Article: Profile: Michael Parkinson: Auntie's uncle chat

KENNETH Williams waspishly recorded him as a "North Country nit" in his diaries, and if you want to watch an outpouring of honest emotions and confessional complex humanity, you'd be better off going to the pub.

Yet Michael Parkinson remains the king of the British chat show, one of those mystifying institutions - like panto or cheese and onion crisps - that leave foreigners shaking their heads in disbelief.

A relatively new extension of the Parky persona is his sporadic offscreen swipes at young pretenders to his crown, the parlous State of Television Today, and those who underestimate his interviewing skills. Last week he managed the hat-trick by grouching against celebrities who turn ...

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