Palin's Column

Palin's Column, a television series that focuses on travel reporting, features former Monty Python star turned roving reporter Micheal Palin. The series appeared on Britain's Channel 4 network in June, 1994. The 4 episodes revolve around Palin's accounts of events on the Isle of Wight, a small island off the coast of England. Palin takes a position as a guest columnist for an Isle of Wight newspaper. Each half-hour episode finds Palin giving his impressions about interesting and amusing functions he has attended. One episode finds Palin at a conker tournament, where two players have horse-chestnuts, also called conkers, attached to a string and take turns trying to crack the other player's nut. He also visits the Pankhurst jail, which was once one of the top-security prisons in Britain. The series consists of only 4 episodes, but Palin continues to do travel reporting on various other programs for which he generally receives good reviews.