Meet the man who's bored everyone

Michael Parkinson has launched his own website.

For a man who hitherto never wasted any promotional opportunity to remind you he's a journalist and NOT A TV PERSONALITY, the OMB (Ol' Miserable Bastard) appears to be loosening the strings of his pomposity corset. For this site is nothing if not personality-led.

There's a big photo of the man, seemingly biting on his own finger. We're invited to "meet the man who's met everyone" - not the sort of claim you'd expect from a lowly journalist of the old school.

We're also asked to buy a CD entitled Michael Parkinson: My Life In Music. For anyone who *still* hasn't heard of Jamie Cullum or Michael Buble, or rather who *still* hasn't heard of how Parky discovered them all by himself (when his producer put their CDs in his journalistic hands), the first 100 preorders of this disc are signed by OMB himself.

At the bottom of the homepage there's a plug for the pub owned by Michael and his son, the one that Terry Wogan is barred from for post-8am news comedic monologue purposes. Oh, and did you know that Parky has a book coming out, all about his life, called 'Parky'? Being a journalist he has written it all by himself and will be "trailing around the length and breadth of the country" for some signing sessions. If you feel like that, mate, don't bother, it's really no trouble.

Anyway, the thing that really grates is the way he's snaffled up all the rights to his TV interviews and will be filtering them online through his very own smarmy pipette whenever he chooses.

What a selfless act of journalism: placing himself higher than his public, and refusing to let the clips stand on their own merits. Instead we're to be flattered with his own favourites and, presumably, all the ones that show him in a good light rather than his guests (or rather, show him in a better light).

Ah well, you're thinking, perhaps OMB will give readers a right to reply to all of this bollocks on his new blog. Wrong. It's called a blog, but it sure as hell isn't one. It's merely another megaphone for all things Parky, to which nobody is allowed to respond.

Among the titbits is news that he's about to become Chancellor of Nottingham Trent University. Can you guess, reader, which name looms largest among those he has chosen to receive honorary degrees? Billy Fucking Connolly. How we'll all look forward to hearing about Parky's hilarious encounter with "one of my favourite people" in front of a bunch of graduates who don't know who either of them are. Maybe the stage will be arranged in the style of his chat show, which as we now know went bankrupt because OMB wanted a pocket money rise from Michael Grade.

There is, however, a forum. Surely this is fizzing with activity, given Parky is "the man who's met everyone"? At the time of writing it boasts just six replies. Maybe that's because he's personally deleting any response that doesn't meet his exact journalistic standards of grammar and spelling. Or maybe nobody really gives a toss.

Thank fuck he's not on TV anymore.

P.S. How come he hasn't shelled out for michaelparkinson.com? It's available. After all Mike, michaelparkinson.tv can't help sounding a little, well, common...