmingly convincingly timed mechanical sound for every movement, a bloke playing the Harlem Globetrotters’ theme song on a honky tonk piano, and the jaw-dropping displays of weight-lifting feats at Muscle Beach. There’s also the floating hotel’s on-demand movie, which turns out to be A Fish Called Wanda.

Then it’s off to the awe-inspiring thirties architecture of Los Angeles Station to catch a double-decker Amtrak train that looks like someone has shoved some wheels on a 3 Musketeers bar that’s been in someone else’s pocket for three weeks. The Desert Wind might look shabby from the outside, but inside it’s a well-appointed affair more like a passenger plane than a train, full of vivacious fellow travellers and even the conductor, despite bearing more than a passing resemblance to Blakey from On The Buses, turns out to be something of a natural showman. This comes very much to the fore as they race past dozens of notable American landmarks including, to Palin’s wry amusement, the birthplace of Richard Nixon, but as ever, the real America is to be found inside the train. There’s a dynamic accountant who carries his hi-tech for the time work with him at all hours of the day and is pretty much the exact opposite of the accountants that Monty Python poked such memorable and merciless fun at, a real estate broker with a sideline in bespoke dress design, a woman who has embarked on a successful new career as a clown and a man who prefers long-haul train travel to driving. Unfortunately, in a slightly worrying sign, it also sets off over an hour late and despite their tendency towards amateur vaudeville, everyone else seems far less concerned at this than he is.

With a day to spare on his own schedule, if not that of Jules Verne’s top-hatted potato chip-profferer, Palin takes the opportunity to take advantage of one of the scheduled stops, disembarking at Glenwood Springs for a quick tour of Aspen in a hot air balloon – a mode of transport that, it turns out, did not feature in the original novel but was invented for the 1956 movie and just somehow stuck as an iconic image – and a race through the Rockies on a husky-driven sled. Although it makes for some astonishing visuals, this also proves to be a rash decision as the following day’s train to Chicago is delayed as the mighty California Zephyr is currently stuck in snow – and as it’s now 1st December, if he misses his connection to New York he literally misses the boat. Fortunately, following the sort of interminable fifty minutes or so of hopping anxiously from foot to foot listening out for announcements that never come that will be more than familiar to British rail passengers – and indeed at the time British Rail passengers – wherever they are in the world, the train finally pulls up at the station.

Arriving at Union Station with seven minutes to make his connection along its very long and confusing concourse, there is an unexpected complication when he is mysteriously paged over the tannoy, and arrives at customer information to be handed a message from a friend based in Chicago suggesting they meet up if there’s time. With seconds to spare, he’s on board in the company of a group of women wickedly outlining their plans to see The Chippendales, and arrives at Grand Central Station with half a day left to make it to the ship and any chance of making it home for Christmas – which, thanks to a Salvation Army band briskly blaring out carols behind a sign reminding all and sundry that ‘Caring Is Sharing’, suddenly feels very close on the horizon after months spent traversing altogether different horizons. With the taciturn assistance of the only untalkative cabbie in New York, it’s straight on to Danish container ship The Leda Maersk for a relatively relaxed and comfortable nine day crossing in the company of a friendly and cultured crew; who, it must be noted, number almost as many women as men. Now more or less caught up with his literary rival, it’s time to pack up all of his travel essentials for one last time, reflecting on his journey and starting to look forward to seeing his friends and family again. However – ironically for someone who took part in the outdoor sketches in Monty Python’s Flying Circus – he has reckoned without just how selfish and obstructive Britain and its inhabitants can be without even trying.

Everything starts well in the mid-morning of 12th December 1988 – Day Seventy Nine – with a lift from Felixstowe container port to the train station from a cheerful lorry driver who is more than happy to hear about his famous passenger’s unlikely exploits, and unlit Christmas lights draped around the lampposts in the town centre, but Palin ominously notes that “I don’t know if I’m ready for traffic jams and telephones just yet” – and he has little idea of just how correct that musing is about to be proved to be. Leaving Felixstowe by train at half past twelve, there’s a change at Ipswich before arriving at Liverpool Street with a couple of hours left to make it to The Reform Club before his departure time on Day One catches up with him. It’s heading towards the time of day when most people are clocking off from work and crowding on to public transport, and Palin is already unnerved by the unfriendliness and background tension that you scarcely notice as a full-time Londoner but which is thrown into sharp relief when you’ve been associating with snake charmers and pass-the-parcel obsessed merchant seamen when the unthinkable happens. Eight minutes into a ten minute Tube journey to Oxford Circus, the train resolutely refuses to leave the station at Tottenham Court Road. There’s been an alert over a suspect package and the entire Central Line has ground to a halt while the requisite precautions are taken, and in the minutes that feel like millennia, Palin imagines he can hear Fogg galloping to victory on the streets above.

