I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [51]
Some of the next day’s reviews focused far too much on the final few minutes – and those that didn’t each contained the phrase ‘self-serving’ or ‘vanity project’. I found these comments deeply offensive. People132 had asked to know more about my background and to find out who the real Alan was – if there’s something vain or self-serving about spending £29,000133 creating an exact replica of the inside of my home so that people gain a better understanding of me and my life, then guilty!!
Hayers, who required emergency dental treatment which I was happy to pay for, was needlessly off with me in the days after the show. He was angry that I’d invited him on to the show as a guest to, as he called it, ambush him into recommissioning KMKY. Nothing could have been further from my mind.
He was also angry that I’d punched him in the face.
I left messages with his PA to say I’d booked us in at a Pizza Express so I could buy him lunch to say sorry. I didn’t hear back so I thought I’d better go anyway on the off-chance a message hadn’t been relayed to me. He wasn’t there, but fine. I wanted a pizza and tiramisu anyway, so it wasn’t as if I was going especially for that. That would be sad and I’m not/wasn’t.
It wasn’t a big deal, to be honest, because I’d already started thinking that I didn’t want to be on BBC TV any more so it was fine.
Three weeks later I received a letter from Raquel Welch’s lawyer instructing me not to contact her ever again. And that was fine too.
124 Press play on Track 25.
125 A brilliant marching song, up there with ‘Road to Nowhere’ by Talking Heads and ‘Portsmouth’ by Mike Oldfield.
126 But brace yourself for the fact that it does.
127 An idea subsequently stolen, wholesale, by Jimmy Hill’s Sunday Supplement.
128 Not beef mince.
129 Now the Michelin-starred chef-proprietor of Just Willis, but at the time suffering his own psychological meltdown which manifested itself in him appearing as transvestite Fanny Thomas. This is a period of his life about which he is deeply, deeply embarrassed, and if you meet the guy for god’s sake don’t bring it up. Much like Tom Robinson, he’s now sorted himself out and has a couple of kids. He’s left his homosexual days behind him and now does nothing more gay than shop for antique furniture. Good on you, Fanny! Oops! I mean Peter! ;-)
130 The company no longer exists, but its owners James Judd and Tony Dee have set up Greenacres, a chain of care homes for the elderly which I urge you not to use – even if it’s the only one in your area and your parents have become a real handful, toilet-wise.
131 Although god knows they need thumping now and then.
132 A class of schoolchildren aged 8–9 years old.
133 In real terms, less than a woodwork teacher would have got in the 70s.
Chapter 17
Return to Norwich
IF THE BBC THOUGHT I was going to sit around waiting for them to mull over a second series or have yet more ‘meetings’ or conclude a criminal investigation into a man’s death, they had another thing coming.
If a shark stops moving, he perishes. If I stop broadcasting on the TV or radio, well I don’t know what happens because I’ve never let it come to pass. Probably not death but something pretty unpleasant – like glandular fever or the mumps!
I needed to work, so I approached Nick Peacock, then head of Radio Norwich, at a charity gypsy fight. Nick’s a larger-than-life134 character but I saw him as a heck of an admirable guy. He was beset by hygiene issues135 but his indomitable spirit and enormous wealth had enabled him to achieve a marriage.
It’s true what the Bible says, I mused to myself on their wedding day: beauty really is only skin deep. I mean, Carol Smillie is beautiful but blanks me every time she sees me and has a habit of tutting when I speak. Meanwhile, Anne Diamond is one of the nicest people I’ve met.
So I was pleased that even Nick could find someone. It reminded me of the relationship between Catherine Zeta-Jones (incredibly beautiful) and