Parkinson denies crying at last show

Michael Parkinson has denied crying while recording his last ever chat show.

The veteran host has also been speaking about his plans for a busy "retirement".

He will visit Australia, write an autobiography and trawl through archives of his shows to create another series looking back.

"I'm a very happy bunny, I cannot wait to jack it all in," he commented. "It's not with any sense of despair or longing that I look at my future. I look at the next two years, I'm totally booked up.

"I've got to do the book and it will take a year to promote it and I've also got 650 shows to fillet and produce and sell. That will keep me fully occupied for at least a year after I've done my autobiography. And then I shall be 75 and I should be thinking about lying down somewhere."

And he poured cold water on reports he shed a tear at the end of the final all-star programme: "All this b******t about me being tearful, it was b******s.

"Anyone who was there knows it was wonderful. I didn't cry. Judi Dench cried because she was singing this very lovely song to me – but nobody else cried for Christ's sake."