[6] He worked in a series of low-paid, unskilled menial jobs before gaining employment with National Mutual Life, a city insurance company, as a computer operator.
His free time while working there allowed him to develop his literary skills, and he published an underground paper called the Scandal Sheet.
Parsons later said that he had imagined that if he could publish a book then he would be able to make a living as a professional writer, but the £700 he made from that novel was not enough to allow him to leave Gordon's Gin factory.
He wrote the first cover story on the Clash and features on the Sex Pistols, Blondie, Talking Heads, the Ramones, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, the New York Dolls, Buzzcocks, and Led Zeppelin among others.
Director Stanley Kubrick and distributor Warner Brothers sued broadcaster Channel 4, unsuccessfully, in an attempt to prevent clips from the film being shown on television.
In the programme Parsons is seen taking a cross-channel ferry from England to France to watch the film, which at the time was embargoed in Britain due to a self-imposed ban by the director.
In 2007, Parsons wrote a series of articles about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from a beach in the Algarve in Portugal, in the Daily Mail.
[9][10] In an article for the Daily Mirror in 2007, entitled "Oh Up Yours Senor", he said of Portugal's ambassador to Britain, Senhor António Santana Carlos, "And I would respectfully suggest that in future, if you can't say something constructive about the disappearance of little Madeleine, then you just keep your stupid, sardine-munching mouth shut".
In 2009, Parsons signed a three-book contract with HarperCollins for two further novels and a non-fiction book titled Fear of Fake Breasts.
The end of his association with the Daily Mirror came at the beginning of September 2013, with Parsons reportedly leaving the title after 18 years because of a cut in its editorial budget.
[12] Less than two weeks later it was announced that he had joined The Sun on Sunday; Parsons said his previous paper was "dying" because it was giving away its content for free online.
The columns typically focus on Parsehole's feigned grief about the recent death of a public figure, contain multiple requests for "subs" to fill in details Parsehole can't be bothered to research, and end with a word count (usually 500 words) and the phrase "invoice enc".