1
00:00:01,367 --> 00:00:07,158
The idea was from Clem Vallance, who had
the idea for "Around The World In 80 Days".

2
00:00:07,327 --> 00:00:09,636
Um...

3
00:00:09,807 --> 00:00:13,880
We weren't going to do a follow-up
to "Around The World".

4
00:00:14,047 --> 00:00:19,724
It was a once-off. I went back to acting
and made "American Friends"

5
00:00:19,887 --> 00:00:25,837
and appeared in Alan Bleasdale's "GBH"
after "Around The World In 80 Days".

6
00:00:26,007 --> 00:00:30,046
I thought, "That's what I do.
Travel's just a one-off."

7
00:00:30,207 --> 00:00:34,644
But it had made a big impact,
"Around The World In 80 Days",

8
00:00:34,807 --> 00:00:40,086
and people seemed to know about it.
They'd say, "Off again, Mike?"

9
00:00:40,247 --> 00:00:44,286
Or if you showed any hesitation
about where you were going,

10
00:00:44,447 --> 00:00:48,201
"Lost again? Can't get across Oxford Street?"

11
00:00:48,367 --> 00:00:52,565
There was an expectation
I should do another journey.

12
00:00:52,727 --> 00:00:56,356
So I think Clem and I just kept in touch.

13
00:00:56,527 --> 00:01:01,282
Um... Had lunch every now and then.
Looked at a few maps.

14
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I quite liked the idea of going north-south.

15
00:01:05,207 --> 00:01:07,482
We discussed that.

16
00:01:07,647 --> 00:01:11,606
But it was Clem Vallance
who had the idea of "Pole To Pole",

17
00:01:11,767 --> 00:01:15,965
certainly of the line
going down 30 degrees east longitude,

18
00:01:16,127 --> 00:01:20,245
because it went through the most land surface.

19
00:01:20,407 --> 00:01:25,959
That was quite a crucial decision
about "Pole To Pole", the route.

20
00:01:26,127 --> 00:01:31,406
If you went north to south directly,
it's mostly water, so it's boring.

21
00:01:31,567 --> 00:01:35,480
You know, 35 different kinds of fish, and that's it!

22
00:01:35,647 --> 00:01:41,404
So it was Clem who had the idea
of going 30 degrees east.

23
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I was very relieved that "Around The World
In 80 Days" worked as well as it did

24
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because we were all unsure

25
00:01:50,767 --> 00:01:55,602
quite what would turn out
of this documentary that had no script

26
00:01:55,767 --> 00:01:58,759
and had me rushing round the world.

27
00:01:59,527 --> 00:02:06,205
And er... the fact that it had been
very popular in terms of audience

28
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and that the book had sold amazingly well

29
00:02:09,927 --> 00:02:12,919
made me feel we'd achieved something.

30
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There's obviously something
about this kind of travel that people relate to.

31
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So I don't think I ever felt,
"That's it, I never want to travel again."

32
00:02:24,607 --> 00:02:28,566
My only feeling was,
"How do we do another one?"

33
00:02:28,727 --> 00:02:32,402
"Around The World In 80 Days"
was based on a book.

34
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It had a story and a life that we hadn't given it.

35
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The life was given it by Jules Verne.
There was nothing else like that.

36
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So I was very wary
of just doing a follow-up for the sake of it.

37
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I think, certainly for 18 months or so,
I resisted, as did we all,

38
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the idea of trying to do a sequel,
'cause there didn't seem to be one.

39
00:02:57,647 --> 00:03:02,721
But then, as I've said,
there seemed to be such a popular enthusiasm

40
00:03:02,887 --> 00:03:05,640
for the kind of show that "80 Days" was

41
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that people were almost expectantly waiting
for something else.

42
00:03:10,407 --> 00:03:13,205
So I felt, "Perhaps it is worth doing."

43
00:03:13,367 --> 00:03:18,885
As far as the travel went,
I was still very, very enthusiastic about that.

44
00:03:19,047 --> 00:03:24,075
I'd never done anything like
"Around The World In 80 Days" on that scale.

45
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And so I was putty in the hands
of a nice map or atlas!

46
00:03:28,567 --> 00:03:32,526
All these places I could go
and the BBC might pay me to go!

47
00:03:32,687 --> 00:03:34,678
The possibilities were attractive.

48
00:03:35,647 --> 00:03:39,401
We learnt one or two things
from "Around The World In 80 Days".

49
00:03:39,567 --> 00:03:44,721
A key thing was that the things that worked best
were just encounters,

50
00:03:44,887 --> 00:03:49,677
the quick, casual, un-set-up,
improvised encounters with people.

51
00:03:49,847 --> 00:03:55,160
The things that didn't work
were the set-up, formalised interviews.

