That Guy: Parky gets narky over biographical malarkey

Opinion

One of the books I got for Christmas was Parky: My Autobiography, by Michael Parkinson. It was great read and very inspirational. So much so, that I decided I would lock myself away and write one as well.

Unfortunately however, Michael Parkinson's people were quite adamant that they didn't want another autobiography written about him so soon after the last one.

They also stressed that if anybody was going to be doing another autobiography on his life it should be him, and not me.

I could see their point to a degree, but still felt I had a legal right to write his autobiography if I wanted to, especially now that I had such good source material and a passion for it.

I despise censorship, so I contacted my usual legal team and prepared to take on Parky head on.

My legal team consisted of a lawyer who had got me off a charge of urinating in public at 4am about 10 years ago.

It was an interesting case.

He fought for name suppression, but all the while I was fighting to have it lifted because I needed the publicity at the time.

Anyway, Gavin was the only lawyer I knew but, more importantly, he was hungry, as he hadn't really worked since, other than a part-time job installing fold-down ladders for attic storage.

On his advice, we travelled together to London to commence legal proceedings.

Apparently we could have done it from here, but Gavin thought it would be a little more intimidating to show up in person.

I learned later that he wanted to tie it in with his big OE, which he missed out on when he was younger, while repeating papers at law school.

Once we presented our argument to Parkinson's legal team, Gavin went off to Munich's Oktoberfest in a Kombi van with about 12 other Kiwis half his age.

A historic legal battle had begun.

If I were to win the battle to write the autobiography of somebody else, it would serve as a test case for the future.

If Parkinson were to win, it would be a dark day for literature - a win for censorship, if you like.

Just two weeks later, while Gavin was involved in the Running of the Bulls in Spain, the judge made his decision.

As is often the case with these complicated legal arguments, there are wins and losses on both sides, and this was certainly the case in this instance.

Apparently, I am still allowed to use the same basic physical book structure that Parkinson used with his book, and my lawyer even managed to win the right to use the same size and style font.

However, the title, and content within the book would have to be entirely different from Parkinson's autobiography.

The judge went as far as suggesting that the content should actually be about me, but this is an area we are likely to appeal.

I am also allowed to publish in both hardback and paperback, just as Parkinson did.

We are yet to hear whether I am allowed to have a similar photo section in the middle of the book, but Gavin is hopeful we will win this as well.

This was a moral victory for us, but sometimes you walk away from these things thinking that it is only really the lawyers who benefit from these lengthy and expensive legal battles.

I honestly believe that if Parky and I could have just sat down face-to-face, as people, without our legal teams, we could have ironed out many of these issues before they escalated into an expensive and unnecessary legal debacle.