S01E05: AMA

Welcome to From The Oasthouse with Alan Partridge. 

[soundscape; swirly, ethereal background sounds and questions rapidly emerge as if through mist]

What was your earliest memory? 

When did you last cry?

Would you bring back hanging? 

How do you celebrate Ramadan? 

How do you like your eggs? 

Hello, I'm Alan Partridge. The answers to that soundscape of questions are; looking at a kite, when I lost my best scarf, yes, eat poppadums at home, and coddled! 

The soundscape was designed to convey the idea of me, Alan Partridge, being asked questions, a sonic-collage of random queries! While the soundscape was performed, executed and produced by me, the grunt work was carried out by trainee sound engineer Toby Meeber, the son of the late voiceover artist John Meeber. And I'm sure Toby's mother won't mind me saying this, but she called and said Toby is trying to get into sound engineering but he's not been able to find any work, "Have you got anything for him?" 

And, well, I felt I owed it to John to help the kid out. And I have to say he did a fine job. He was polite, he bought, and brought, biscuits, was punctual, and had a real passion for both sound and the engineering of that sound. Yep, we had a couple of teething problems, I had to bawl him out a couple of times, tell him his dad would be ashamed of him, but the details of those incidents shall remain between me and Toby, though I wouldn't be surprised if he also told his mum... he seemed like the type. 

And besides, once our issues had been aired, and a quick hug enjoyed, we got on like a house on fire. And I've got to say, it was Tobes who pitched the soundscape idea to me, and while the concept was a bit confusing to me at first, his enthusiasm, combined with the sheer volume at which he was talking soon won me over. 

Looking back I think it's fair to say it didn't quite work, but if you don't try you'll never know. I won't be doing it again, but at least I can say I gave it a go. Generally I think new ideas are bad, but Toby was sad about his dad and I thought, if the poor lad wants a soundscape, let him have a soundscape!

[theme music]

I'm Alan Partridge, this is my podcast, From The Oasthouse!

Why a soundscape about questions? Well, it's to mark what I hope, and believe, will be the first in a regular strand of my podcasting. It's known as AMA, an initialism for "Ask Me Anything". If there's someone with you who says "He doesn't mean an initialism, he means an acronym", they're wrong, I don't! An initialism is something that can't be pronounced as a word - like FBI, no-one says 'Fbi'. Or DVD, no-one says 'Dvd' - and although you can pronounce AMA as 'Arma', nobody does, I checked. 

Anyway, 'Ask Me Anything' is an increasingly-popular social media device in which a celebrity sits at his computer and people in offices, get to ask them burning questions.

Not to be confused with the other use of the initials, "Arma" or AMA, which is Against Medical Advice. You'll sometimes find that on a person's medical record if they've discharged themselves without a doctor's say so. Something I've done twice myself, once when I had been admitted to a hospital with an infected foot after walking in the footsteps of my father, but that was because my bed was next to a man who kept saying he'd fought in the Falklands, as if to diminish my own suffering. 

I doubt whether he raised the flag at Port Stanley, he looked more like he cooked the breakfast. And ate ten of them! No, he may very well have fought in the Falklands, but I'd like to think that if I'd fought in the Falklands I'd keep quiet about it and carry myself with a little more dignity.

I mean, that... no there was there was another time when I discharged myself... Oh yes! Oh, this is a good story! When I had an ECG exam at my local hospital, the nurse was taking too long to fit the sticky patches to my body. Friendly enough woman but she had a student nurse with her and they kept chatting about Dermot O'Leary while I kept hissing "Please, I have somewhere to be!".

And when one of them finally said "Oh, he's got such a wonderful manner!", I said "Enough!". I grabbed my shirt and just made for the door, and I assumed the sticky patches would just come away but they must use some serious adhesive because I ended up just towing the trolley with the machine on it down the corridor, causing my skin to tent to painfully. 