52
00:03:55,327 --> 00:04:00,560
On "80 Days" a number of pieces
hit the cutting room floor,

53
00:04:00,727 --> 00:04:05,881
like a long interview with a Turkish gentleman
about politics in Turkey.

54
00:04:06,047 --> 00:04:12,725
Interviews with ships' captains
about the role of shipping in the modern world!

55
00:04:12,887 --> 00:04:18,041
Um... I think probably
because I found those rather stiff and formal,

56
00:04:18,207 --> 00:04:21,165
they didn't particularly work.

57
00:04:21,327 --> 00:04:25,206
What I like best was just sort of meeting people,

58
00:04:25,367 --> 00:04:30,964
as much as possible ordinary folk,
not the politicians with a line to sell,

59
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but people whose lives we impinged upon.

60
00:04:34,487 --> 00:04:40,596
And certainly the most successful episode
of "Around The World",

61
00:04:40,767 --> 00:04:44,442
in terms of audience response,
was when we were on the dow.

62
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We were stuck on this dow.
It looked very unpromising.

63
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No radar, no sextant, that sort of thing.

64
00:04:52,447 --> 00:04:55,803
Our lives were in the hands
of these Gujarati fishermen.

65
00:04:55,967 --> 00:04:58,879
But it turned into a magical sequence,

66
00:04:59,047 --> 00:05:03,757
people trying to understand each other
and frequently succeeding.

67
00:05:03,927 --> 00:05:06,395
So we did feel that um...

68
00:05:06,567 --> 00:05:12,164
interesting people in unusual locations
was the best formula,

69
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and we were wasting our time
if we got an ordinary study

70
00:05:17,447 --> 00:05:22,396
and somebody going on for 15 minutes
about the world situation.

71
00:05:22,567 --> 00:05:29,245
So we felt that being on the move
and shooting as spontaneously as possible

72
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was what was working.

73
00:05:31,927 --> 00:05:36,125
As I say, very often it was worth taking risks.

74
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On "80 Days" we thought,
"We'd better prepare this.

75
00:05:39,727 --> 00:05:44,960
"Tell them what I'll ask them, ask them if they
could hand the ticket over in a certain way."

76
00:05:45,127 --> 00:05:49,200
A more traditionally documentary approach.

77
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We decided you don't need to do that.

78
00:05:51,687 --> 00:05:56,238
You can go in there and wing it
and hope something will come of it.

79
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Spontaneity works best.

80
00:05:58,727 --> 00:06:02,925
I never really liked doing
second takes of anything

81
00:06:03,087 --> 00:06:05,999
because I miss the moment

82
00:06:06,167 --> 00:06:12,515
when you struggle to make communication
or you drink something you shouldn't have.

83
00:06:12,687 --> 00:06:15,918
It happens once and that's the best time.

84
00:06:16,087 --> 00:06:20,717
We learnt that from "80 Days", that this worked.

85
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Um, and also I think that "80 Days",
oddly enough,

86
00:06:25,927 --> 00:06:28,999
was one of the most relaxed things we've done.

87
00:06:29,167 --> 00:06:33,638
There was intense pressure,
but also 12 days on a boat crossing the Pacific

88
00:06:33,807 --> 00:06:36,879
where we barely filmed anything.

89
00:06:37,047 --> 00:06:43,122
We felt when we did "Pole To Pole"
that we could er... maximise our...

90
00:06:44,647 --> 00:06:47,525
...er... our work, our output, more

91
00:06:47,687 --> 00:06:51,600
by having fewer days
when there's nothing happening,

92
00:06:51,767 --> 00:06:54,406
being where something would happen.

93
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That's been the pattern since.
That's something we learned from "80 Days".

94
00:07:00,047 --> 00:07:05,838
Use the time. Don't get stuck in a situation
where you can't film for several days.

95
00:07:06,007 --> 00:07:08,646
That's a waste of everybody's time and effort.

96
00:07:09,607 --> 00:07:15,443
The one area that erm... concerned us
with "Pole To Pole"

97
00:07:15,607 --> 00:07:20,635
was whether we could recreate
this time constraint, these deadlines

98
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that "80 Days" was all about.

99
00:07:23,407 --> 00:07:27,002
We honestly felt that was our most vulnerable...

100
00:07:27,167 --> 00:07:32,287
er... most vulnerable point
about the whole new journey,

101
00:07:32,447 --> 00:07:36,599
that people would miss this,
so we tried to recreate it.

102
00:07:36,767 --> 00:07:41,841
We had day numbers, which we still use
quite effectively, on the screen.

103
00:07:42,007 --> 00:07:44,521
Um... we'll um...

104
00:07:44,687 --> 00:07:49,397
...try and create some sort of deadlines
within the journey itself.

105
00:07:49,567 --> 00:07:54,163
"Michael's got to get to a certain place
to get a ship at a certain time.

