Jenny Brown chaired the session with Michael Palin which was billed as "The RBS Event" and there were a very large number of RBS guests attending, so the seating available for the general public was somewhat limited for this very popular event. However, that said, we were treated to a delightful hour of discourse and a reading from the great man himself from his new novel, The Truth.
Brown was directing the Book Festival in 1987 which was the last time that Palin came to Edinburgh although he was reminded by a questioner that he had been to the city more recently when he came to make a programme in 1997 on Anne Redpath and then again in 2000 to look at the Scottish colourists.
Brown pointed out that since then Palin, who was a co-founder of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" has become a well known television travel journalist as well as continuing with his acting and film career - and writing his first novel. (The Truth will be his second.)
The upshot was that, as Palin said, "Edinburgh means a lot to me" and he recalled his early visits as a student from Oxford where he tried hard to get people to come to their show - he need not have worried, as such was the demand for tickets that they even had to put on "reject nights" for those scripts which had not been selected for performance at the Fringe, some of which proved very popular with audiences.
He touched on many of his travels, even expressing wonder on the magnificence of a Victorian sewer! He also expressed a fantasy where he managed to bring together David Attenborough and Bruce Springsteen while he acted as referee.
When speaking about his novels, he said that his wife had enjoyed hearing his first book serialised on the BBC, where only about 20% of the book is used; Palin asked her if she could make sense of the plot and she replied, "Yes, perfectly!" Possibly the moral being that too many words were wasted in the book version!
He commented that he loved seeing Eric Idle at the Olympic Games Closing Ceremony singing "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life", commenting that perhaps it would have saved time if George Michael had only sung one song and not two!
He concluded with a reference to his "Desert Island Discs" appearance many years ago, by saying to Brown that the one luxury he would still take with him anywhere was a nice feather pillow!
All in all it was a delightfully relaxed hour with one of the nicest men you could meet on the planet.
Event: Monday 13 August 2012, 6:30pm