MICHAEL PALIN: INTO IRAQ

Episode two, and Michael is making his way towards Baghdad, first stopping off at Kirkuk, where oil was discovered in 1927 when the country was under British rule. After another frustrating encounter with Iraqi officials, he and his crew are granted access to the oil fields, their every move watched by minders. They move on to Tikrit, the home town of Saddam Hussein, and the mood is sombre at the site of a 2014 massacre, when some 1,700 Sunni military cadets were killed in an ISIS attack on Camp Speicher. Finally arriving at the capital, Michael reflects on the fact that the first book his father gave him was Tales From The Arabian Nights.