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Product Description
From Amazon
Actor Michael Palin has managed to keep busy since his days with the British comedy group Monty Python. First, he traveled Around the World in 80 Days while a BBC crew filmed his adventures; in Pole to Pole, Palin once again straps on his old kit bag--this time to traverse the globe from north to south. Accompanied once again by a dauntless film crew, Palin begins in the far, frozen wastes of the Arctic Circle, then passes through 17 countries, including Norway, the former USSR, Turkey, Egypt, South Africa, and Chile, before standing at last at the South Pole. Along the way the company is faced with revolution, illness and injury, and not a few bumpy plane rides--occurrences they meet with the obligatory stiff upper lip. Palin also rides in a hot air balloon, acquires a camel, consults a witch doctor, and plunges into the heart of a South African diamond mine, two kilometers beneath the surface of the earth.
These adventures and more are related in Palin's journal entries and illustrated by dozens of color and black-and-white photographs. The best travel stories often chronicle trips no sane person would care to experience herself; in Pole to Pole, Michael Palin has done the suffering for us, leaving readers to enjoy the humor, excitement, and joy of exotic climes from the comfort of our armchairs. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
The ultimate travel adventure of the jet age may be to journey from the North Pole to the South Pole by every means but airplane. British actor-writer-TV producer Palin (a member of the Monty Python troupe) rose to the challenge in 1991, when he and a BBC-TV crew undertook a five-month trip along the 30 east line of longitude. Through 17 countries they traveled by bus, train, barge, ship, bicycle, car, balloon and raft; when prearranged transport failed them in the last leg of their journey, from South Africa to Antarctica, there was nothing for it but to take a plane. While the sheer mechanics of getting from one place to the next occupied most of the time, Palin vividly reports on the almost daily changes in panorama and the acutely experienced differences in climate, culture, politics, plumbing, lodgings, food and mores. He recoups the keen sense of fun--and of trauma--during the days of this Grand Tour. The narrative is witty and Palin's exuberance contagious. Crew photographer Basil Pao illustrates with a profusion of seductive color shots.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best of the series,
By A Customer
This review is from: Pole to Pole (VHS Tape)
This time, avoiding the obvious too-much-time-at-sea problems of "Around the World in 80 days", Palin's team becomes a marvel of light travel and problem-solving in this somewhat dangerous, honest and good-natured tour of 1990 Eastern Europe and Africa. The music's better too. The best of his series, without a doubt, and possibly the best of this genre of travelogue.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Palin-esque at it's best,
By
This review is from: Pole to Pole (VHS Tape)
This is probably the best of the Palin travel series - excellent and highly recommended. It's a shame it seems to be so difficult to find!
3 of 7 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
They should have called it a day after "80 days"!,
This review is from: Pole to Pole (VHS Tape)
This is another of those programmes that has, and will be, repeated ad nauseam on UK TV, but why, I can only put down to the popularity of Michael Palin and the fact that there's a lot of air time to fill, so repeats are a cheap alternative to new programmes! Following the success of "Aroung the world in 80 days" they decided to send Palin on another gimmick travelogue on celluloid. Unfortunately, "Pole to Pole" pales by comparison. Although it sets out rather well, when Palin gets to Africa - and there is an awful lot of Africa in "Pole to Pole", things get very dull, and you get the feeling that Palin is also bored by the experience a little too. Once you have crossed the deserts of North Africa, from there down, everything looks pretty much the same. One mud hut looks like another; one smiling black face looks like any other smiling black face; you've seen one elephant and you've seen them all and when the jeeps get stuck in the mud yet again, you can but roll your eyes and look at the clock to see when the net programme begins!Finally, to cap it all, "Pole" ends with an anticlimax, much as "80 days" did, with Palin not being able to finish his journey at the Reform Club in London. This time, however, Palin is no where near the South Pole, as someone at the BBC did not make sure that the supply boat which only sails once a year from the Cape to the South Pole had room for the expedition team! It just ends with the feeling that there should be one more episode - Palin sits on the dock with his back to the camera and just says something on the lines of "That's all folks". I expected more. I mean, couldn't they have layed on a jet or something, even just to complete the journey. They could have lied, even, and said that he had made the boat aafter all. We wouldn't have minded, would we? This expedition was poorly planned by the BBC and incompleted as it was, it should not have been aired in the first place!
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