That’s nothing to do with Parky. It sounds like you were terrified of your girlfriend.
It was quite upsetting, watching Dickie Bird talking about his last conversation with Parky yesterday.
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Now they meet again?
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Do we still get a free parker pen if we take out life insurance with sunlife now?
RIP .
I’d place that more with the Wogan show in the 1980s. Because it was on 3 nights a week he could only really get people on if they were there to promote something. Parkinson, at least in the 1970s, would get people on simply because they were interesting guests.
However, if you can see the old Face-to-Face interviews in the 1950s and 60s I can get your point: Bertrand Russell, Martin Luther King, Tony Hancock, Stirling Moss etc. Vastly different backgrounds but a really in-depth interview. I doubt many modern guests would want to submit themselves to that kind of naked interrogation.
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Wogan just followed in Parkinson’s footsteps.
Obviously, it wasn’t his decision to lower the intellectual level of interviews- that came from his bosses- but he was the face of this change.
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This has got me thinking about the quality of programming. I am mindful of the lady interviewer with Bill Shankly (apologies I forget her name) but I think it was posted on here, from the 70s, she was a journalist, a professional, not a sports person, and it was excellent.
Extrapolate that sort of thing out, professional journalists interviewing all manner of interesting guests, having a conversation, with time to get into things in some detail.
By and large, we’ve lost that. So that can be the RIP for the thread, so it’s on topic 
But my question is why did we lose it? Did people become more stupid? Did attention spans lower? Is it simply not commercially viable any more? And who decided to make the change?
Surely there should still be some sort of place for this type of thing? Perhaps there is, and I’m just not aware of it.
Cant stand chat shows. Always someone plugging something.
In part it’s because public figures have become more media savvy.
I mentioned Fact-to-Face earlier. That was resurrected in the 1990s but the interviews were not quite as candid as the interviewees were more familiar with the format.
You can see this most with political interviews. Brian Walden used to do hour long, in-depth interviews with politicians in the 1970s but only small snippets would be widely reported. Politicians got wise to that so now all you get is the carefully crafted sound-bite.
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There is no mystique attached to anyone anymore… Hard to glean an interesting interview with someone, when their dirty washing has previously been hanging out for all to see
Everything seems to be in a gameshow format these days…
Still believe Johnathan Ross, was/is the worst of the lot
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Terry Funk died around 3 days back. Pro Wrestling legend
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Then followed by Bray Wyatt (Wyndym Rotunda) yesterday - only 36. 
Damn, 36 is way too early.
Bernie Marsden, guitarist and founder member of Whitesnake, has died age 72yrs.
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Yeah, simply too early.
Worse was the legendary Bruce Lee who prematurely departed at 32 and sadder still, his son Brandon who was only 28 when he passed on. 
Rest in peace Bob Barker.
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Jack Sonni, guitarist with Dire Straits, has died age 68yrs.
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A contentious character, but seemed like a good bloke underneath it all.
Rest in peace.
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So long, old friend.
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