S01E18: High Noon

[opening theme music]

I'm Alan Partridge, this is my podcast. From the Oasthouse. 

Welcome to Alan Partridge From the Oasthouse, and you'll notice today that there's a bit of a spring in the step of my voice, if that's not too clumsy a phrase. I'm feeling decidedly chipper. Yes, I'm in a very, very good place. It's been almost a month now since I recorded the previous podcast, and much has changed! You may recall I found an injured magpie called Morris and have been coaxing him back to health, like a male nurse who's straight.

And in doing so, I've received very helpful advice from listeners, including a certain Twitter follower of mine, High Noon, who was once quite nasty to me, but isn't anymore. He told me, for example, how to hold a bird. Essentially, you encase your hand around it and let its head poke through your middle two fingers, essentially the way you'd hold your house keys if you hear footsteps behind you at night and you think if you land a punch with the keys jutting out, you may be able to get it to stick in their head, effectively using it as a bradawl. Any joiners or carpenters out there will know exactly what I'm talking about and have a little chuckle at that.

He also explained birds with injured limbs need a higher protein intake to help them recover and suggested I feed Morris beef mince, which I did, and he absolutely loved it! I gave him microwaved meat pies and he'd poke his head in and then emerge with a beak full of mince, almost like he'd been baked in the thing. It was all a bit 'sing a song of sixpence', except the remaining three and twenty birds weren't there anymore, just my Morris. And for that, I have to thank High Noon.

I've seen a whole new side to High Noon. It just goes to show that everyone has something that redeems them. Mussolini wrote poetry, Hitler painted watercolours, not well-received ones, and it was Accrington Tommy who paid the price, but watercolours nonetheless. Genghis Khan was famously good at card tricks and Noel Edmonds entertained schoolchildren for free by demonstrating his prowess with a crossbow. So my point is even monsters can have a degree of humanity and I think that's what I've seen with High Noon, humanity.

We've exchanged a great many messages and it seems to me that he has a real love for our feathered friends. He told me recently he'd befriended a curious little wood pigeon, smaller than the others, often overlooked when breadcrumbs are administered, the runt of the litter, and I think that explains a lot in terms of his dysfunctional behaviour and what he's become. Just as the wood pigeon is elbowed aside when bread is given out, maybe he was left helpless as bigger, stronger boys gobbled up mother's affection, or attention, from the girls at school.

It's actually quite sad. He calls himself High Noon, but I suspect he's actually quite short. Anyway, he'd noticed this wood pigeon not getting any breadcrumbs, so started to keep some aside for it. They soon developed a bond, just like Morris and me. He told me he likes to go to the local park to feed him. He sits on a bench by the pond looking at the church clock waiting for it to strike nine and when it chimes right on cue, down swoops his little bird for his breakfast of bread.

And our chats are very present. It seems just as two rival factions famously had a game of football in No Man's Land in Paul McCartney's 'Pipes of Peace' video. Birds, if you like, have become our Christmas Day kick about.

[mechanical noise]

Oh, that? That's the sound of a windscreen wiper. Did I not say I'm sitting in a residential street in Sheringham, Norfolk, ready to perform an ambush? Because although soldiers trusted their opponents to suspend hostilities during that No Man's Land football match there, there really would have been nothing to stop a savvy German soldier jogging back to his trench, saying he was just getting some half-time oranges and then wasting the British infantry with machine gun fire. And I guess this is something similar. 

Because High Noon has left himself wide open and what he perhaps doesn't realise is that I've hopped into my own little trench, manned a Spandau MG machine gun with the magazine draped around my shoulders to prevent jamming and now could quite easily squeeze the trigger! You see, a few weeks ago I got talking to a private investigator. 

Derek, my friend from the Rackets Club, used him in 2010 when he suspected his wife was boffing her manager at work. He spent 16K on an investigation that took just under two years and although Christine turned out not to have been unfaithful, she was just getting some psychiatric counselling, Derek doesn't see that as a waste of money. In his words, he purchased peace of mind, for sixteen grand.

Anyway, Derek put me in touch with his investigator, a man called Walter. I took him for a drink and we had a very fruitful chat about IP addresses. "Huh?", you're thinking, "IP addresses?" Oh, what? You think an old fogey like me can't understand IP addresses? Just because he's long in the tooth and long in the nasal hair if he doesn't keep on top of it? And eyebrows, actually. They've become incredibly wiry and unmanageable. It's like trying to comb bracken. 

Well, if you think I can't understand IP addresses you'd be wrong, because what Walter told me was that you can identify the location of an internet user from that IP address. I being for internet and P, don't know what P stands for. Walter tends to eat as he talks, so quite a lot gets lost. Unfortunately, you can't find an IP address from Twitter, but don't forget I've had months of petty vandalism on my Wikipedia page, too, with snide contributors inserting everything from mistruths to untruths to not-truths.