106
00:07:54,327 --> 00:07:59,447
"The rainy seasons are coming.
He's got to get out of Sudan at this time."

107
00:07:59,607 --> 00:08:02,326
So we over-egged those a bit,

108
00:08:02,487 --> 00:08:08,403
although the South African supply ship
to the Pole was genuinely a real setback.

109
00:08:08,567 --> 00:08:14,597
But there were slightly...
I remember thinking, slightly false goals.

110
00:08:14,767 --> 00:08:19,283
"Around The World" was a story,
and there were 80 days.

111
00:08:19,447 --> 00:08:24,919
Pole to Pole in, whatever it was, 253 days,
doesn't really mean anything.

112
00:08:25,087 --> 00:08:29,160
Um... but we kind of tried to, as I said,

113
00:08:29,327 --> 00:08:35,641
play up the various deadline situations
at various points during the journey.

114
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"Michael's got to move on."
In many cases that was true.

115
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Any journey crossing lots of different borders,
you have a lot of problems.

116
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You can't plan it all
and hope it'll work like clockwork.

117
00:08:50,927 --> 00:08:57,162
You're going to different countries with different
governments, different passport requirements.

118
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So you have situations where people say,
"We can't do it today. Come back next month."

119
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We have to argue through that.

120
00:09:05,567 --> 00:09:12,643
So there were moments in the journey
that were deadlines we had to meet.

121
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But we played those up
trying to hang on to the day thing in "80 Days".

122
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The huge relief when "Pole To Pole" went out
was that it didn't matter.

123
00:09:24,047 --> 00:09:27,357
We still got the audiences we got for "80 Days".

124
00:09:27,527 --> 00:09:31,566
People accepted there were moments
when there were time problems,

125
00:09:31,727 --> 00:09:36,403
but they were fascinated
and interested in the countries we went to

126
00:09:36,567 --> 00:09:38,762
and the people we met and the cultures.

127
00:09:38,927 --> 00:09:42,920
The day deadlines became less important.

128
00:09:43,087 --> 00:09:49,959
Having said that, we had to shoot the whole thing
over about five months.

129
00:09:50,127 --> 00:09:55,201
We had about a ten-day break -
no, less than that - a five-day break at Aswan

130
00:09:55,367 --> 00:09:57,881
when one of the boats didn't leave.

131
00:09:58,047 --> 00:10:03,041
It was actually quite tight -
you're working to a budget

132
00:10:03,207 --> 00:10:07,678
and you have to keep moving,
so there was no let-up.

133
00:10:07,847 --> 00:10:12,284
It was just as tough as doing "80 Days",
in fact, more so.

134
00:10:13,247 --> 00:10:17,001
1991 was an extraordinary year for change.

135
00:10:17,167 --> 00:10:22,844
That was when we travelled.
We were in a lot of countries that changed.

136
00:10:23,007 --> 00:10:29,879
Er... The major change was that
the Soviet Union was still in existence

137
00:10:30,047 --> 00:10:34,802
when we went through
what's now Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

138
00:10:34,967 --> 00:10:37,561
It was all part of the Soviet Union.

139
00:10:38,687 --> 00:10:44,159
It was quite unthinkable at the time
that the Soviet Union would collapse

140
00:10:44,327 --> 00:10:46,318
within the near future.

141
00:10:46,487 --> 00:10:51,083
I don't think anybody realised that.
There were problems. It was a bit wobbly.

142
00:10:51,247 --> 00:10:54,478
We went through in July.

143
00:10:54,647 --> 00:10:59,482
We interviewed Ukrainians who said,
"One day, one day...

144
00:10:59,647 --> 00:11:04,562
"We will have our country back.
Not in my lifetime, but one day."

145
00:11:04,727 --> 00:11:09,084
They had their country back by December!
Extraordinary.

146
00:11:09,247 --> 00:11:14,321
And then we got down south to Ethiopia

147
00:11:14,487 --> 00:11:18,844
where um... Mengistu, a very um...

148
00:11:20,087 --> 00:11:25,207
...oppressive, repressive dictator,
had been in power for a long time.

149
00:11:25,367 --> 00:11:30,999
He'd just been kicked out
by a citizen army of teenagers from the north.

150
00:11:31,167 --> 00:11:34,557
So a major change of situation in Ethiopia.

151
00:11:34,727 --> 00:11:40,916
Zambia, we get there on the day that
Kenneth Kaunda loses power after 26 years!

152
00:11:41,087 --> 00:11:46,081
And then South Africa,
where apartheid was beginning to collapse.

153
00:11:46,247 --> 00:11:49,922
It still was official policy
but it was beginning to change.

154
00:11:50,087 --> 00:11:52,885
In a couple of years Mandela came out.

155
00:11:53,047 --> 00:11:58,599
An extraordinary year of not just governments
but whole systems collapsing.

