INTERnational treasure! lol

@@GamesWithBrainz Absolutely true. 👍

One of the best books I have ever read

Agreed, he reads the audiobook with great warmth. 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦

I agree. I bought it last year and ploughed through it in a few days. A really good book.

Got it for Christmas and am currently enjoying it very much! Palin is a great storyteller so it’s no surprise his books are so engaging.

Came here to say this. Excellent book. I became a little fixated on the subject after watching “The Terror”

I heard the story about one of the locals went on board one of the ships while the crew was living there and the local person met some of them who's faces was black from the coal dust. its believed that they might have been working on the steam engine at the time they heard him walking about on the top deck

¾³³

It feels like a companion piece to their Last Supper sketch with the Pope complaining to Michelangelo about his composition.

Just to be annoying: Unless you are literally going to another world, travel by definition has to be mundane, that is, of the earth. (I dislike using the term mundane to mean boring, the world is anything but boring)

@@whyjnot420 I don't find it annoying, at all. I'm a bit of a 'word nerd', myself. However, I did check Merriam Webster beforehand - just to make certain I wasn't using the word incorrectly. The initial definition reads: 'of, relating to, characteristic of the world', while the second read: 'characterized by the practical, transitory, and ordinary/commonplace'. I also saw it used as a synonym for 'prosaic', and 'workaday', with words relating as 'commonplace', and 'expected'. And, I agree; the world is anything but boring. Sadly, some view travel as little more than a selfie opportunity, with the assumption and expectation that food and accommodations will be 'just like home'.

@@curiousworld7912 Yeah, like I said, I dislike using the term to mean boring. Not that using it to mean boring is incorrect. I have to admit that due to the common understanding that mundane = boring or everyday stuff even I will use it that way on occasion, if it fits the flow of the words I am using at the time. And even I have to admit that unless you are talking about Finnish, where they literally have a govt organization that officially allows new words into the language. Any living language will change. The only reason it changes is because the people using it, collectively decide that something is different. Take the word "amateur" it comes to English straight from French. But its root is actually the Latin word _amare_ which means "to love". An amateur is some who does something because they enjoy it, or love it. But it has come to mean people with low skill levels. Afterall, you do not need to be skilled to take part in something you enjoy even if it would be desirable to be skilled. Though I do enjoy pointing out the root of the word to people when they talk about the quality of the best fan made things (animations, stories, video game mods, etc.) compared to the professionally made stuff that is official, which in so many cases, is mediocre, or even junk.

@@whyjnot420 Yes, language does change with both time and usage. And, etymology is, I think, fascinating. But, a current grammar 'issue' that feels like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, is making verbs out of nouns; such as 'gifting'.

@@curiousworld7912 "access" as a verb.

Hmmm, debatable

@@bastogne315 You do realize that this was the War of 1812 right, not the American Revolution. Britain had recognized the independence of the United States in 1783. The people inside Fort McHenry during the bombardment were American citizens, not British ones.

And the tune for it is in turn derived from a British soldier's drinking song. Not very original that lot.

@@doug6500 That's actually rather unfair; Francis Scott Key never intended it as a song, he wrote it as a poem. It was later set to the tune of "To Anacreon in Heaven" by Key's brother-in-law Joseph H. Nicholson, when Nicholson noticed that the words fit that song's melody.

@@Hibernicus1968 And it's shite. About as drab and dull as GSTQ.

@@Hibernicus1968 yes? so, bombarding american CITIZENS by BRITISH bombs is quite allright ???!?!?!?

Just finished it, found it fascinating

@@redheathen9580 Ok, just picked it up.

Remember I went up a mountain in Canada and there was a Starbucks at the top. I was disappointed to say the least.

@Jo Sm I took a group of college students to Paris a number of years ago. For the first week, I took them to several excellent local restaurants to introduce them to French cooking. But they were thrilled and greatly relieved when they found a nearby McDonald's. I was crushed.

@Jo Sm It was just the last thing I expected.

So true, it allways baffled me that some people like to travel to find themselves at a similar spot to where they came from. I used to be a turist guide for irish groups and sometimes i would have guys asking me where the irish pub was, and shure enough there would be one, and shure enough they would spend most of their vacations there.

I suppose it depends on how long you've been travelling. If it's a week or two, I agree that looking for similar to home food/places is a bit disappointing. On the other hand, when you've been away from home for weeks or months, a taste of home can be quite nice. I remember going to a Tim Horton's in Muscat for a double double, and a doughnut after being away from home for months, and that cheap coffee was one of the best things I'd tasted in ages.

