"The thing is, it's not about me: It's about the people I've had on the show ... I'm a very boring man. I always have been"
KEY POINTS:
It would have been nice to have met Michael Parkinson, "the man who has met everyone". That he is on the end of the phone from Berkshire ought to have been a bit of a disappointment. Still, I hoped he might be talking to me from his famous, black leather interviewer's chair. He bought this chair and the one David Beckham's bottom resided on in the very last Parkinson show last year (although still playing on UKTV here), for £2000 ($5569).
I say I thought ITV might have made him a present of them. "I know. Well, there you are. That's how generous television companies are when it comes to the parting of the ways."
But he's not in the chair. "No, no. I'm actually in my dressing gown." Goodness, is he in his pyjamas? "I'm not, love. I'm naked!" He is a famous flirt. This might have been a long-distance flutter of the eyelashes, or just a joke. Either way, he might be the man who has met everybody but I have the only naked Parky interview. "Christ. That'd be a shock."
If it was true, it would be. It was one of his jokes. He is perfectly properly clothed under his dressing gown. I am pleased to hear this but still rather glad he's on the end of a phone. For one thing I have no desire to see him in his dressing gown, he belongs in a suit and tie. Also, at 73, and now Sir Michael, he can play the grand old man of journalism as well as the genial nice guy. I think he'd be a bit intimidating, even in his dressing gown.
I called him at 6am on a Monday his time, which seemed awfully early. "No, I get up early on Monday mornings. I have to be at work early." I thought he'd retired.
"Well, I did too and I'm working harder than a seaside donkey. It's terrible! I'd imagined pipes and slippers and contemplative strolls along a beach but it's not been like that at all. I've written a book and I've just been promoting it all over Britain and now I'm doing it for the Antipodes so I suppose it will calm down in about a year or two."
That "I've written a book" is nicely done. So I'd better ask about it, just in case he thought I'd called for a free chat.
His book is called Parky and is supposed to be his autobiography but he is too clever to have done anything so revealing. I told him that after reading his book I thought: "What the hell is this about? This isn't an autobiography at all. It's a book about cricket."
He might have taken offence but he was rather tickled. "Ha, ha, ha! With one or two interviews thrown in? Ha, ha, ha! Oh! I don't know about that but I certainly couldn't write a book about my life without mentioning cricket." Mentioning it! His introduction to himself is a conversation he had with his dying dad, the man who spent his life down a pit. "You've had a good life, lad ... You've met some fascinating people and become quite famous yourself. What is more you've made a bob or two without breaking sweat. But think on, it's not like playing cricket for Yorkshire, is it?"
On the penultimate page is his response to being asked about his last show. "I was reminded of Fred Trueman's reply to the same question when he took his 300th test wicket. `How do you feel, Fred?' they asked. `Knackered,' said Fred." He gets in cricket, as he has all of his life, whenever he can.
He says his book is about is a kid who came from a pit village [Cudworth], who made it in his own particular business through a mix of outrageous good fortune and a bit of energy and a wee bit of talent.
I should have known better than to ask how revealing his book was of him.
He writes that at one stage, after his father's death, he was drinking too much and his wife, Mary, wanted him to see a psychiatrist. He writes that the shrink told him "nothing that I didn't already know".
What was it he already knew? "I can't remember," he says. Really? "I honestly can't. I didn't listen to him. I counted the patterns on the paper behind him, the wallpaper. It was a gesture and it was the right thing to do in terms of a gesture."
Does he mean he did it for Mary? His answer might be interesting to a psychiatrist. It begins: "I once interviewed Noel Gallagher ..." about Gallagher's drug problems and segues into George Best's drink problems. The point of which, finally reached, is that Best didn't want to give it up and so didn't and Gallagher did and so did. And so did Parky: "If that's the choice, you either go at it or stop it. You don't need a shrink to tell you that, for Christ's sake."
He must have found his drink problem ("if drink ever was a problem ... I had a problem that was called a wee dram") interesting enough to put in his book, but he doesn't seem to be much interested in it now. Mary told him drink made him "ugly" so I thought it reasonable to ask: In what way? "Exactly that. Ugly's a very definite word. It made me ugly of spirit and ugly of face."
He may have met everybody but he's not spilling many beans. "It's not my job to do that, actually. It's not my job to tell bedroom secrets. I could have told things that would have embarrassed them, maybe, but why would I want to do that?"
There is a revelation, of sorts, about Madonna. She had an assistant solely employed to clean her nose. Thanks very much, I say, for sharing that. "Well, I could only think that's what it was. She had this long stick with this thing on the end that seemed to push up the nose."
What I really wanted to know was how much he thought his book revealed about him. "You tell me. I didn't set out to be revealing about me. I set out to write a story and I did that. Other people can make their own conclusions."
I'd asked him what it's like watching himself through the years (he's putting his old shows on DVD) and he says they are "a catalogue; a social document basically and the thing is, it's not about me: It's about the people I've had on the show."
It is, though, about him now, isn't it? "Not really. It represents a catalogue of disastrous haircuts and callow youth to a leering old man."
But what does he think when he watches himself? "It's really a judgment about terrible suits, bad ties and, in the'70s, cringe! I can't get past the shock of seeing those awful draped trousers and those Concorde-wing collars and the hair!"
I'll risk a conclusion then. "You're not very interesting are you?" I thought his response might be revealing. It might be. He liked the question. "I'm not. I'm a very boring man. I always have been."
As he is so boring, I thought he might not mind the following quote: "Parkinson is not a colourful character. He came across as cosy and comfy as a pair of old Hush Puppies."
"But I don't know what it means. Do you?" I said I thought it was affectionate. He thought it wasn't and, "I don't care what people say about me. It doesn't matter. Why should it? Listen, I'm at the end of my career. I've done 60 years as a newspaper man and I've been 50 years, nearly, in television and right now I should bother about what people have said about me? It's a bit bloody late!"
And so on. When I ventured that he sounded slightly defensive I got more of a ticking off. He was bored. "And you would be too if you'd been as long as I have been in this situation."
Blimey. I say again I thought it was an affectionate remark and he says, "a pair of comfortable old sea boots, I prefer that, as a man".
I think I do know what he was miffed about. He thought it was an underhand way of asking the "were you too deferential?" question, an often-lobbed criticism. It wasn't quite, but I could hardly say so without using the D word and thus making him cross again.
I had been trying to pose a question about the difference between the telly Parky and the off-screen Parky. I asked whether he adopted a slightly different voice for the show (I suppose I mean posher) and he said, "oh, I used to have a very thick Yorkshire accent. It's modified over the years."
Has it really? I say. "I can barely understand a word you're saying." There was an awful pause. I admit it was a silly joke, but it's the sort one of his guests might have made and he would have chortled. He was just making me sweat a bit because he did laugh and then he pretended to tick me off again. "Don't be rude! No, when I go back home ... within about half an hour ... I'm talking like a native." And so he did: "Aye, by gum lad, aye, ta, wot! Bloody hell!" Or something like that. I could barely understand a word. This, of course, was precisely one point of his joke, the other being that it was much funnier than mine.
I risk a parting joke. I thank him for the years of entertainment, and say how much I'll miss the shows. Then I say, "there you go. That's me being deferential and sucking up".
It's his show. He should get the last word. "Ha, ha, ha! I like the feeling."
Yes, very nicely done. Applause, please.
