Parkinson once claimed with a straight face that he "should have hit" Muhammad Ali when the great man was ranting at him in a studio interview. Unfortunately, the Barnsley Brawler restrained himself, denying posterity the pleasure of witnessing what no doubt would have been an epic encounter.

The road not taken, and all that.

In this typically dull interview, with an embarrassingly needy film star, his Hanoi Jane reproach comes at about the 12:25 mark...