BILLY CONNOLLY’S TRAVEL BUCKET LIST

If somebody said: ‘Billy, I’m going to take you on one final ramble wherever you want to go. You can have as many stop offs as you like or take as much time as you want. You don’t have to be filmed, you can just have fun and enjoy it in complete comfort… ’ Where would I want to go?

Well, I’d like to go to Australia and have a nice few weeks swanning around my old haunts. Maybe visit my sister-in-law’s farm. I’d like to do a bit of fishing in New Zealand. And perhaps I could stroll about in Hong Kong and take a spin on the harbour. Oh! I haven’t been to Cuba yet. I need to go there. I’d have a week in Bali, then go to India to listen to the music and eat some great food. That would be it.

Perhaps I’d like to go to the Greek islands – I’ve got some airyfairy ideas of what they would be like. Russia? It’s a policy of mine to go to places you can get back from. North Korea? F—k that. Tibet might be in that category. And I think I’ve missed China. People say they want to go to space. That’s not my cup of tea. I’d be too scared to have a good time. I’d keep thinking: ‘If this engine stops, we’re f—ked.’

The grand, intrepid journey might be a thing of the past for me now but I don’t really need to do anything big. I can just go for a stroll to the end of my street and see the Muscovy ducks that were inherited by a neighbour. But she doesn’t have a pond, so they waddle up and down the road and force motorists to stop and wait for them to cross. They’re a lovely, shiny lavender colour in the light. I can ramble to the Cuban coffee shop and buy myself a cortadito… but only if I want to stay awake for a fortnight.

In my dreams and fantasies I’m a boxcar-jumping hobo; I stride out into the world with my banjo slung over my shoulder, meet people, sing songs, and have as many brilliant adventures as I please.

I’ve always been drawn to the Rambling Man life and, even when I couldn’t roam about the world, the sensibility still lived inside me. In fact, until some bastard invented mobile phones, I could roam free only minutes from my home and no one – including my wife and kids – ever knew where I was, what I was up to, or when I was coming home. It was glorious to be able to escape that way. The world of GPS, street cameras and tracking devices has dealt a crippling blow to [that].

But never mind. You can safely harbour your soul in almost any circumstance. In writing [my new] book I’ve had the joy of returning to my favourite haunts without taking a single step – reliving many of my favourite journeys in my head.