156
00:11:58,767 --> 00:12:04,683
I'm not taking credit, but the places
we went through collapsed behind us!

157
00:12:04,847 --> 00:12:06,963
Sorry about that!

158
00:12:07,127 --> 00:12:10,164
Not our fault, but it made um...

159
00:12:10,327 --> 00:12:16,323
It gave a little extra element of excitement
to all the countries,

160
00:12:16,487 --> 00:12:21,481
especially Ethiopia,
where there was a real sense of celebration.

161
00:12:21,647 --> 00:12:24,161
If we'd gone to Ethiopia a year before,

162
00:12:24,327 --> 00:12:30,084
we wouldn't have got the interviews
or the upbeat feeling, the excitement,

163
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that we got when we went.

164
00:12:32,367 --> 00:12:34,517
And the same with Zambia.

165
00:12:34,687 --> 00:12:40,876
It was coincidental that we chose
one of the most momentous years in history

166
00:12:41,047 --> 00:12:45,359
to go through Africa and Russia.

167
00:12:46,247 --> 00:12:51,526
How many of the 23 toasts
in Novogood do you remember?

168
00:12:51,687 --> 00:12:53,245
Novgorod.

169
00:12:55,807 --> 00:13:00,437
Er, well, I just have to do what I'm asked to do.

170
00:13:00,607 --> 00:13:03,963
If I'm asked to appear at a banquet in Russia,

171
00:13:04,127 --> 00:13:07,722
I know there are going to be a few vodka toasts!

172
00:13:07,887 --> 00:13:12,119
There's one toast for each person
and a follow-up toast.

173
00:13:12,287 --> 00:13:16,803
When you see a table with 12 people,
you know it'll be a heavy evening!

174
00:13:16,967 --> 00:13:21,757
The vodka was not, as I remember, legal vodka.

175
00:13:21,927 --> 00:13:26,443
It was all illicitly brewed in his garage.
Potent stuff!

176
00:13:26,607 --> 00:13:31,317
And, er... I just lay back and thought of England!

177
00:13:31,487 --> 00:13:36,197
Round about 18 vodkas,
I think I was fairly mellow.

178
00:13:36,367 --> 00:13:42,476
It was one of those moments
when you wish you had the camera still running.

179
00:13:42,647 --> 00:13:46,083
Next morning I woke up with an awful headache.

180
00:13:46,247 --> 00:13:50,126
I'd had to change rooms in the night

181
00:13:50,287 --> 00:13:53,597
because a big party official was coming.

182
00:13:53,767 --> 00:13:57,760
My room had been set aside for him.
I was put downstairs.

183
00:13:57,927 --> 00:14:03,399
I was slightly disoriented.
I got up and something had to come out.

184
00:14:03,567 --> 00:14:08,038
So I rushed to the basin
and clung to the side of the basin.

185
00:14:08,207 --> 00:14:10,880
I was just about to throw up

186
00:14:11,047 --> 00:14:15,723
when I look down
and realise the basin's not attached to anything!

187
00:14:15,887 --> 00:14:19,436
I'm looking through the plughole and see my feet!

188
00:14:19,607 --> 00:14:22,917
I reeled back
and the basin came away from the wall!

189
00:14:23,087 --> 00:14:28,081
I'm staggering round with a basin,
looking for somewhere to throw up!

190
00:14:28,247 --> 00:14:32,684
Trying to find a hole in the ground.
In the end, I didn't.

191
00:14:32,847 --> 00:14:37,557
Such a strange moment,
I managed to control myself.

192
00:14:37,727 --> 00:14:43,484
But if Nigel had had the camera there then,
we'd have got some unique footage!

193
00:14:45,407 --> 00:14:49,241
If Patric Walker and the witch doctor
had predicted good luck,

194
00:14:49,407 --> 00:14:52,001
we'd have told them to do a second take!

195
00:14:52,167 --> 00:14:54,761
Bad news is better to work on.

196
00:14:54,927 --> 00:15:00,047
But they did both say
there would be problems ahead.

197
00:15:00,207 --> 00:15:05,520
I don't really believe in that stuff.
I thought, "What will be, will be."

198
00:15:05,687 --> 00:15:11,239
But actually we did have some nasty moments
on the journey as a whole.

199
00:15:11,407 --> 00:15:14,922
More so than any of the others. Um...

200
00:15:15,087 --> 00:15:21,640
The landing at the North Pole
was one of the scariest things I've ever done.

201
00:15:21,807 --> 00:15:25,925
One of the few moments
where I felt I shouldn't be doing this.

202
00:15:26,087 --> 00:15:29,523
It was not fair to my family, friends, the crew,

203
00:15:29,687 --> 00:15:32,406
bringing them here just to go from Pole to Pole.

204
00:15:32,567 --> 00:15:36,242
We were trying to land on a moving ice floe.

