By any means necessary...

...is all travel inherently interesting? Do personal experiences translate into entertainment for others? Can we titillate with our tales of adventure? Or is it just all self-indulgent, ego-centric nonsense? These are the types of questions I'm asking myself on a daily basis as I wrestle with turning this blog, my columns and diaries into a book. I've taken three weeks of work to get a rough draft together so am constantly haunted by being an uninteresting/pompous/self-obsessed idiot at every turn!

But then...I read Sam Wollaston in the Guardian's TV review of that most vacuous of travellers Charley Boorman's latest trip (the clue is in the name) and I felt a lot better. Now Sam is not normally one to put the boot in, but the following is almost Brookeresque in it's pointedness...

Enjoy! (or you can read the article on the Guardian website here)

I'm a bit cross. I'm going on holiday next month, to Sulawesi, which is an island in Indonesia. It featured in a programme called Blood, Sweat and Takeaways a while back, about a bunch of horrid young Brits who were sent to work in a third-world tuna processing plant, and I thought it looked nice. Plus it's a lovely shape on the map; it looks as if it's moving, like an octopus swimming in the ocean – a four legged octopus. A quadrupus? A cat? Actually it could be a cat, from behind, with its tail waving in the air. Take a look on the Google.

Anyway, my holiday's now totally been ruined before it's even started, by Charley Boorman: Sydney to Tokyo by Any Means (BBC2, Sunday). He spends nearly all this episode on, guess where, Sulabloodywesi. You know, he's that grinning idiot with the teeth and the bulging eyes, who used to be Ewan McGregor's sidekick and then somehow got his own gig. Having a famous mate, and a famous dad (John, the film director), that seems to have been what got him the job. Unless it's for his insightful observations on the road . . .

– Charley on riding a motorbike through Sulawesi: "Here I am on a motorbike, and it's beautiful, beautiful countryside, just stunning."

– Charley on boatbuilding: "Beautiful, I like it, that's amazing."

– Charley on a Toyota Land Cruiser: "Beautiful, just beautiful."

– Charley on riding a motorbike through Sulawesi, part 2: "It's beautiful, just riding along the coastline, up and down the mountains, and all sorts of different places. It's – very, very, very beautiful here."

– Charley on the view: "Look at that, incredible, it's just so beautiful here."

– Charley on the weather: "The weather's just so beautiful here."

– Charley on riding a motorbike through Sulawesi, part 3: "We'll just ride and ride and ride, and it's going to be beautiful."

They may as well have sent Bernard Matthews. I'm glad you're having a lovely holiday Charley, and I admire your enthusiasm, but I don't really understand why this is on television. You need to tell me interesting stuff, entertain me, or amuse me. Or do something extraordinary. And I'm not sure this is extraordinary – your team of fixers calling ahead to arrange for you to borrow beautiful Harley-Davidsons and Toyota Land Cruisers. Or, when that doesn't happen, taking the bus or a plane like everyone else. It's all so very uninteresting. Obviously I'm really just cross because now I have to travel in Charley's footsteps.