I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [109]
Denton and I became moderately firm friends outside of work too. Despite being a lab assistant he was actually an okay guy. His B in chemistry, C in biology and B in physics (all at GCSE) had left him with some pretty amazing knowledge. The speed at which he could tell you the colour any given metal would turn a Bunsen burner flame was nothing short of incredible. As I found out one memorable night in the pub …
‘Barium?’
‘Light green.’
‘Potassium?’
‘Lilac.’
‘Sodium?’ This is me asking the questions, by the way.
‘Orange.’ And that’s Denton answering.
‘Calcium?’ Me again.
‘Brick red.’ Denton again.
Of course he could have been lying. After all it’s not always easy to trust the bearded. Not since Peter Sutcliffe anyway. I find it’s easier to trust a man with a moustache. In modern times those with upper lip coverage seem to have been pretty good eggs, with the exception of Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Adolf you-know-who and several others. Freddie Mercury seemed alright, though, despite his tendencies, ahem!
Denton is no longer my sidekick of course.267 The trajectory of our working relationship – from strangers-in-pub to partners-in-crime in six days – was clearly unsustainable, and so it proved.
I felt that Denton began to develop ideas above his station. Don’t misunderstand me – I wasn’t expecting him to pucker up each morn and kiss my rump, but I would have liked a little loyalty and gratitude. Sadly, these basic Partridgian values are commodities – like Sterling, or leaded petrol – that the public has deemed dispensable in recent years.
The warning signs appeared when Denton began to turn up late. On North Norfolk Digital, this ain’t on. (I still have the internal memo that makes that very point.)
Me, I have a routine. Although my show doesn’t start until 10am, I try to get to McDonald’s for 7 (otherwise you don’t get the booth by the window) with a pencil and pad. Before I do anything, I work out the tracklisting for the show and come up with scripted chat that I’ll pass off as spontaneous quipping when I flag in the final hour of the slot.
A couple of coffees and seven hash browns later, I’m in the toilets putting my shirt back on after a good wash before brushing my teeth and grabbing another coffee on the way out. I’m beeping my horn outside Denton’s flat no later than 8.50am.
Within weeks of being granted sidekickhood, Denton’s punctuality became a problem. He’d keep me waiting for two, sometimes three, minutes, before rolling into the car without a word of apology. His foul breath told me he’d recently woken and the cakey orange build-up in the corners of his eyes was a sure-fire sign that waking early and/or washing had not been on his to-do list.
I said nothing of course, preferring to make clear my disdain on air – by quelling my laughter, talking over him or making him explain his ‘jokes’ in great detail.
I’m a forgiving man – I even returned a prized album of family photos to Carol after she left, going as far as gluing the torn shreds back together with Bostik and drawing in bits that had been lost – but I felt that Denton was pushing his luck enormously here.
The final betrayal, when it came, was still a shock. I was woken one night by a text from my assistant. ‘Emergency,’ it began, but then it always does. ‘NND now. Not home.’
I ignored the message, temporarily forgetting that when she texts ‘home’, she more often than not means ‘good’. I am continually staggered by her failure to grasp T9 predictive text, despite having used it for a decade.
So it wasn’t until the following day that I realised the news was bad, and that I would be bidding ‘home’ riddance to my sidekick in a matter of weeks.
Turns out Denton had been moonlighting for Bedtime with Branning, supplying wry observations and wacky character-led monologues to a presumably bemused late-night audience.
Well,