205
00:15:36,407 --> 00:15:41,435
It had ridges on it, so the plane
could have turned over. It was bad news.

206
00:15:41,607 --> 00:15:44,565
But we got down and were able to do it.

207
00:15:44,727 --> 00:15:47,605
Then there were other moments.

208
00:15:47,767 --> 00:15:52,716
There was that feeling in the Soviet Union,
a tension.

209
00:15:53,607 --> 00:15:58,635
Something not right.
People very unhappy about the way things were.

210
00:15:58,807 --> 00:16:00,798
That was buzzing around.

211
00:16:00,967 --> 00:16:04,039
Then, of course, in Sudan,

212
00:16:04,207 --> 00:16:09,486
we were not allowed to go south of Khartoum
because of the civil war.

213
00:16:09,647 --> 00:16:15,961
We'd managed to get these Eritreans
to take us across the border.

214
00:16:16,767 --> 00:16:21,158
And, you know, that was a memorable 24 hours

215
00:16:21,327 --> 00:16:25,081
struggling through these roads
which were already...

216
00:16:25,247 --> 00:16:28,637
Rain had fallen.
They were deeply pitted and rutted.

217
00:16:28,807 --> 00:16:31,685
The vehicles kept getting stuck.

218
00:16:31,847 --> 00:16:34,884
It was the worst 24 hours' filming I can remember

219
00:16:35,047 --> 00:16:38,517
in terms of discomfort
and feeling, "Where are we going?"

220
00:16:38,687 --> 00:16:40,996
We were stuck in fields.

221
00:16:41,167 --> 00:16:46,161
No one was sure where the border was,
or if we could cross it anyway.

222
00:16:46,327 --> 00:16:51,799
So that was a kind of very difficult period.

223
00:16:51,967 --> 00:16:54,959
Morale got quite low then.

224
00:16:55,127 --> 00:16:58,119
Um... so there was a certain pattern.

225
00:16:58,287 --> 00:17:03,042
Then we interviewed the witch doctor, or healer.
He's a healer.

226
00:17:03,207 --> 00:17:09,237
As far as they're concerned,
this is better medicine than Roche Chemicals

227
00:17:09,407 --> 00:17:13,116
or, you know, the international drug companies.

228
00:17:13,287 --> 00:17:16,882
Maybe they're right.
He was a strange-looking character.

229
00:17:17,047 --> 00:17:22,440
He did say that I'd lose my money
and possessions and that sort of thing.

230
00:17:22,607 --> 00:17:26,919
Within a few days,
things did begin to go very wrong.

231
00:17:27,087 --> 00:17:32,844
Almost that... The night after I saw this Dr Baela,

232
00:17:33,007 --> 00:17:39,606
I had this terrible semi-fever
which I've never had before.

233
00:17:39,767 --> 00:17:43,476
Hot and cold sweats. It came on very quickly.

234
00:17:43,647 --> 00:17:46,525
Most of the night I was shivering or very hot.

235
00:17:46,687 --> 00:17:50,521
Couldn't get this on camera
'cause Nigel was asleep.

236
00:17:50,687 --> 00:17:54,077
I was shivering on the only loo in the place.

237
00:17:54,247 --> 00:17:58,559
Then I got over that gradually and we moved on.

238
00:17:58,727 --> 00:18:05,200
Then some bags being sent on
by Zambian Airways just went missing.

239
00:18:05,367 --> 00:18:11,124
They were never found. That's the only time
we ever lost gear on the journey.

240
00:18:11,287 --> 00:18:18,204
And then we went white-water rafting
in the Zambezi River,

241
00:18:18,367 --> 00:18:24,761
at the end of which I was persuaded to get
out of the raft and swim down the last rapid.

242
00:18:24,927 --> 00:18:29,443
And I hit rocks underneath the water quite hard.

243
00:18:29,607 --> 00:18:32,758
In the end, I cracked two ribs.

244
00:18:32,927 --> 00:18:37,318
This was all within a very short time
of meeting Dr Baela.

245
00:18:37,487 --> 00:18:43,517
He had said to me...
I'd asked him, "Is there anything I can do

246
00:18:43,687 --> 00:18:46,838
"if these curses or problems occur?"

247
00:18:47,007 --> 00:18:51,523
He gave me a bit of tree bark and said,
"Here's some tree bark.

248
00:18:51,687 --> 00:18:56,920
"Grind this into powder,
rub it all over your body and you'll be OK."

249
00:18:57,087 --> 00:18:59,078
I thought, "Joke!"

250
00:18:59,247 --> 00:19:05,038
After all these things had happened,
I got the bark when no one was looking,

251
00:19:05,207 --> 00:19:10,406
ground it up a bit,
put it on my back and washed it off!

252
00:19:10,567 --> 00:19:13,525
After that, things were fine, so...

