I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [96]
Much like a masonic lodge, it provided a meeting point where the region’s most important people could get together, share ideas and do each other clandestine favours. Unlike a masonic lodge, there was no snobbishness towards celebrity broadcasters. Nor was there any suggestion that members must sacrifice livestock and daub themselves in its blood while chanting. I liked it there very much, and enjoyed offering suggestions to the management as to how the staff could improve. (I’m still a member to this day. After several years of lobbying, I have managed to ban children entirely. There is now a heated outhouse for children with a light and running water.)
The Apache Group of Companies® had its fair share of work – some people think it didn’t but they’re wrong because it did. Trust me, Apache Productions made quite the name for itself and found a niche satisfying the easy-to-satisfy corporate market – whose idea of entertainment is generally limited to a Dilbert cartoon or the use of Comic Sans font in an otherwise serious PowerPoint presentation.
I did well out of it – my versatility and willingness to leave my principles at the door (for the right price) making me an attractive proposition for even the most toxic brands.
The only time I faced a slight moral twinge was when asked to give a motivational-presentation-plus-rock-music to a well-known cigarette brand. Tobacco was a sensitive subject area because I knew my assistant’s racist mother had just died of lung cancer. Upset an employee for money or upset a lucrative paymaster? You can see the bind I was in!
I eventually agreed to do it. Even the most ardent do-gooder would agree that the £5,000 fee on offer made my assistant’s feelings pretty inconsequential. Sometimes in business you have to be hard-headed.222
And the presentation? It went well, thanks. Ever the pro, I always made sure I gave the client exactly what they wanted.223
And so it was that later that week, I walked out in front an audience of 400 tipsy sales execs … wearing a gas mask!
After the 15-second blast of intro music224 stopped, I began: ‘I once had a teacher who smoked,’ I said. ‘Smoked his whole life, didn’t miss a day’s work. He died at 36! Ha ha.’
I was paid in full.
Like my now-completed home (I opted for the name Classic House), the Partridge that saw in the third millennium post-Christ was strong, impressive and had fully working plumbing. Yes, this was a good time for me. A very good time. People noticed that this incarnation was good. And they liked it.
That – the liking of other people towards myself – found itself manifested with all the clarity this sentence has in manifesting itself in front of yourself as you currently read.
For one thing, I was promoted to Radio Norwich’s glamour slot, Norfolk Nights. It really didn’t get better than that.
According to listener figures, it was only the third most popular slot on the station. But that’s statistics for you. You can make statistics say anything. ‘Statistics’225 say that 80% of women under the age of 30 are either indifferent to, or actively dislike, my current show Mid-Morning Matters. That doesn’t make it true!
My show came directly before the graveyard226 slot of Dave Clifton. Despite our differences, I took no pleasure in having a much better slot than Dave. I mean, I enjoyed helping him out because – and he’d surely be the very, very first to admit this – he needed all the help he could get. Dave was drinking a hell of a lot by now and no amount of Polo mints could mask that. I’d like to say it wasn’t affecting his broadcasting but that would be fraud. Dave wasn’t able to muster anything like the energy needed to carry a three-hour late night show, so I’d have to generate enough energy and momentum in the final hour of Norfolk Nights to carry the listener to the bitter end227 of Dave’s show.
It’s similar to the slingshot technique used