And I thought if I sped up I'd just wrench them free, but all that happened was when I stopped for the sliding door, it just careered into the back of me. And when the nurse finally did free me, angrily I have to say, it plucked away the hairs on my body which have never grown back. I wasn't especially hairy, but the cluster of hairs surrounding the nipples now have crop circles in them. No point trying to cultivate the hair now so I just periodically shave my chest. 

It may sound a bit weird, but it's fairly common now amongst personal trainers and actors. As soon as Sean Bean went smooth, I think a lot of actors saw that as a greenlight to, er, flip on the Philishave. 

Errr... Sorry for being tangenital, as is my wont, but back on the point, no this is an AMA or "Arma" which means Ask Me Anything, and I really do mean anything. These things only work if nothing is off the table and balls are on the line. Love. Sex. Death. You want to ask it? I gotta answer it! 

Some celebrities I'm afraid are not forthcoming, one thinks of Nick Knowles doing an AMA on Facebook but only answering the obviously-planted questions about when his new show is airing or what his new book is about and ignoring the genuinely interesting questions like "Does he bite his nails?" Or "Is it true he killed a man in a pub fight in 2000?".

The celebrity has to be prepared to be an open book, unflinchingly honest and generous with their time. And yes, at times thick-skinned! I've seen Richard Hammond getting extremely snippy with a chap on Twitter asking if he wore lifts in his shoes. He started goading the guy, asking him how much he earned followed by the dollar bill emoji, until a few of us contacted him privately saying things like "Easy, Big Guy!" and "Cool it, Big Boy!". If you call him big, he- he tends to calm down. 

So I've invited questions from users on Twitter, Facebook, in my local paper, and from people I'm close to. And questions have streamed in from all corners of the UK, most via Twitter. I've also received emails, letters, which my assistant has collected into a clump using a rubber band. I've even been stopped in the street by a professional dog walker, who had so many dogs on so many leads, she looked like a... balloon seller who's balloons were- were dogs, simple as that! Yet she managed to submit a question over the cacophony of frantic yelps, and a very good one it was too! "Do you like dogs?". That was easy! "Love 'em! Got one, big one!". 

So let me recline on my metaphorical psychiatrists' couch and allow you to, again metaphorically, rummage in my psyche and and have a sniff through the secrets of my mind. We begin with one question from Róisín in Bury St. Edmunds, or BSE as it used to style itself before all those cows went potty in the '90s. 

She says, "How would you deal with terrorists?". Thanks Róisín! This may sound obvious, but I would kick them so hard in the balls they would collapse. Obviously, if there are three terrorists hijacking a plane, for example, you have to kick them all in the balls at the same time, I don't know if you've seen Captain Phillips, which means you do need to get two other volunteers to walk down the aisle, casual as you like, "Hi guys, we mean no harm!". 

Then, on the deployment of a non-alarming codeword, e.g. pretzels, all of you kick all of them in all of their billy-bollocks as hard as you can! Once they're incapacitated and groaning, "Ai ai ai!", you can tie them to a chair with the pipe from the oxygen mask until they're subdued, er... or kill them with a fire extinguisher. 

I had another idea actually where you dive into the bathroom and when they hammer on the door you say "Give me a second, just finishing!", then when they burst in you're nowhere to be seen. They'll think 'Where's he gone?' then slowly they will look up and see you spread on the ceiling like a spider. and that's when you drop on them. You give them a chance to see you before you drop on them, just as it dawns on them, because it's more impressive then. It'd probably work better in a film, you know, with someone like Tom Cruise, but er- because, you know, he exercises a lot because he can't form personal relationships, er... [under his breath] unless it's with Simon Pegg.

[theme music sting]

Okay, let's let's get on with the Q&A. I was... oh god. Ex- excuse me...

[sound of getting up and opening a door, or window, to the outside]

Hello, can I help you?

[distant; barely audible] "No, just walking through!"

You know, this is a permissive walkway, not a public footpath? You're free to walk on it with the permission of the owner, which is me.

"Alright, well... can I walk through then?"

Not saying you can't.

"What?!".

You're welcome.

"I didn't say anything".

You're welcome!

"I didn't say-".

