I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [38]
The next day I walked into Peartree Productions and doubled everyone’s pay. Then sacked Lisa.
74 Note: at the time this word was deemed acceptable. How times change!
75 Press play on Track 18.
76 Fernando confronted me about this many years later. And after initially telling him to get stuffed, I broke down and admitted to a momentary lapse of parental judgment.
77 Some people have subsequently accused me of lying that I owned a production company. It wasn’t a lie. It was a joke that was taken seriously. And if they can’t see that they’re idiots.
78 Press play on Track 19.
79 Press play on Track 20.
80 Free of charge. This was a big break for Jeff and the gang. In fact, they later won a contract to play on a cruise ship to Santander off the back of me.
81 Some people mistakenly believed the track was recorded by the Geoff Love Orchestra. Wrong! If I had a pound for everyone who made that mistake, I’d be pig rich.
82 I say, girls. One was in her forties and recorded her vocal with a ten-year-old son eating sandwiches by her side.
83 I’m laughing as I write this.
84 Press play on Track 21.
85 Would make a good chapter in The Da Vinci Code.
Chapter 11
Radio’s Loss
A TV CHAT SHOW is different from a radio one. Hair must be better kempt, the studio must be de-drabbed, a house band is required. And other things like cameras and monitors differ as well.
These weren’t my concern, though. I was the talent. And the world would know my name.
Hayers had us scheduled for a 9pm BBC2 slot. I’m often asked if that miffed me. The natural home for a broadcaster like me would surely have been BBC1, 7pm. The chat show landscape of the time was barren and desolate like the moon or Malta, and ITV’s Aspel & Company – the only serious rival for the chat show crown – had been put to sleep. (As an act of kindness, trust me. Terrible show.)
BBC1 was crying out for KMKY, and the decision not to place it there was a loony one. But miff me? No. I looked at the bigger picture. If ever a TV channel needed helping out of a hole it was BBC2, 1993/1994. And I was the man to give it a shot in the arm.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t an avid watcher of the channel, being neither a young urban male or book-bothering clever-clogs. But I did watch Top Gear, and I knew damn well that its fortunes represented an accurate bellwether for BBC2 as a whole.
In 1993–4, Top Gear – and by extension BBC2 – stank the place out. Tiff Needell’s voice was cracking every other word, like an early-day Michael McIntyre. Clarkson was a point away from a driving ban so was test-driving cars like they were hearses, and Quentin Wilson …
Never the most upbeat of motoring journalists, something was up with Quents. Don’t get me wrong, he’d been a bit weird for a while: the cadence of his sentences had started to get on everyone’s tits, and he was walking round all uppity and pretending to like art. More privately, he’d bought a series of vintage Bentleys but didn’t know how to drive them, secretly preferring his Toyota Avensis. But he’d even cut down his mileage in that.
No, there was more to it than that. I followed him to the bogs at the Motor Show in ’93 and asked him straight out what was up. He wasn’t able to meet my eyes but shook his head sadly. ‘I’ve fallen out of love with them,’ he said. ‘I just can’t stand them.’
‘What, who?’ I said, asking two questions for the price of one.
And with a heavy hand, he gestured out towards the Birmingham NEC. At the cars. All of the cars. He’d had his fill. And at that he broke down. We held each other, crying, for what seemed like ages. And from that moment onwards, I knew that he was shot. Top Gear was shot. BBC2 was shot. I made a big decision that day. I would forget about BBC1 and be BBC2’s White Knight,86 riding to the rescue, the salvation of the listing TV station.
Having