Unstoppable at 82, Palin braves troubled Venezuela

The Monty Python star says he will keep exploring the globe 'as long as people want me to do it'

- By Simon Calder

Michael Palin has reached 100. Not in age, of course; he is still 18 years short of a century, and looks much younger than his 82 years. The Monty Python star-turned-global explorer is back from his 100th country. And a mighty strange and seductive one it was, too.

“I’m glad to have been to Egypt and Moldova, to Iraq and Mali, but none has the same alluring cadence as Ven-Ez-Ue-La.” That is how he introduces the book that accompanies his latest Channel 5 series: Michael Palin in Venezuela.

What were the producers thinking? Even by his usual standards, this journey was absurdly perilous.

The Foreign Office does not believe that the troubled South American nation should be on anyone's itinerary. “Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world,” it warns. “Armed robbery, mugging, carjacking and burglary are all very common and often accompanied by extreme violence.”