I met Michael Palin, the other half of the Monty Python fish-slapping dance, in New York on Sunday.
After Monty Python, he went on to write travel books and make travel documentaries for BBC, and was president of the Royal Geographical Society. On Sunday he was hosted by the Explorers Club to give a presentation about Erebus, a warship-turned-Antarctic-and-Arctic-exploring-vessel in the 1800s. He's written a new book about the ship (U.K. edition; U.S. edition) whose audio book I'm enjoying. He was kind and funny and his talk as well as a quick tour of the Explorers Club made the trip to New York for an evening worth it.
Palin said the Royal Geographical Society had in its collection the stockings of Joseph Hooker, explorer and naturalist on Erebus.
Reception before the talk. The current Explorers Club location at 46 East 70th St was previously home to Stephen Carlton Clark, Singer sewing fortune heir and founder of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
A view of the trophy room, with painting of Danish arctic explorer Peter Freuchen.
Another view of the trophy room.
A woolly mammoth tusk in the trophy room. It is said that Explorers Club members ate the meat of a woolly mammoth at their 1951 annual dinner.
The tusks of a rare four-tusked elephant in the Clark Room.
An ex-leopard in the trophy room.
An ex-penguin in the trophy room.