I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [123]
A Toblerone. This is a 750-grammer, one of the tastiest in the Toblerone range. Although I’m salivating profusely as I look at the photograph, I steer well clear of them these days. Have I given up Toblerones? Ha ha. No, you can never say you’ve given up Toblerones. I just say, ‘I’m not going to eat one today.’ And if I make it until bedtime without eating one, great. I’ll then celebrate with half a Yorkie.
Still in the grips of my Toblerone addiction, this shot shows me sprinting to the corner shop, desperate for my next Swiss-choc high. By this point I’ve sunk so low that I don’t even care that my groin is peppered with splash-back from a recent foray to the urinal. Incidentally, during this period I wore exclusively C&A. I found the cut of their garments wonderfully forgiving.
Attleborough Leisure Vehicles, the dealership that sold me my Delta static home. I got a discount for paying cash, although the guy got annoyed when the last twenty quid consisted of small denomination coins stored in a large whisky bottle. To lighten the mood I said, ‘What are you going to do? Call the coppers?!’ He didn’t laugh but I knew I was on to something. I raced home and faxed the joke to Terry Wogan for his exclusive use on that year’s Children in Need. I tuned in to see if he used it but quickly grew bored and flicked over to ITV to watch What Women Want. How Mel Gibson did not win an Oscar for his performance is beyond me. Not least because it was shot years before he became Australia’s best-known anti-semite. Ironic really, because Mad Max was a Jew (CAN SOMEONE CHECK THIS?).
Me, in the caravan. In the wine rack is a bottle of plum wine given to me by a local farmer. It was one of the worst liquids my mouth has ever played host to. It was almost as bad as the time Michael spiked my coffee with WD40. I got him back by claiming I’d seen him inappropriately touch a female guest in the Travel Tavern car park. He was suspended for a month. Great days. (It was a lie, of course, but I didn’t feel bad because I know for a fact he did once touch a woman but got away with it.)
On the right is my ex-Forces confidant Michael, with his ‘thousand-yard stare’. I often practise this look in the mirror but just can’t get the hang of it! In the centre, my former girlfriend Sonja. Our relationship was 80% physical, 15% small talk, 5% Don’t Know.
Standing outside Classic House. In the top-right window, Michael can be seen peeping. During the building’s construction I employed him as a security guard. He offered the ideal combination of military know-how and borderline post-traumatic stress disorder. He would do whatever it took to defend the property, and hang the consequences. Thankfully, the closest we ever came to a burglar was a fox that wandered in, lost. May it rest in peace.
My stall in Norwich train station, where I once spent a week selling copies of Bouncing Back. It’s probably fair to attribute the lack of takers to poor literacy rates in Norfolk. In the more rural areas many kids are simply beyond the reach of the education system. It’s rumoured that some go their whole life and never learn to speak.
When I wake up each morning, this is what I see: a new dawn, a glittering horizon, a vista ripe with opportunity. It really is one of my favourite posters. I take a sense of boundless optimism with me wherever I go. Along with mouthwash, a clean shirt and a piece of paper containing the phone numbers of my next of kin. Oh yes, I also like to think of myself jumping into that hammock to give the young lady a big kiss and a cuddle, whether she likes it or not!
10 kilometres, 20, 30! Here