Was anyone else mildly amused by the news that Michael Parkinson's family tree was too boring for Who do you think you are?

[HerBeatitude]

I was.

Though the fact that all his ancestors were miners and labourers should have provided them with some interesting social history but I suppose that's not commercial enough for the BBC...

[Dumbledoresgirl]

They're heads of states now aren't they?

[FattipuffsandThinnifers]

Ooh I think I was too jealous to read anything about Nick Heyward's girlfriend! He was my first serious crush, I luuuurved him.

Vg idea HerBeautitude!

[PortBlacksandResident]

Imagine a BBC film crew knocking on your door as you scratch your arse wearing no make up or bra and a little stringy vest and joggers.

"Excuse me, did you know your GGGGGGGrandma was Nell Gwynn" - cue lingering shot of your saggy boobs.

[edam]

I do like the reverse genealogy idea.

Would be interesting to look at the hundreds of other people who had an equally thin claim to the English throne as George I - loads of descendants of James I and Charles I. And what about Charles II's bunch of illegitimate children? Are they all bankers? Or brothel-keepers?

(I think most of the legitimate or illegitimate Tudor descendants were killed off - the last thing Tudor monarchs needed was cousins like Arabella Stuart (or Lady Jane Grey) getting any bright ideas or being used by people with bright ideas. Got a vague memory they killed the last Plantagenets for similar reasons.

[Ponders]

Bearing in mind what happened to the remnants of the Plantagenets once Henry Tudor landed I think you are probably right, edam

[PortBlacksandResident]

Queen Victoria too - not the best bet to get on the throne really.

Wonder why Catherine Parr's life was never made into a film? Three husbands, outlived Henry VIII, married pervy wotsit who was after Elizabeth, died in childbirth etc.

[Ponders]

Guardian piece on MP's rejection - he told them his family was too boring!

"when Who Do You Think You Are? called and asked if I was interested, I said I would be delighted, but warned that my own research had unearthed nothing of note. 'Oh, they all say that. But we always find something,' they said. Six weeks later they phoned to apologise."

Not that he wasn't disappointed but he took the disappointment very well, for a grumpy old bugger, by the sound of it. (I like the sound of Celebrity Firing Squad )

[BettyTurnip]

"Imagine a BBC film crew knocking on your door as you scratch your arse wearing no make up or bra and a little stringy vest and joggers.

"Excuse me, did you know your GGGGGGGrandma was Nell Gwynn" - cue lingering shot of your saggy boobs."

This made me really cackle

[edam]

Queen Vic would bear some looking into, given the sudden appearance of haemophilia - either it was a 1/25,000 (or however many, I'm sure an MN scientist will tell us) spontaneous mutation or Mummy was telling a little white lie about paternity...

[PortBlacksandResident]

Exactly Edam. Interesting stuff indeed. Have you read Queen Victoria's Gene by Potts and Potts? It's fab!

[edam]

no, but I'll look out for it (sounds like the punchline of a really really awful joke)!

[PortBlacksandResident]

[Pruneurs]

ROFL at this!
Excellent programme idea

[edam]

Seriously, though, I do think its very sad that apparently ordinary working class social history isn't interesting enough for prime time television. In a programme that has done social history - poor ancestors as well as posh.

[Pruneurs]

Yes absolutely agree. Some of the most interesting ones have been the ones with real poverty and hard graft.
Jeremy Paxman's for example - I thought he was a bit objectionable but the bits about the poverty in his Scottish families were really interesting.

I would love a bit of history about the miners and how they got their plays produced, but maybe MP IS too boring an auld shite to deliver it!

[ButterbeerAndLemon]

I can see how if the ancestors had all done the same thing in the same place and hadn't left any significant paper trail bar births marriages and deaths (I think that may be the critical bit, actually) then there wouldn't be enough to fill a one hour programme on family history, especially if it's all close to where the subject lives anyway.

[ProfYaffle]

I think butterbeer has it. My family history has been really hard to trace as they were all dirt poor and left no real paper trail. The ones I did find were all shoes makers with the same name

[Threadworm2]

I think that's what it might be, mightn't it? They haven't always gone for scandal or class, but they need some particular facts about particular individuals' lives or the programme wouldn't really work.

[funtimewincies]

I'm convinced that they don't let anyone on who doesn't sign the 'I promise that I will blubb at least once, probably by a graveside of someone who died 3 generations ago' form .

But I still watch it avidly !

[AitchTwoOh]

I was just watching the davina one, i enjoyed it. although durrrr about not having heard of the dreyfus affair. j'accuse, davina.

i felt for her So Much when she sobbed on seeing that cousin.

[maggievirgo]

No. I can't understand why everybody goes on his show and fawns all over him. I really can't. I don't hate him, but I think he's quite dull. He never asks the question that you're hoping he'll ask.

I love the ones about Jewish families. They're the best

[ButterbeerAndLemon]

I did wonder whether she'd been told to pretend not to have heard of the Dreyfus affair so that they got a chance to explain it on camera.

[edam]

ProfYaffle - get thee to Northampton and the museum of shoes. Apparently it is fascinating... so I'm told, anyway! Loads of social history around the shoemakers and lots contributed to the English language.

Are yours connected to Northampton itself? - did you know Northampton FC had the first black professional football player who was also the first black officer commissioned into the army? (My mother tells me he was still a local hero in her own childhood in the 50s, even though this dates back to WW1.)

[edam]

(I have no problem believing that Davina had never heard of the Dreyfus affair...)

[maggievirgo]

God, how embarrassing, I'd never admit to that. I found that one of the most interesting parts of my history course. I just couldn't play dumb for that.