Last week the over-exposed shouty face of Channel 4 Davina McCall appeared as the guest on BBC One's Who Do You Think You Are? And never has a more apposite question been posed, although I'd have added the word ' Exactly' after 'Who'.
It transpired that like virtually everyone else who has appeared on the show, there was an element of tragedy and glamour and exoticism in her blood line and that McCall, a purveyor of the cheapest tat on TV, was related to some French policeman who was famous for something that I can't remember.
Ignorant Radio 1 lout Chris Moyles, who has somehow also escaped the axe despite being the wrong side of 30, famously made a poor taste joke about Who Do You Think You Are? along the lines of everyone seemed to have someone die at Auschwitz. While this isn't true, the show does seem to relish in finding tragedy in a celebrities family tree (not difficult) and then film them blubbing. Even Jeremy Paxman got all weepy for some reason or other.
Refreshing then that Sir Michael Parkinson has announced that he was due to go on the show but they had to cancel him as his family line was too boring. Refreshing but not entirely surprising.
So that's one piece of good news in the Autumn schedule - we won't have to hear Parky banging on about his days as a cub reporter at the Yorkshire Post, his wife Mary, cricket, Yorkshire and his encounters with Muhammed Ali. Or watch him crying over someone he never knew.
