This is a global original podcast.

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Full Disclosure, a project conceived largely as an opportunity for me to get to know people that I admire.

Although I have to say that description has rarely been quite as accurate as it is today

because my guest is Sir Michael Palin, a man who truly needs no introduction.

But I shall give you one anyway, Michael, if I may.

I'd like to begin by saying sorry and thank you to you,

because you won't know this, but 20 years or so ago

when I was a young gossip columnist on the Daily Express,

I only had three famous people's phone numbers.

And I'd obviously nick them of somebody else because two of them had the initials MP.

And every now and then, the editor would come along and say,

we need to get some celebrity reaction to this story.

Because I was on the gossip column, they'd expect you to be able to do it.

I had Jilly Cooper's number.

I had Michael Palin's number, and I had Michael Parkinson's phone number as well.

And whenever I rang you, which I always did reluctantly,

you were charm personified.

I was always in, probably. You were often

in. Michael Parkinson would have been away.

No, Michael Parkinson was vile.

When I got hold of, I mean, he would swear it and hang up

immediately once you'd establish why you were ringing.

...