To call him a comedian does not do justice to the fact that he is a founding member of arguably the most influential comedy team in the world. To say he is a television presenter belies the contribution he has made to reinventing the travel documentary. And to say Michael Palin keeps a diary nowhere near tells the story that the 72-year-old has been writing down his innermost thoughts for almost fifty years – even publishing extracts from those memoirs, turning them into bestsellers and the basis of a one-man show.

Within a month of starting to document his ever-changing life, Palin had entries featuring David Frost, John Cleese and the kernel of an idea for Monty Python. Day one included an account of a lunch with Only Fools and Horses actor Sir David Jason, with whom he starred in Do Not Adjust Your Set alongside fellow Pythons Eric Idle and Terry Jones. But don’t be put off if your entries are likely to feature fewer cultural icons.

“There is no such thing as an ordinary life,” Palin assures us. “Everyone’s life is different, however dull YOU think it might be it’s very different to everyone else’s. It doesn’t really matter if you’re playing at Wimbledon or work in comedy or go to the office, it’s still personal to you and has value to you. That is how you spend your day.”

“Diaries are extremely personal. That’s the true value of them. They’re not records of meetings or appointments but very much your own personal feelings. In my case I decided to publish my diaries 35 years after I started writing them and it came about because someone suggested I write an autobiography and I thought, I’d be using the diaries as a reference why don’t I just publish them.”

And far from revealing a lucky life, his diary exposes an introspective, self-critical side, as he explains in an interview with The Guardian: “Whatever came across as easy often had the most difficult birth. Around the World in 80 Days, for instance. Now seen as a ground-breaking documentary, my diary reveals that it almost broke me. As we sail down the Mediterranean I’m assailed by anxiety as to my lack of qualifications for the job.”

As someone who has opened his diaries to public scrutiny, the comedian says it is an individual decision to let others see what you have written. In his case, his published volumes were only around 25% of what he had documented.

“In a sense you can choose how you want to reveal them but they are perfect records and also a way of sharing with others that were with you at the time,” he told Get Creative.