I know. I know you didn't say anything, I was being sarcastic.

[long pause]

Pardon?

"I didn't say anything!".

I know you didn't say anything. I was being sarcastic again.

"Can I walk through?".

Course you can!

"What?!".

You're welcome! I meant it that time.

[door, or window, closes]

[sigh] Er... Sorry about that!

One of the pleasures of living in the countryside is that you never know who you're going to meet! Those guys were obviously unfamiliar with the rambling protocol. If I tell you that they've gone for a country walk wearing trainers, I think you'll probably get the picture!

But so often you meet fascinating, fascinating people. Only last week I chatted to a man who runs a pro-fox hunting pressure group called The Real Countryside Alliance. He explained that since the UK wolf population has declined, foxes have no natural predators and it takes volunteers who give up their free time to fill in for the wolves' absence and deal with any foxes they find. Not sure why they do it wearing red jackets and white leggings but he had an answer for everything so I'm sure he would have an answer for that. Yeah, fascinating chap. He wasn't wearing trainers! He had a good stout boot, properly dubbined!

[sting; rising electronic chord]

Earlier I referred to the hunters wearing white leggings. I should, of course, have said jodhpurs. I apologise to the hunting community.

[descending electronic chord]

Honest to God, when you see some of the footwear that weekend walkers have on, I just shake my head. Or laugh, sometimes both at the same time. You can tell a lot-  you can tell an awful lot about a person by their footwear. When you see a boot-scraper outside someone's house you think, "They know which way to vote at a general election!".

On with the Q&A, another question, this one from Haley on Twitter, she says, "To whom would you like to apologise?". Well, Haley, I'm not much of an apologiser! Some people think being willing to apologise is a sign of strength, I happen to disagree! I guess if I had to choose someone, it would be the chap I sat next to on a flight in 1990, whose job it was to make sure all the escalators on the London Underground worked properly. And, to my eternal shame at the time, I thought that sounded boring. So I did a fake yawn and pretended to fall asleep, waited for a while then opened one eye and squinted at him to check he wasn't still looking at me. Unfortunately, he was and he looked quite hurt.

I think it didn't help that I'm not very good at fake yawns, Listen.

[Alan attempts two fake yawns, they sound like a sarcastic pained cry]

See? It sounds like Tarzan!

When I thought about it later I did feel some regret, partly about my rudeness, but mainly because I... well I missed out on learning about what actually sounds like a fascinating career. After all, where would we be without escalators? Moving people forwards and upwards, or forwards and downwards, all day long, without fuss or fanfare. The unsung heroes of the modern metropolis. So to that man, whoever he is, wherever he is... if he's still here... if he's still a man... I... say... sorry... if he felt offended by my fake sleep.

On Twitter, Harold911 says "Alan where get shoes?", which I think means 'Alan, where did you get your shoes?' I'm not sure what shoes you're referring to.

I have a compartmentalised shoe section in my wardrobe, very efficient use of space, like a slave ship. And it's full of shoes, I'm talking loafer, brogue, moccasin, beige Timberland before I discovered it was akin to having keys hanging from your belt, boat shoe, Plimsol for squash, moccasins, slip-on dress shoe, and brown chunky hiker. There are others, but that's for me to know.

An email question from Paul in Throop. Throop? Throop? Surely that's made up! Throop.... God, there is a Throop, in Dorchester! I'm going to add that to my list of funny place names, along with Mamble, Warninglid, Bitchfield, and Barton in the Beans! 

Paul asks, "Who do you think should be the next James Bond? Would you make it a woman?". Paul, I would absolutely make it a woman! I'm not sure you can be that prickly about accurately casting the role of a quintessential Englishman when you've already given it to a Scottish chap. Sean Connery did his best, no question, but when he orders a Martini he sounds like someone asking for coins by a cash machine. No, the accuracy ship has sailed and if a woman wants to swim after it, chuck her in and let her! 

