The one that got away

Michael Palin is the meekest, mildest and nicest of the Pythons. The latest chunk of his diaries traces his attempt during the 1980s to break away from his wacky colleagues and forge a film-making career in his own right. The title, Halfway to Hollywood, reflects his modest, circumspect nature. We first meet the millionaire filmstar living a monkish existence in Camden in 1980. He occupies an ordinary townhouse. His three children attend state schools. And he drives a Mini, albeit with a sun-roof. To concentrate on screen-writing he turns down $180,000 to appear in a Hollywood movie (you should multiply by about six to get today’s values) and a week later he goes to Hamleys, where he startles himself with his extravagance by spending £59.99 on a model railway kit which he’s dreamed of, he says, for 28 years. A little later he rejects ‘lavish inducements’ to do a week’s work on Yellowbeard, a Graham Chapman film, but when he’s summoned for jury service the next day he hasn’t the guile (or the calculation, perhaps) to use the film as a pretext to avoid his civic obligations.