253
00:19:13,687 --> 00:19:19,637
Actually, they weren't fine.
We couldn't get the boat out of Cape Town.

254
00:19:20,487 --> 00:19:28,280
Another thing that we were trying to... that we'd
learnt from "80 Days" and wanted to carry on

255
00:19:28,447 --> 00:19:32,759
was always travelling on the surface if possible.

256
00:19:32,927 --> 00:19:37,717
Um... not to take planes
unless we absolutely had to.

257
00:19:37,887 --> 00:19:41,880
Originally I'd wanted to call it
"Pole To Pole By Public Transport."

258
00:19:42,047 --> 00:19:46,643
That was very important to us,
to give the idea of surface travel.

259
00:19:46,807 --> 00:19:49,446
Having to cheat at the end,

260
00:19:49,607 --> 00:19:55,637
go to South America and down to the South Pole
that way, seemed a setback.

261
00:19:55,807 --> 00:19:59,641
So that was another thing that went wrong

262
00:19:59,807 --> 00:20:02,799
and was not the way we saw things.

263
00:20:02,967 --> 00:20:06,357
So there were a number of moments
in the journey

264
00:20:06,527 --> 00:20:09,883
which were quite sort of difficult.

265
00:20:10,847 --> 00:20:13,566
The problem with me is I'm a bit impulsive.

266
00:20:13,727 --> 00:20:17,163
Part of my life is very safe and organised

267
00:20:17,327 --> 00:20:20,717
and then there are moments
when I do very silly things.

268
00:20:20,887 --> 00:20:23,765
This will happen as long as I live.

269
00:20:23,927 --> 00:20:27,442
White-water rafting was fine.

270
00:20:27,607 --> 00:20:33,682
It was jumping out of the raft
on the Zambezi that was a silly thing to do.

271
00:20:33,847 --> 00:20:40,161
What happened was
we'd filmed quite exciting and dramatic rafting,

272
00:20:40,327 --> 00:20:44,764
speeding down and torrents coming in,
totally submerged at points.

273
00:20:44,927 --> 00:20:49,045
It was a great thrill and I felt perfectly safe.

274
00:20:49,207 --> 00:20:53,883
Then the camera was put away,
we'd finished the filming.

275
00:20:54,047 --> 00:20:55,446
And er...

276
00:20:55,607 --> 00:21:00,635
Um... The people I was with
were a group of Zimbabweans.

277
00:21:00,807 --> 00:21:06,484
They said,
"A great thing is to swim down a rapid."

278
00:21:06,647 --> 00:21:09,878
I said, "Aren't there rocks under there?"

279
00:21:10,047 --> 00:21:13,596
They said, "Oh, no. They're a long way down."

280
00:21:13,767 --> 00:21:16,600
So I'm on the back of the dinghy

281
00:21:16,767 --> 00:21:21,045
and the guy in charge tells people when to go.

282
00:21:21,207 --> 00:21:24,802
"Go," he says, and you drop off the back.

283
00:21:24,967 --> 00:21:27,401
So I dropped off.

284
00:21:28,847 --> 00:21:33,477
I tumbled down under the water,
quite a long way down.

285
00:21:33,647 --> 00:21:38,641
I felt this sharp jab into my back
on the right-hand side there.

286
00:21:38,807 --> 00:21:41,367
I knew I'd hit a rock.

287
00:21:41,527 --> 00:21:44,803
And I just was so indignant,

288
00:21:44,967 --> 00:21:47,959
'cause I knew there were rocks there.

289
00:21:48,127 --> 00:21:51,756
We'd been over them for the last four hours.

290
00:21:51,927 --> 00:21:56,717
So I came up to the surface and shouted,

291
00:21:56,887 --> 00:21:59,765
and saw these people
swimming happily to the shore.

292
00:21:59,927 --> 00:22:05,559
They were on the other side of the boat.
I shouted, "You b*****ds!"

293
00:22:05,727 --> 00:22:09,800
I then went down again,
submerged and hit another rock,

294
00:22:09,967 --> 00:22:14,119
this time on the front of my lower calf.

295
00:22:14,287 --> 00:22:18,997
I'd been bashed in two places.
I came up and swam to the shore.

296
00:22:19,167 --> 00:22:24,446
Apparently my indignation was a good thing
because I'd gone a long way down

297
00:22:24,607 --> 00:22:30,682
and the best way when you come up
is to expel the air as quickly as possible,

298
00:22:30,847 --> 00:22:35,796
and so my impassioned scream of abuse
at these people

299
00:22:35,967 --> 00:22:41,724
probably saved my life at that time
or saved me from getting bashed again.

300
00:22:41,887 --> 00:22:46,677
But I got to the shore and I was fine.

301
00:22:46,847 --> 00:22:51,477
There was a long, difficult walk up
which I managed.