Emerging back onto the Central London streets at Oxford Road, an attempt to get a newspaper vendor to confirm the day, date and time is met with a surly and aggrieved response from a miserable gentleman who makes it very clear he wants nothing to do with namby pamby media people and their fancy ways, occasioning a classic example of politely angry Michael Palin to rank with his fury at Malcolm Muggeridge when discussing Life Of Brian on Friday Night And Saturday Morning. Although the staff of a nearby Bureau de Change are considerably more accommodating, his journey along Regent Street, through Waterloo Place and up Pall Mall to The Reform Club is marked by a sour-faced and defensive surliness that culminates in the club refusing him access and refusing to explain why. That’s how the extraordinary journey ends, unwanted and unwelcome on a noisy exhaust fume-filled street on a cold winter night while a group of people who have probably not achieved anything quite so remarkable party away indoors regardless. In a pleasing moment, however, there is a more positive reception to be found at the BBC, where – bursting through the door with a relieved grin and a well-timed ‘It’s…’ – Terry Gilliam and Robert Hewison are waiting to greet him and express astonishment that he has actually been able to secure the typically bewildering souvenirs they requested. With hours to spare, Palin finally announces his intention to go to bed and stay there for some time.

There is one positive, affirming and upbeat and hopeful counterpoint to his miserable trudge towards the least spectacular conclusion in travel documentary history, though – the further along he gets towards Pall Mall, the more lights start appearing on shopfronts and decorations in windows. It’s not quite Christmas yet – and doubtless the individuals he encountered en route were already busy mumbling to themselves that Christmas seems to start earlier each year – but under slightly less miseryguts circumstances arriving back home into what isn’t quite yet a Winter Wonderland but has certainly opened more than a few doors on its Advent calendar would have made for a very magical moment indeed. While it’s probably more likely that he heard stray off-camera blasts of Radio Romance by Tiffany as he made his way along Regent Street, the putative seasonal pop hits starting to find their way onto playlists and into record shops included True Love by Shakin’ Stevens, The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire) by Alexander O’Neal, Especially For You by Kylie Minogue And Jason Donovan, Keeping The Dream Alive by Freiheit which is not a Christmas Song, Cat Amongst The Pigeons/Silent Night by Bros and the eventual chart victor Mistletoe And Wine by Cliff Richard, which frankly in itself provided more than enough reason to simply turn around and head straight off back around the world again. Also back in the charts for barely explicable reasons was Downtown ’88 by Petula Clark, which if heard devoid of context might well have caused the hapless globetrotter to momentarily wonder if he had travelled back in time and was still appearing in the Experimental Theatre Club’s production of The Birthday Party. Given how quickly they sold out in the run-up to Christmas, there were probably a few savvy parents barrelling out of shops with armfuls of The Real Ghostbusters Proton Packs too. In short, there was a lot of Christmas Spirit around. You just had a look a bit harder for it than usual, and probably dodge the odd babbling newspaper vendor along the way too.

You would probably have expected Michael Palin to take some time off for the remainder of 1988, not least on account of the fact that even while he had taken three months out to embark on a secret project that the world at large had little to no knowledge of, he had somehow remained as visible as ever. A Fish Called Wanda had opened on 14th October to rapturous acclaim and steamrollered box office records into concrete while the rest of the cast took great delight in coming up with ever more ludicrous explanations for his absence in promotional appearances. Number 27, Palin’s television play starring Nigel Planer as a property developer unwilling to persuade an elderly widow to sell her house, enjoyed its well received premiere on BBC2 on 23rd October, while And Now For Something Completely Different, Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life and Time Bandits had all received television showings, and the tenth anniversary of Handmade Films had put Life Of Brian and The Missionary back in the spotlight. Even so, there are offers to consider, interviews to give and charity events to present and while it could scarcely be described as throwing yourself back into a regular work schedule, clearly a return to reality needed more routine than rest. On December 23rd, however, the indefatigable traveller finally clocks off and sets out with the family for Christmas in Suffolk, presumably – doubtless enjoying an easier journey than trying to get from Liverpool Street Station to The Reform Club – arriving in time for BBC1’s infamously complaint-baiting showing of Jagged Edge on Christmas Eve. The BBC’s big film on Christmas Day itself, however, was John Cleese’s 1985 western Silverado, about which Michael Palin’s diary is, for once, suspiciously quiet. Meanwhile, we can only hope that all of those miserable characters who were so lacking in Christmas Spirit twelve days earlier ended up getting the traditional sack of ashes. Although to be honest that’s probably exactly what they wanted.

Buy A Book!

You can find an expanded version of Like The Jolly Christmas Lights Of Regent Street, They Are To Prove Sadly Deceptive, with tons more on the sights and sounds of Christmas 1988 and a look at the virtually forgotten Michael Palin sketch show The Art Of Travel, in Keep Left, Swipe Right, available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.

Alternately, if you’re just feeling generous, you can buy me a coffee here. Try not to engage the barista in jolly on-camera pleasantries though.

Further Listening

Why was a very young Grace Dent terrified by some repeats of Monty Python’s Flying Circus? Find out in Looks Unfamiliar here! You can also find Donna Rees on The Monty Python Matching Tie And Handkerchief here and the Ripping Yarns episode Golden Gordon here.