CELEBRITY EXTRA Comedian Griff Rhys Jones talks about messing about on the water for television.

Comedian, presenter and writer Griff Rhys Jones insists he’s no action man – yet in recent times he has abseiled down a waterfall, plunged into freezing waters, immersed himself in bogs and tried his hand at surfing.

It’s all water off a duck’s back to the 55-year-old, who made his name in the hit comedy shows Not The Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith And Jones and has now reinvented himself as a Michael Palin-style journeyman and champion of British national heritage and the arts.

He spent six months exploring Britain’s rivers for his latest five-part BBC One series River Journeys, which began this week, and its tie-in book, Rivers.

True to form, there were a number of grumpy moments for the man once labelled ‘Britain’s angriest man’ and even now there are certain things that make him cross.

“I’m somebody who gets pretty emotional about every stage of my life. I will get hugely enthusiastic about something one minute, quite down the next when something goes wrong or frustrates me. “I’m afraid it’s childish, but that’s the sort of person I am. I am not a cool person,” he admits.

He’s a keen canoeist and loves messing about in boats – his 1950s racing yacht is currently moored in Cannes – but Griff had to be pretty fit to complete all the escapades the series demanded of him.

“The funny thing is, it’s not the direction I assumed my life was going in.

“I started running to keep myself fit about 15 years ago. A lot of things I’ve been asked to do in the last few years have required quite a lot of stamina,” he says. “I don’t think of myself as being mega-fit, but because I run about 10 miles a week I have a level of stamina which is useful on these occasions.”

This latest series celebrating Britain’s rivers and their history will reinforce Griff's image as a champion of our heritage, following his TV series Restoration, Why Poetry Matters, Mountain and Three Men In A Boat, which ended in Oxford, and his brief stint as president of the now defunct Civic Trust.

He says he doesn’t miss comedy because he includes it in his many public speaking engagements.

“Mel (Smith) and I did, I think, 11 or 12 years of comedy and before that we did four years of Not The Nine O’Clock News. I don’t regret a moment of it, but we did it for an awfully long time.”

However, he is enthusiastic about a proposed gathering of his old Not The Nine O’Clock News team – Smith, Pamela Stephenson and Rowan Atkinson – to make a one-off show to mark its 30th anniversary.

Balancing his work with home life has always been a problem, Griff admits. He met his wife Jo, a graphic designer, during his early years at the BBC.

She has remained the stabilising influence during his career, and his two children, George and Catherine, are now in their twenties.

“I’m not attracted to glamour. I don’t drink anymore so I find standing in a nightclub utterly pointless.”

He’s just finished filming a second series of Greatest Cities Of The World for ITV, has been racing his boat in the south of France and filming a series in Wales – but he loves it all.

l Griff will be signing copies of his book Rivers in Waterstones, Broad Street, Oxford, on Thursday, August 13, 1-2pm.