Home with ANOTHER cold, a pile of tissues, some chicken soup I made (you never need quite as many noodles as you think), and the second volume of Michael Palin's diaries, 'Halfway To Hollywood'. It's a fairly hefty tome – nice & easy to photograph as it stands up so beautifully by itself. I raced through the first volume (1969-1979), which covered the heydey of the Python years, when it came out. This one (1980 to 1988), just published, has been enjoyable in a different way, less voyeuristic interest in the behind-the-scenes infighting between such a competitive and creative group as the Pythons, and more an appreciation of Palin as an individual, his admirable work ethic, and generally positive outlook on life. I've been reading this for a while, now, and funnily enough I did actually pass Michael Palin in
the street. He was walking down towards the Opera House on the other
side of the road. I recognised him, & felt very strange because just the
night before I'd been lying in bed reading about his verrucas (an
ongoing problem that is narrated in quite some detail). Weird.
I wonder what he thinks of the cover. I think it's pretty dreadful, but I suppose they wanted it to be a bit showbiz. They did do something nice with the endpapers, though.
He wrote something I liked last night about the accidental quality of humour 'the way things that make you happy happen so quickly, spontaneously, that try as you can you never quite remember afterwards'. Which taps in nicely to the feeling I've had recently that life is just a series of moments, often so brief it's impossible to appreciate them while they're happening. Sometimes the most important things seem to happen in just the briefest of encounters. And yes, the things that make you happy often can't be contrived or engineered, you just have to make the most of them when they do.