With all seriousness, and this is as good a time as any, how about this for the next Bond? Rather than giving it to a lady or a black guy, my idea - which no-one has mooted - is to split James Bond into two characters. Idris Elba is Jack James, and Tom Hiddleston is Brian Bond! Together, they are James and Bond, former spies who have set up a sci-fi detective agency located at double-oh-seven Lower Regent Street. 

As actors, they both bring different things to the table. Obviously, you couldn't imagine Hiddleston genuinely having a fight with someone or being good at running. Likewise, Elba is going to be given short shrift at a private members' club for Old Etonians, but together they can be a pretty formidable duo! The genius of it is, if you don't like Idris Elba, you've got Tom Hiddleston. If you don't like Tom Hiddleston, you've got Idris Elba! If you don't like Idris Elba or Tom Hiddleston, then I'm afraid you're shit out of luck, because that is the spine of my idea. 

In the first movie, and remember it's taking a more sci-fi direction, they have to go on a mission inside the internet. That- what my- what I was thinking was that they get reduced in size by a special shrinking laser, so that they're no bigger than ants, and they're put inside a memory stick and delivered into a desktop computer, then they're away! 

They're in the internet and end up doing battle, physically, with a computer virus, because that's- that's the thing about sci-fi ideas that really work; you have to obey the rules of logic, they can't just walk onto the internet! So Elba and Hiddleston would walk inside a memory stick that to them would look about the size of a shipping container. And their mission will be to find and do battle with an internet virus, who I think would look a bit like Stormtroopers from Star Wars, I've not... I've not worked out the details but there's definitely something there! 

"Elba. Hiddleston. Together at last, as James and Bond in Firewall! Licenced to kill... Malware!"

I mean it's silly, it's silly, some people would think is silly, I don't! It's definitely worth exploring.

Another question, "Where are you going on holiday?". Good question! I was hoping to take six months out and traverse the entire continent of Africa, not north to south, or east to west, but diagonally! And I was going to do it in a Land Rover, fully kitted out, satellite phone, and a tent on top so lions can't get you. 

In the end, an expert said I probably wasn't experienced enough to go, so instead I changed plan and I decided to do a fortnight in the Peak District in an RP Rebel Sporthome Campervan and just do loads and loads of zip-wiring at Go Ape! People who read The Guardian laugh at that, but secretly they'd like to do it! They're not doing it, and I am, so... I win!

[sting; gentle, acoustic guitar-picking music]

"Me Facts. Facts about me".

Hello, Alan Partridge here. People often say to me, Alan, have you ever been to Northern Ireland? I have never been to Northern Ireland.

"Me Facts. Facts about me".

Nothing else happening on Twitter. That's a shame. That's fine. Shame but fine, shame but fine. What else? I've got the questions that my assistant has collated from my mailbag which she's jotted down for me, the first one says "Have I been involved in an accident that wasn't my fault?". Yes, I have, yes. Loads of times.

"Would you like to earn pounds from home?" Hang on, these are just- These questions are from pieces of junk mail! "Am I thinking of moving house?",  "Have I registered to vote?"... Jesus Christ, she's shit! Lynn! [sighs]

Is that the last of them, any more questions? Not that I can see...

[walking across the room and calling downstairs]

Rosa?

Rosa?

Rosa?!

"Yes, Mr Partridge?"

Rosa, is there- is there any sort of question that you'd like to ask me?

"Erm, yes, erm, what-"

[interrupting] It's alright! Go on...

"Erm, please can you give me more money?"

More money? No, no, no, no, no. I mean, no, I mean, ask a question about me.

"Erm, no thank you!"

No? Okay. God's sake! That's not really in her job description.

Here we go, here we are, a tweet from someone calling themselves a friend, it says... er, he sends a whole list! "How many wing mirrors have you hit in your car recently?". "Why do you still iron a crease into your trousers when no one else does?", "Why do you wash your own car?", "Why did you have a different hairstyle when Pat Farrell went mad with a gun at North Norfolk Digital in 2013?". Er, "Why do you make sure you keep your hair dry in swimming pools by only doing the breast stroke?".

