Michael Palin at The Oldie Literary lunch in November 2023
Copyright Neil Spence / The Oldie
This week's pin-up is the globe-trotting Python, Michael Palin, 82.
After his Monty Python and Ripping Yarn triumphs, Michael reinvented himself as one of the great travelling TV presenters.
Michael is famously nice. As he said in a recent interview with The Oldie:
‘I slightly object to the “nice” tag,’ he says. ‘“Nice” is such a wet word, really. I was in a way the most conciliatory Python. I brought people together, settled arguments sometimes.
‘Maggie Smith once described me as a saint, the sort of good person who, if he went and strangled a baby in the street, people would say the baby attacked him first.
‘Still, I love playing nasty characters.’ We salute you, Sir Michael.