302
00:22:51,647 --> 00:22:55,799
But that night I got very stiff.
It was impossible to sleep.

303
00:22:55,967 --> 00:23:00,119
A couple of days later I got to a hospital.

304
00:23:00,287 --> 00:23:04,565
They X-rayed me and said,
"You've cracked two ribs.

305
00:23:04,727 --> 00:23:08,640
"There's nothing you can do.
They'll heal in the end."

306
00:23:08,807 --> 00:23:12,516
I said, "I'm going to the South Pole."
They said, "Bad luck!"

307
00:23:12,687 --> 00:23:17,807
The next day I was cycling across the gorge,
the Zambezi Gorge.

308
00:23:17,967 --> 00:23:22,404
A stunning location.
I'm on a bike with two broken ribs.

309
00:23:22,567 --> 00:23:26,082
If you see the tape, I'm moving rather gingerly

310
00:23:26,247 --> 00:23:30,081
all the way until we get to the South Pole!

311
00:23:30,247 --> 00:23:34,718
Again it was a moment we didn't get on camera.

312
00:23:34,887 --> 00:23:40,280
The director said, "Next time you do that,
make sure it's on camera."

313
00:23:40,447 --> 00:23:42,915
"Thanks!" As though I meant to!

314
00:23:43,087 --> 00:23:45,442
But looking back,

315
00:23:45,607 --> 00:23:48,838
that was the only time in any of the journeys

316
00:23:49,007 --> 00:23:52,079
where I did myself a serious injury.

317
00:23:52,247 --> 00:23:54,761
We had to just keep going.

318
00:23:54,927 --> 00:24:00,160
It was about two weeks
before I could get a decent night's sleep.

319
00:24:00,327 --> 00:24:02,795
I'm crawling out of beds in various places.

320
00:24:02,967 --> 00:24:09,486
You'd be sleeping on trains -
not the best places to have a cracked rib!

321
00:24:10,447 --> 00:24:12,483
I'm quite fond of Cairo.

322
00:24:12,647 --> 00:24:19,564
I like it because it's to me
the essence of a good city to travel in.

323
00:24:19,727 --> 00:24:23,163
It's very unfamiliar, very strange, very different.

324
00:24:23,327 --> 00:24:30,278
The way of life there,
the buildings, the food, the religion.

325
00:24:30,447 --> 00:24:33,564
All sorts of things are basically quite different.

326
00:24:33,727 --> 00:24:39,518
You see camels waiting at traffic lights.
You don't see that anywhere else.

327
00:24:39,687 --> 00:24:44,636
But at the same time it's got a very long history.

328
00:24:44,807 --> 00:24:51,485
So you feel you're in a city
which has been important for thousands of years,

329
00:24:51,647 --> 00:24:54,366
much longer than any city at home.

330
00:24:54,527 --> 00:24:59,282
So you have a feeling
of important events having happened there.

331
00:24:59,447 --> 00:25:02,439
I like the fact it's very lively.

332
00:25:02,607 --> 00:25:07,397
I remember the traffic only moved
when the light was red.

333
00:25:07,567 --> 00:25:11,606
You could only get across
at the very end of the green light.

334
00:25:11,767 --> 00:25:17,160
So everyone would move on the red.
The traffic lights were out of sync.

335
00:25:17,327 --> 00:25:19,795
Very sort of Cairene.

336
00:25:19,967 --> 00:25:25,678
There are some places
you're glad to be back in, a friendly place,

337
00:25:25,847 --> 00:25:28,998
and some places are threatening or dull.

338
00:25:29,167 --> 00:25:34,321
Cairo is neither dull nor threatening.
I find it very exciting.

339
00:25:35,287 --> 00:25:38,757
The globe had become
a bit of an icon of the journeys.

340
00:25:38,927 --> 00:25:44,684
They'd say,
"Michael, it's time for a globe sequence."

341
00:25:44,847 --> 00:25:50,046
I'd blow it up, sit on a train and say,
"We're in Estonia" or something.

342
00:25:50,207 --> 00:25:53,802
"We've only done this,
we've got to go all that way."

343
00:25:53,967 --> 00:25:57,926
So it was useful.
I found it useful also for sleeping on.

344
00:25:58,087 --> 00:26:01,921
Half-inflated, it made a very good pillow.

345
00:26:02,087 --> 00:26:07,286
Um... Had to avoid
sticking your head in the sea, that's all!

346
00:26:07,447 --> 00:26:09,836
"I'm drenched!"

347
00:26:10,007 --> 00:26:15,923
Anyway, it had its uses,
but I think it was becoming a bit of a cliché.

348
00:26:16,087 --> 00:26:22,003
The decision to abandon it
at this school in Kenya

349
00:26:22,167 --> 00:26:24,840
came quite spontaneously.

