Michael dares... so we don’t have to

TUESDAY, CHANNEL 5 hhhh Even though it was the birthplace of civilisation, there may well be many countries closer to the top of your holiday bucket list than Iraq. Thus it’s great to see the indomitable Michael Palin make the trip, if only so we don’t have to.

Having long been fascinated by the country, he had to get his doctor’s OK to travel there – for insurance purposes, presumably – and was clearly delighted to be told he could go ‘to see a country that has had a terrible present but an extraordinary past’. The still sprightly Sir Michael (below) – he turns 80 next year – set off by train, following the river Tigris south for 1,000 miles from its source in Turkey. While in the still-devastated city of Mosul, five years after fighting ended there, he chatted with kids playing among the ruins, before moving on to purchase a smart bespoke jacket in the shiny, high-rise city of Erbil, the booming capital of Iraqi Kurdistan 50 miles east. Then, somewhat nervously joining the torchlit (‘Glastonbury-meetsapocalypse Now’) New Year procession in Akre, Palin admitted ‘the first days in Iraq really have been a baptism of fire’.

Sir Michael is still a dry, witty, amiable tour guide, just not as steady on his feet these days, so it’s fairly unlikely we’ll see him striding up too many more mountainsides while dodging tracer fire. His fans, then, will certainly want to make the most of his visit to a country about which many of us have more preconceptions than we do facts.