Okay, this is from my long-time internet troll High Noon, got his fingerprints all over this, right down to the unnecessary space before a coma. I should've known he'd try to hijack proceedings. There's more, "Why do you always smell of E45 cream to people who sit next to you on the train?", oh my God that sends a chill down my spine. He's either sat beside me or... knows someone who has... because I can't deny that.

"Do you still park in disabled parking spaces at the supermarket?". Okay, I did that once because it was an emergency, I needed to get a mobile charger and I was in and out in... less than half an hour. Yeah, I- it was about, I don't know, forty-five minutes? I needed to see a selection! It was a Sunday! Disabled people don't shop on Sundays. 

"Why did you drop you Norwich accent if you're so proud of being from Norfolk?". Yeah, very good. It's none of your business, don't have to answer myself to you but I will explain that. If you knew the first thing about broadcast, you'd know that in the '80s the Norfolk accent flew in the face of just about every BBC pronunciation guideline you could think of. Everything was analogue then, speakers fuzzed and crackled, you either spoke clearly or you didn't get to speak at all! 

A fledgling broadcaster with a Norfolk accent is just not going to cut it! When I left hospital radio for the Our Price in-store gig, which was syndicated throughout record stores nationwide, I was exposed to a national audience for the first time. On my first day, my manager sat me down and explained to me in no uncertain terms that the Norfolk accent was a millstone for a broadcaster and I had to change the way I spoke. He said "Dump it or fling your hook", and my hook was gonna remain distinctly un-flung. 

I went down to London and started hanging around in cafes near Broadcasting House. Over what felt like hundreds of nights, I systematically dismantled my accent and rebuilt it from the ground up. In much the same way that you could rebuild a classic car like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, I didn't turn it back into a racer. I made it into a weird boat-flying-car that could take kids! That's... effectively it's a bad, bad analogy, but it's- it- that's the way I made my accent work! You know, I made it better, stronger faster than it was before, like the Six Million Dollar Man, that's better! 

So don't talk to me about dropping the Norwich accent, you don't know the first fucking thing about the Norwich accent do you? Huh? Do you know that it suffers from a lilting cadence, a clumsy rhythm born from the tendency to lengthen stressed vowels? No, didn't think so! 

Or that Norfolk speakers have developed a foot-strut split where the vowels in 'foot' and 'strut' have separated so far that the 'u' in the 'strut' has mutated into a centralised mid-back unrounded vowel. That's before we even get to the yod-dropping, and do you even know what yod-dropping is? Course you don't! It's an idiosyncrasy common in Anglian and American dialects that sees the speaker drop that 'y' sound after certain consonants, so they end up saying 'moosic' instead of music, and 'toon' instead of tune.

[sigh] People think Bernard Matthews described his turkeys as 'bootiful!' as some sort of marketing tool, it wasn't! The guy was cripplingly self-conscious about it! I sat with Bernard, arm around his shoulder more times than I care to mention, saying beautiful every time he said 'bootiful'.

"Bootiful!", beautiful. "Bootiful!", beautiful. "Bootiful!", beautiful! "Bootiful!", beautiful! "Bootiful!", it's beautiful Bernard! Until he broke down and wept, saying, "I keep trying, but it's just footile".

Good man, I miss him. He was kind. Unless you were a turkey, in which case he was the Angel of Death. Bernard was lucky, he got away with having a Norfolk accent because people adored his ability to produce such stunningly-affordable turkeys, or product with turkey, chicken or farm fowl content.

But a young broadcaster trying to get ahead of his peers sounding like that, I wouldn't have stood a chance! So don't accoose me- er, accuse me of dropping my accen'! How about I wrap up this episode  in a broad Norfolk accent, see if you like it? 

[a broad-accented jumble of syllables spoken so quickly no-one outside of deep, rural Norfolk would be able to understand it] "Well, it's all the time for join the dash fae fr'another podcask why". 

No, I didn't think so. Think that's exaggerated? Try taking a walk around Norwich Market on a Tuesday morning.

[pause]

Sorry about that, I got very het up. I'm sorry. Goodbye.

[closing music]