I have never attempted to pretend that I don’t take long plane journeys and I have written about it in Transport 2000’s newsletter. Yes, I obviously am generating a lot of carbon emissions, but with the programmes I make I am bringing the world closer to a lot of people.”It is more of an honorary title than an actual job and I’m not in day-to-day contact with the group although I do have good and regular contacts with the director, Stephen Joseph. Palin, the president of sustainable travel campaigners Transport 2000, is reported to have caused disquiet within the group that he set a “poor example” by flying around the world for his epic BBC programmes, and has become the subject of a whispering campaign among some members.
But Palin told The Independent on Sunday yesterday: “If Transport 2000 have people that want me to step down that’s fine with me. Globetrotting broadcaster Michael Palin yesterday said he would stand aside as figurehead of an environmental group if there were genuine concerns that his position was incompatible with his career. He was not around for “Darkie Day”, as he was apparently sunning himself in Australia Can’t say that I blame him

More from Dom Joly.

We drove fast out of Cornwall the next morning having had a fish and chip breakfast at Rick’s place. Quite right too, I replied, there had been some talk in my village of trying to stop me burning the big crosses high on Poacher’s Hill but I wasn’t having any of it.There was a roar of approval from the bar and more drinks all round This was definitely a “local” place for “local” people. Apparently, a lot of “politically correct” visitors object to this practice but they were not going to let outsiders tell them what to do. Obviously, we didn’t challenge him but nodded like muppets while looking for the door.

Before we left we were asked whether we were going to be around the next day as, apparently, it was “Darkie Day”. This is when all the locals “black up” and parade around the port getting drunk. Despite his peculiar attire, his views on race and sexuality could not really be described as that enlightened. To prove it, he flashed us his police badge that he kept cosily up his hot pants. Despite this, I nodded in a cowardly way as though agreeing that he was a real bastard not to have done a naked pogo round the bar.Then an enormous man dressed as “the only gay in the port” in a pair of red-leather hot pants and a matching oh-so-tight bodice accosted us and introduced himself as an off-duty policeman from Bristol. When I enquired as to whom she might be referring to, she astonished me by saying “that John McCarthy”.

Now, I’ve never seen John McCarthy as a shameless attention-seeker and one might think that five years chained to a radiator might have made him a tad introverted, so I felt that he might be entitled not to be too chatty. One person told me that I was very approachable “not like some other famous visitors we’ve had down ‘ere”. I was recognised by quite a few people in the place and, as the booze flowed, so did the conversation. It definitely didn’t seem to belong to Rick Stein, so we dived in happily. We found a sweet little pub just behind the port that seemed to be very “local” and had a bit of atmosphere and a welcome dearth of ye olde fishing nets. She thought that it was some foreign country thousands of miles from anywhere and, in a way, she wasn’t wrong.Despite the thousands of tourists tramping about the place there are still tiny spots where locals can hang out. The girlfriend and I spent the entire time arguing and ended up trying to drown each other on the town beach as the tide roared in.
My daughter, Parker, was very jealous that we were off to Cornwall as, apparently, most of her classmates go there for the summer.

Unfortunately, so had about a hundred other London couples. The place was like some sort of non-stop Valentine’s Day, everywhere jam-packed with couples staring at each other awkwardly over vats of oysters as Rick and his accountant rubbed their hands with glee. This was way back, fairly early on in Rick’s TV career when, having watched some of his programmes, we thought that we might go down and eat the cast. There is a Stein restaurant, fish and chip shop, deli, bistro, hotel, cooking school; they might as well rename the place Steinstow. When the trip was first mooted I was a little loath to return as I had been down there once before for a disastrous weekend with an old girlfriend. However, since my recent visit to Padstow I feel that, in comparison, I live in the very epicentre of normality.