Whicker's World

Alan Whicker heads north to the spectacular landscpe of Alaska. It has the most hostile conditions in the world. Winter temperatures average minus 60 degrees; if there’s a wind, it can plummet below minus 100 degrees and the nights last two months.

Americans have one Secret Society which everyone longs to join, based on an improbable sandbar down in Florida. For a century Palm Beach has been the Mecca of the Super Rich, living between tall walls and high hedges with only one money problem - how to spend it. Palm Beach, a never-never land, where no-one feels properly dressed without a yacht, is seemingly populated by bathroom billionaires known by their products, like Mr Kleenex, Mrs Listerine, Mrs Q-Tips and Mrs Gillette. In his remarkable study of America's new aristocracy at play, Whicker reflects that the rich should not be resented but enjoyed as a pageant - as they pass before us, a glittering entertainment. He talks to society hostesses, including Juliette de Marcellus, Helene Tuchbreiter, and Ann Hamilton.

Alan Whicker visits the city of Charleston and observes the very varied lifestyles of its residents, including that of America's only Voodoo colony.

Alan Whicker visits Salt Lake City, home of the Mormon religion Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Although polygamy is now officially banned by the Church, he discovers that it continues among Fundamentalists. He also meets the 82 year-old Mormon leader, Spencer Kimball.

Butch Cassidy's sister Lula is alive and well and living in Utah, aged 94 and with a fund of fascinating stories. In Salt Lake City Whicker drives the hydrogen car, learns from Dinosaur Jim why these monsters face a new extinction, and sees the world's biggest man-made hole.