350
00:26:25,007 --> 00:26:28,682
Er... we were revisiting this school

351
00:26:28,847 --> 00:26:33,443
where I'd filmed a film
called "The Missionary" in 1981.

352
00:26:33,607 --> 00:26:40,558
There was the school building.
I used the globe to talk about my journey.

353
00:26:40,727 --> 00:26:47,360
It just seemed a nice thing at the end
to say I'd give it to the school.

354
00:26:47,527 --> 00:26:51,805
I wanted to give them something.
I couldn't give them anything tangible.

355
00:26:51,967 --> 00:26:57,325
"We'll give you a new door or money to build..."
The globe was tangible.

356
00:26:57,487 --> 00:27:00,843
I said, "Have it and learn about geography."

357
00:27:01,007 --> 00:27:07,162
As we were leaving
I could see the children playing football with it!

358
00:27:08,367 --> 00:27:11,996
So it may not improve their geographical skills,

359
00:27:12,167 --> 00:27:15,603
but Kenya's chances in the next Africa Cup

360
00:27:15,767 --> 00:27:19,601
will be greatly enhanced
by kicking the world around!

361
00:27:20,567 --> 00:27:24,685
The news that we weren't going to be able
to get the boat to Antarctica

362
00:27:24,847 --> 00:27:28,522
actually came through
before we got to Cape Town.

363
00:27:28,687 --> 00:27:34,000
We knew about two weeks before that
that there were real problems.

364
00:27:34,167 --> 00:27:38,797
They were trying to be helpful,
but this is a once-a-year supply ship.

365
00:27:38,967 --> 00:27:42,516
They said, "We've got three berths but not six."

366
00:27:42,687 --> 00:27:47,807
It was impossible. We needed all the crew there
and Basil to take the photos.

367
00:27:47,967 --> 00:27:51,801
It wasn't possible to split the crew at that point.

368
00:27:51,967 --> 00:27:57,678
So we reluctantly had to decide
to get to Antarctica another way.

369
00:27:57,847 --> 00:28:02,682
But it spoilt everything -
the symmetry, the 30 degrees east line,

370
00:28:02,847 --> 00:28:05,361
our determination to go on the surface.

371
00:28:05,527 --> 00:28:09,884
It spoilt what I thought
could have been a good adventure.

372
00:28:10,047 --> 00:28:15,075
The Southern Ocean is notorious
as the roughest sea in the world,

373
00:28:15,247 --> 00:28:19,445
but I thought,
"This might get some interesting stuff."

374
00:28:19,607 --> 00:28:22,565
So, disappointed on all those counts.

375
00:28:22,727 --> 00:28:28,836
In the end it turned out
that our actual approach to the Pole

376
00:28:29,007 --> 00:28:33,478
through Patriot Hills and Antarctica
was still pretty good.

377
00:28:33,647 --> 00:28:37,481
The plane flight from southern Chile

378
00:28:37,647 --> 00:28:41,959
was as hairy as the boat journey
would have been anyway.

379
00:28:42,127 --> 00:28:45,881
So there was a sense of danger.

380
00:28:46,847 --> 00:28:50,362
As soon as it had gone out
and the figures came in,

381
00:28:50,527 --> 00:28:54,759
it was very good viewing figures
and the book sold well.

382
00:28:54,927 --> 00:29:01,924
Various people -
publishers, BBC documentary departments -

383
00:29:02,087 --> 00:29:05,762
were saying, "How about another journey?"

384
00:29:05,927 --> 00:29:12,116
Um... And Clem and I both said,
"Let's forget it for a year.

385
00:29:12,287 --> 00:29:15,120
"Go off and do other things."

386
00:29:15,287 --> 00:29:17,960
That's exactly what we did.

387
00:29:18,127 --> 00:29:22,040
And although ideas did come in,

388
00:29:22,207 --> 00:29:27,918
we didn't put our minds to any new project
for another couple of years.

389
00:29:28,087 --> 00:29:32,126
And I think I wrote a novel during that period.

390
00:29:32,287 --> 00:29:37,042
I began work on "Fierce Creatures"
with John Cleese.

391
00:29:37,207 --> 00:29:41,200
But um... again you have to...

392
00:29:41,367 --> 00:29:47,044
There's quite a long period after making a series
when I have to do publicity.

393
00:29:47,207 --> 00:29:53,919
The directors and myself get together and say,
"How did that work?

394
00:29:54,087 --> 00:29:57,875
"Have you seen this in the newspaper?
What about the figures?"

395
00:29:58,047 --> 00:30:03,326
Then you begin automatically
to think about where we'd go if we did another.

396
00:30:03,487 --> 00:30:05,955
But it was a couple of years

397
00:30:06,127 --> 00:30:12,043
before I had the idea of going round
the Pacific Rim, which became "Full Circle".

398
00:30:12,207 --> 00:30:17,201
We went off again!
Fools! We just don't know when to stop!