From various accounts, I'll give you that, but Wikipedia does reveal the IP address of anyone who edits a page, giving you the precise location from which the user has accessed the internet. So, I found the IP address of all of these contributors, knowing that one was bound to be my good friend, High Noon. 

I had about a dozen addresses to choose from, of these five are in the Norfolk area. Sadly, there was no way we could whittle it down further. Dead end. Deadlock. Stalemate. Shame, mate.

Can't do any better than that, I'm afraid. Or can I? Hmm! 

[theme music sting]

Let's cast our minds back to what High Noon said about his precious little wood pigeon, which, by the way, are shit birds; barrel-chested, stocky, you can imagine a wood pigeon outside a pub with a pint and a fag. They have none of the splendour of a magpie. None. None. But anyway, cast your mind back, uh, why was I so interested about how he feeds the damn thing? Because I was extracting clues.

Like when I've been for a drink with a woman and the next day my assistant casually asks how many coffees I've had that morning, because she's seen two used cups in the dishwasher and wants to work out if I brought a woman back to the Oasthouse in order that I may sleep with her. Snooping, sleuthing, gleaning, setting traps, as well-oiled and lethal as a gamekeeper's favourite snare. Brutal devices used on woodland pests like badgers, foxes and rambler's dogs. And poachers. 

I had learned plenty. We know he's from Norfolk. We know he visits his local park. We know he had a pond with a bench next to it. From that bench he can see a church, A church with a clock. And a church that chimes on the hour. Now that gives a sleuth quite the foothold!

Cut to me and my assistant rolling out a map on my kitchen table. I submitted a Freedom of Information request to Norfolk County Council asking how many parks were in the county. They said you don't need an FOI, we'll just tell you. Norfolk has 344 parks. Oh, fiddleshit! 344?! Needle in a haystack, surely? Well, not when you start applying the criteria.

Do they have a pond? Are there benches? Is it near a church? Does that church have a clock? Do that and you whittle it down very quickly. My assistant ended up with a shortlist of 29. Now we're cooking. Time for some field work, remember High Noon has been very clear, he'd sit on the bench beside the pond.

From his seating position he could see the church clock and could subsequently hear the bongs. I had my assistant visit all twenty-nine on the shortlist, sit on the bench and record if she could both see and hear the clock. She could sit there, have a drink from her flask of tea if she wanted and then on to the next one.

It's taken her just under four weeks, on account of her new hip. Only three parks fit the criteria, cross-reference those with locations we gleaned from our Wikipedia-tampering IP addresses and that gives you just one address within five minutes of any of the parks. Gotcha! 

But before all this my assistant was suggesting that I turn the other cheek. I said "You've changed your tune! I thought you were more into hellfire and damnation!". Then I realised she was just trying to avoid going to sit on all those benches, and I patiently explained that Jesus Christ didn't have a troll saying mean things about him, Joseph and Mary Christ didn't find hate mail on their Nazareth doorstep.

The only biblical figures who'd shown remotely troll-like behaviour to the Christs were Herod, various innkeepers, the Devil, Judas, Pontius Pilate, the Roman who gave Jesus the thorny hat. Even after the resurrection, Jesus had Thomas telling people he was full of shit. So, yeah, she was pleading with me. "But Alan the trolling stopped now. You found common ground!". I told her, I said I might forget but I do not forgive.

Or I'll forgive, but I will not forget. And sometimes I'll do neither, but I'll never do both! This High Noon is a slippery little bastard and I'm going to kebab the little kipper! The form of that comeuppance? Well, just a few questions from me about where the hell he gets off and a bit of a scare thanks to two burly lads who I brought with me as insurance. They're sitting behind me in the car. Say hello, Sean.

"Hello". 

Say hello, Connor. Not going to say hello? Does he... does your brother speak? 

"Yeah".

Just doesn't want to say hello. That's fine, that's fine. Just to explain, Sean and Connor are two brothers who have done various jobs for me around the garden. They are built like brick oasthouses and have agreed to flank me when I confront my nemesis in return for a hundred quid. 

"Two hundred". 

Was it two, one each was it? Two's fine. Across the road parked in a beige Maestro is my assistant Lynn Benfield with her finger poised ready to dial 999. She's keeping an eye on any movement in the house. 

"All okay? All okay?". What's she doing? She's doing this again. Whenever I do the 'okay' gesture, she thinks I'm using my thumb and forefingers to spell the O from okay. The whole thing means okay! How could you not know that? And then she tries to contort her fingers into the K of an okay as some sort of response.

"Use two hands!". Oh god this is ridiculous. [opening the car door and calling directly to Lynn] "You don't need to bother with the K. That means the whole thing!". Sorry. She's nodding but I don't think she understands what I mean. 

