I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [88]
One morning, though, I decided to do something different. I resolved to write in the park. I rose early and, just as dawn cracked, I found myself a nice little bench by the pond and began yabbering merrily away into my Dictaphone. This only lasted a couple of hours, though, because my audio kept getting polluted. If I learnt one thing in the writing of that book it was that the pained cackle of a swan in labour really does carry on the breeze. Disgusting.
After what seemed like an eternity, the book was finally written. It had taken three long weeks. As I typed the very last word – ‘Allah’ – I collapsed on to my keyboard. I was spent, every last drop of me had been poured into that book (save for a couple of anecdotes that I took from Russell Harty and re-badged as my own – and there’s nothing he can do to touch me).
A wave of relief rushed over me as I began to dribble on the space bar. If pony-trekking had soothed my troubled mind, writing this book had been a full radiator flush, removing any traces of magnetite sludge from my system. My demons hadn’t been exorcised, they’d been rounded up and shot. And now, as I bulldozed them into a mass grave with a fag in my mouth, I could move on with my life.
Of course there was still the small matter of finding a publisher. My previous work ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Stadium to Alan Partridge by Alan Partridge’ (a wry collection of amusing anecdotes about my experiences as a sports reporter) had been published by Peartee Publishing, the publishing wing of my now defunct company. (PP had gone under years before, after an injunction from former goalkeeper Ray Clemence who angrily questioned the validity of one of the anecdotes.205)
So we needed to source a new publishing house. I’m told by my assistant that it only took about a month – after all, anyone reading the manuscript would quickly see that snapping up the rights was a total ‘non-brainer’ – but can’t recall the exact details as I was drinking a lot of cider at the time. I don’t really like cider but there’d been a very good deal on at Thresher’s. And this explained my somewhat distracted response when she’d phoned with the good news.
‘I’ve found you a publisher!’ she squeaked.
‘What?’
‘For your book.’
‘What about it? It’s ace.’
‘You asked me to find you a publisher.’
‘For what?’
‘The book, Alan. You asked me to find you a publisher for the book and I’ve spent the last month sending it to various companies and now one has come back and said they’re willing to publish it!’
I hesitated. Was the news sinking in?
‘Just get me some crisps.’
No, it wasn’t. The next day, though, with all the cider now either drunk, spilled or thrown, I soon shaped up. And let me tell you, I was elated. My strategy of combining searingly honest admissions about my own life with a liberal use of the Roget’s thesaurus, had worked a treat. I was to be published!
I immediately phoned Carol, before quickly hanging up when I remembered we were divorced. I know – Fernando.
‘Son?’
‘I’m just in the loo, Dad.’ He was such a joker!
‘Son, I’m to be published!’
‘That’s great, Dad.’
‘The book will share my own life experiences and teach people a system for setting free the limitless potential within us all.’
‘So like half autobiography, half self-help manual?’
‘Kind of, but also so much more than that.’
‘Great, Dad.’ I heard a plop. Either he hadn’t been joking about being on the loo, or he was dropping stones into a well.206
‘Fancy meeting for a drink to celebrate?’
But the line went dead. In his excitement at my publishing deal Fernando had cut the call off. No matter, because I was still as pleased as the punch I would later make at home from whatever I could find in my drinks cupboard.
Fast forward a few months and it was launch day. It was ten minutes to opening time and I was explaining to the manager of Waterstone’s where best – and in what quantities – to position my book in the store. I grabbed a nearby book (not one of mine) and