I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [60]
As far as I’m concerned, I’d honoured my side of the bargain. Fact was/is, I’d been contracted to provide 6 x 28-minute shows, plus a 58-minute special – and I had delivered them.
I missed being in and around the Death Star, as Jeremy Clarkson calls BBC TV Centre. But as a friend of Grandstand back-up presenter Steve Rider, I could pitch up in reception whenever I liked and he’d come down and sign me in. Having accessed the building, I could stalk the corridors and have a coffee in the BBC café whenever I pleased. I was determined not to be forgotten, and reasoned that one way to stay right in people’s consciousness and appear important was to perform laps of the building’s circular corridors while pretending to be on the phone.
After a while, Steve called.
‘Alan. I suggest you stop hanging around the place because people might find it disconcerting,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘I’m only thinking of your career. You know what they say – “Never feed a hungry dog”.’
‘No, I think it’s “Dogs aren’t just for Christmas”.’ I thought for a moment. ‘You don’t have dogs do you, Steve?’
Steve may not have been too hot on well-known phrases and sayings, but he was blessed with the kind of genuinely great wisdom you only find in men with side-parted hair. In short, he was right. He was always right. After the break-up of my marriage, similarly, he advised me not to eat my lunchtime sandwiches every day in the car park of Carol’s gym. I knew deep down I shouldn’t be sat there, but sometimes you need to hear it in the silky tone of Steve Rider for the penny to drop.
I thanked him – ‘Thanks, Steve’ – and hung up.153
On his counsel, I kept away from TV Centre and kept a low profile for a couple more months. I had plenty to be getting on with: restructuring Peartree Productions so that the printer was nearer my desk and the researchers sat facing into the room; keeping myself in good shape; re-watching every second of KMKY to identify areas for improvement (weren’t that many); and finding a new place to eat my lunchtime sandwiches. I was also winning plaudits for my successful return to radio with Up With the Partridge on Radio Norwich. But I was of course waiting for the call from Hayers that said: ‘Alan, we’re on.’
I’d recently moved into the Travel Tavern and was enjoying the quite excellent facilities there. Anyone who’s stayed in one of the 22 properties in the Travel Tavern franchise will know that those guys ‘get’ what the weary businessman wants. He wants to recharge his batteries without the namby-pamby fussing of so-called luxury hotels – concierges, extra pillows, free slippers, room service after 10pm. Believe me, my batteries were as charged as a Pentagram Infinity 2600 mAh rechargeable cell battery. Still the best batteries money can buy.
It was quality hospitality from top to bottom, and yes, I liked being there, but as the weeks wore on I became concerned about the radio silence from the BBC. I’d been fobbed off with the excuse that they needed to conclude the inquiry into the death of Forbes McAllister before they could talk about recommissioning me. But even after it was completed – I was effectively absolved, bar the petty conclusion that I was guilty of ‘unlicensed use of a firearm’ – the recommissioning process felt like it lacked momentum. That’s not to say they weren’t keen; I’m sure they can’t all have been that thick. But they were dragging their heels in the way that only a groaning bureaucracy populated by Oxbridge graduates can.
Hayers in particular seemed to have forgotten what his job was. I knew what it was: it was to say ‘yes’ to quality TV shows. But he was too busy twiddling his thumbs, or getting someone else to twiddle them for him!
Let me tell you something. For a man who works five days a week in the BBC, Hayers was incredibly hard to get