I know it's based on the book but honestly if the zombie bear ruined it. If you haven't seen it check out the North Water or Black Water not sure of the name exactly but its a series very similar to The Terror but minus the stupid bear. It's got Colin Farrel in it and it's about another ship getting stuck on the ice and they encounter Eskimos. It's more realistic than the terror it's also based off a book it's set in the same-ish time period. It's no spoiler to say Colin Farrel plays a huge bulked up and very intimidating serial killer and they're all stranded with him. He's like Tom Hardy in the revenant and barely recognisable.

@@jplonsdale7242 that sounds awesome thanks!! ill definitely be checking that out. I also really like master and commander but its kinda a different category lol

The Terror is terrific: good script, wonderful recreation of the ships (the set built is now in the Cinemaqua theme park in Hungary) and incredible acting from A-list cast.

I almost didnt watch it because of the zombie bear thing, but luckily i feel required to watch anything with Tobias Menzies and Ciaran Hinds. (Rome reunion!)

every seven years , your body changes to the next stage...

Sounds like it's Tom Hodgkinson. Editor of The Idler and a good friend of Palin's.

The travel stories…the travel stories go without saying…😎

Adam Hart-Davis used to do a charming series on that front for kids that I watched when I was one. I loved it

@@tomtom21194 Yep. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rdORq5af2ai3YIU.html

The language you r writting in for example, else this good be in deustch ma friend

Do you mean Benton Fraser and Stanley Kowalski?

@@aaronleverton4221 I was thinking of HMS Investigator and it's Captain Robert McClure and the discovery of the North West Passage, and the first circumnavigation of the America's

@@RayMcClure I know. I was making a slight (as in not important) pop-culture reference to a show which ends with its two protagonists headed into the icy north to find The Hand of Franklyn.

Yes just watched it thank for the recommendation. Do you think there philosophy on travel is the same Michael's is more Shackleton. Where as Rays is more like Rae's.

@@whoarewe7515 To be honest I don't think Michael Palin is as knowledgeable on the subject as Ray Mears. He said 'furthest south' so often it made me believe he thought the expedition was to the Antarctic. Edit: Ahhh, he was talking about an earlier journey of the Erebus to the Antarctic. His book seems to be more about the ship than about the expedition which apparently is only covered in 1/3rd of his book. My bad.

Not to forget “Across the Andes by Frog”…

I don't think they knew exactly what they were getting into, so ...

Ernest Henry Shackleton was Irish, Not a Brit. Sure we were part of the British Empire but we were never really that encaustic about it.

@@bfhfhfhdj Thanks, I didn't realize that, but he did spend most of his time in, and organised his funding in, England, did he not? Either way, all most of them managed in the polar regions was failure. Look at Franklin - if he hadn't have seen the Inuit as his inferiors, that inbred, upper class twit might have not gotten himself and his entire crew dead.

@@bfhfhfhdj at the time of his birth you were more than part of the Empire. Since the 1800 Act of Union you were part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. So Shackleton was a Brit. In his day.

Or indeed the BBC…

Bah... screw that.... have him set up something that will finally put CNN where it belongs, in a grave, right next to all the other cable "news" channels.

Fox too! But, he would be too smart for them.

@@whyjnot420agreed...that's a much better idea

Good lord, Sir Palin is just to precious to waste on idiotic mass media and news. Burn it all to the ground.

Humans can't help themselves. Ever heard the expression slowing down to look at a car crash? It's based on fact. If a fighter in combat sports dies or breaks a leg or an arm those are always the most viewed. Kids gathering in packs to watch school ground fights It's just built into us in some part of our brain that's still lizard or ape to be interested. Public executions used to draw massive amounts of people I could go on and on

I thought Palin gave a very good answer to that, saying that he'd have liked to see Erebus and Terror on their (successful) exploration of the Antarctic. It is an incredible story of adventure and discovery, e.g. being first to encounter the Great Ice Barrier (now called the Ross Ice Shelf): Ross remarked "We might with equal chance of success try to sail through the Cliffs of Dover"! Highly recommend Palin's book, Erebus.

@@jplonsdale7242 It's true that the fate of the ships & crew is fascinating to people but it would have been odd for Palin to reply that he'd have "liked" to see it: I suppose the question was badly phrased!

Ernest Henry Shackleton was Irish, Not a Brit. Sure we were part of the British Empire but we were never really that encaustic about it.

@@bfhfhfhdj I sincerely apologize for the mistake. 🙏 I know some of the feeling, when people insist on calling me a Swede.

@@henrikg1388 I shouldn't listen to him. Shackleton was Anglo-Irish, had no known republican sympathies, and represented the British Empire. He was as British as they come. Let us go? Odd way of describing Stamford Bridge ;-)