The secret side of Michael Palin There's a new novel but no television travelogue on the horizon for Michael Palin. YEARS ago, in the course of one of his long journeys for television, Michael Palin was in a hotel room in Helsinki. The phone rang. "It was some Finnish fans," he recalls. I said, 'It's not a good time.' They said, 'We can come any time.' I said, 'I am at the hotel packing.' The voice said, 'We're in the lobby, it's fine. We can come up and see you.'  It is easy to imagine the mounting frustration of the famously polite Palin as the voice on the end of the phone refused to be deterred. I got quite ratty. I said: 'It's really not a good time.'  Then the Finn delivered the ultimate insult: "We just wanted to ask you what it was like working with John Cleese." Palin exploded. I said: 'That's it, absolutely not. Ask John Cleese. There was this great tubercular laugh on the other end and, of course, it was John. Just brilliant. Got me completely. Cleese himself recounted this story recently at Palin's 70th birthday party at the Union Club in London's Soho. Fellow Python Terry Jones was also there. Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle, the two other surviving Pythons, sent their apologies. We are back at that rambling Georgian town house today to talk about Palin's latest novel. Fiction is just one of the strings he has added to his bow in a long and distinguished post-Python career. But when the conversation turns to that comedy troupe, he still talks about their antics more than half a lifetime ago with an enthusiasm that enables a Python fan to dare to dream of a fresh collaboration. These days Palin would "rather watch The Killing" but occasionally finds himself in a situation where Monty Python's Flying Circus clips are being shown for the zillionth time and "I really do enjoy them. A lot of Python I still find very funny. There are bits I find embarrassing. At the time I knew they weren't quite right. He has been one of the most adamant opponents of a Python reunion. I don't think the Python reunion is going to be the best (idea). But working with the Pythons on something new could be interesting. I don't know where it would come from and, at the moment, I think I would be less likely to want to do it than I was before because I've got so many other things I enjoy doing. Let's talk about what is meant by "something new." Would you take the rest of the Pythons on trips with you? That's got to be the Holy Grail of television. Palin smiles. Funnily enough, he has had this idea himself. John was always wanting to be present in one of my documentaries. We had this wonderful idea that in some totally remote part of the world I would be walking down a street and John would be there behind a newspaper, put the newspaper down, 'Hello', 'Hello, John' and just carry on. John thought this would be hilarious. I did too. Cleese got to the stage of looking at flights to Bolivia, but in the end it never happened. The other scheme Palin has knocked around is that of a globe-spanning documentary relay in which each Python travels a leg with a TV crew and hands over to the next man. It would be a nice idea. I think all the Pythons probably could make better travel documentaries than me. The difficulty would be peeling them all away from their other projects. Cleese is touring the world with his "one-Cleese show." God, he works hard to pay off the alimony. All those shows, all over the world. I don't think it's ideally what he'd want to be doing. The Pythons were reunited in one sense this month, in a High Court battle with Mark Forstater, producer of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He won a ruling that he was entitled to a larger share of the royalties from the spin-off stage musical, Spamalot. Palin's aim is to tackle only projects that really interest him. The latest is The Truth, his first novel since Hemingway's Chair (published in 1995). It is a gentle thriller, mostly enjoyable but occasionally not wholly convincing. The plot involves a journalist investigating an enigmatic environmentalist, Hamish Melville, who travels under the radar while touring the world's environmental hot spots. There are many things I envy about Melville; one is that he is able to work away from the public eye. He doesn't do interviews with the press," says Palin. He says this charmingly, and he is never less than friendly, but implying that, frankly, he'd rather we didn't have to have this conversation is disconcerting. His fictional creation "makes his own rules, makes his own life." But isn't the whole point of Palin's professional life that he is very much in the public eye? There is a part of him that does not want to perform. We all have different sides to our personalities. I never sat down and thought: 'What am I going to do with my life?' I ended up acting and writing jokes for a living and that was great and that became Python and Python became quite famous and celebrated. There was no point saying, 'Oh god, we are becoming successful, stop now.' But there is an element of me (that would) sometimes like to slow down and maintain the independence of what I do, that just wants to do what I do and be judged on the work that I do. A whole lot of other things -- on Michael Palin representing this and niceness and all -- it's all stuff that's not essential. By "not essential" I think he means "complete bollocks." But he's too nice to put it like that. Or is he? Does he, like Melville, have a secret side? Is he really a hard bastard and we just don't know it? I like to think I am. Definitely a little bit. But the closest he seems to have come to being a very naughty boy was at a hotel in Saudi Arabia when he put a bathrobe in his suitcase and was confronted when he tried to check out. Since then I have learned my lesson. I don't take anything at all apart from the little notepads. The Truth tackles some serious subjects. He researched the Indian chapters in Orissa where there is a real-life battle rumbling on between a London-based mining group and local tribes over plans for bauxite mining. He is concerned about what humans are doing to the planet but he is not a doom-monger. I came back from Brazil on my last trip rather encouraged that the rate of deforestation had dropped. Global warming and population explosion haunt us but he is more hopeful now. Palin does not have much time for politicians. I am not very good with people in power. I find it difficult to find any common ground. We used to meet politicians when we went round the world and it always got cut. I tend to be rather timid in such situations and shut up and listen. The encounters on boats and trains and in ticket offices and in restaurants turned out to be much more interesting. He is editing a third volume of his diaries. The first volumes not only covered the Python years but included the depression and suicide of his sister, Angela, in 1987. There is no TV travelogue in the pipeline. He fancies following China's Grand Canal. His leisure travel with Helen, his wife of 46 years, is rarely exotic. She is not a great adventure traveller. We go to cities: New York, Barcelona, Antwerp. Bit more adventurous this year, went to Oman. She doesn't like needless suffering. Sometimes, when he is somewhere remote, Palin will look up at a star-laden sky and find "the sheer size and scale utterly and completely incomprehensible. I just get smaller and smaller and smaller. Is that when he broods on the big existential questions? I go and have a glass of wine and think: 'My god, I'm in the best place in the universe. His only fear is that Cleese may bring it all to an end. All the Pythons have asteroids named after them. "I think mine's coming this way -- gaaaah!" he shrieks, Pythonesquely, staring out over the rooftops of Soho. We don't know whose is the biggest. I just hope mine isn't going to do too much damage. John's, I am sure, will destroy the Earth. I've just got that feeling: a manic asteroid.