Psuedo-code for getting the parent page's title when using urls as hierarchy

breadcrum_hell.php

<?php

// Get the requested URL alias and explode into array
$q = trim($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '/');
$arg = explode('/', $q);

// Shorten the URL by 1 argument
$newArg = array_slice($arg, 0, (count($arg) - 1));

// Get the menu item for the new URL
$item = menu_get_item(implode('/', $newArg));

// Here is the title
$title = $item['title'];