[theme music sting]

Describe the street? Well, if someone were to ask you to draw a street where all the residents were envious of a celebrity's success it would look like this. A lot of single glazing, those that have gone double have used the ultra-wide PVC frames that take up sixty percent of the window. Satellite dishes. Bricks that are just a dark brown colour. I'm not being a snob, they just look horrible! 

The house itself has an unkempt front lawn. His door has a frosted window at the top, so it's fine for him to protect his privacy is it? And two coloured grab bars either side of it. The next-door neighbours have a Monza caravan parked in the drive, which I think speaks volumes.

Oh god, oh shit, Lynn's flashing her lights. That means she's seen the front door open. [frustrated, to himself] Um, stop it. Stop it Lynn! Stop flashing!

Yeah the front door's ajar. I can see. I can just see from this side.

Lynn stop flashing your fucking lights! You're blinding me! I can just see... Oh god. God. Of course, of course, the grab bars. Maybe he's in a wheelchair. Um, it doesn't change anything, I mean, does it? Disabled people can still be mean. I mean look at pirates. If they're not missing a leg, they're missing a hand or an eye or something. Then there's Oscar Pistorius. Blofeld. Davros from Doctor Who. Richard III was, was, uh- had issues. Yeah this is- I think this is still entirely legitimate. Absolutely fine. 

It's a woman. An old woman. And bingo, there's the man behind her, pushing the wheelchair and he's wearing a Stetson! Well, that- that is pathetic! Well that- that is- there you go, there's High Noon for you! Gary Cooper pushing his mum in a wheelchair. Hardly. We meet at last. The look on his face. Don't crack a smile mate. Ha ha!

Sean. Connor. Get ready to scramble.

My god will you look at this, a troll begrudgingly helping the mother that spawned him. Where's he going? Crossing the road to the ice cream van. Probably going to rap on the window. "Piss off and park somewhere else!". No. He's buying an ice cream. Two ice creams. Both with Flakes. He's got two Flakes in one of them, No prizes for guessing who that one's fo- No, no, he's giving it to his mum. Oh they're both eating their ice creams as he pushes her along. Hmm. Hmmmmm. Hm. Hmmm.

Either of you guys fancy an ice cream? 

"Yeah go on". 

Connor do you fancy an ice cream? 

"Yeah". 

Was that was that a yes or a no? Sean, does Connor want one? I'll get him one anyway. [opening car door] Lynn can you get three ice creams? Three 99s, one with two flakes and get yourself something. An ice lolly. Get yourself an ice pop! All right. [car door closes]

[theme music sting]

This is Alan Partridge, it's an hour later and I've come to pay a visit to someone. Someone who actually deserves my time. A little bird by the name of Morris. Morris Magpie. 

I've packed Sean and Connor off. Paid them in full, happy to do that. And I simply drove away from High Noon's house without ever feeling the need to actually approach him. I mean I thought, 'God does it really matter why he did it, why he is a troll?!' Everyone can go a bit awry. Everyone can have a bad day. Sometimes not knowing something is better than knowing something. I recall that from when my own wife was boffing another man. They'd been going on for a while and everything was fine until I found out. While she was being filled up by another chap, I was blissfully ignorant.

But today I just thought why am I in Sheringham in a car that smells of gardeners? Why am I not here whistling at a magpie where I'm valued? 

Aaaah! Lynn said "I knew you'd see sense in the end", which was very annoying. I said "It wasn't because of what you said. I arrived at the decision entirely independently". And she said "Mmm!" and smiled to herself quietly which was even more annoying. There's a real cake-and-eat-it quality with Lynn. 

And have I made a big boy decision. Sorry, and boy have I made a big decision. I've decided I'm not going to engage with High Noon ever again. I'm going to forgive and forget, which is a first, something I vowed I'd never do [strong breeze picks up] but there's no doubt about it the winds of change are blowing through my life at the moment. Gee, that's gusty!

And, I er... Oh, Morris is off again! Back to his new chums by the look of it. Yeah, he found some other magpies. Come back! Come back! [weak whistles] Here Morris! He's not bloody coming! Come back! [whistles again] No, he's not coming. 

Well I guess... I guess that's as it should be. He's with his people. And I'm here with you, dear listeners. My people. No big deal. Yeah.

No, I mean, I don't want you to think I'm Billy Casper in Kes who struggles to connect with the world but adopts a kestrel and as their bond grows, so does his confidence. Equally, I don't want you to think I'm Brooks from Shawshank Redemption, the elderly person who takes a crow and learns to love after decades without love, who comes to realise that nothing can be truly imprisoned and just as the inmates seek freedom, so does the bird. 

Erm, No no no no nono no, I'm just a guy who found a magpie called Morris. He needed help, I helped him. We became friends. He learned how to fly again. I learned how to... I wouldn't say love again, but yeah, I found some amazing things in some unlikely places and ultimately, yeah, found a bit of peace.

A partridge in a magpie. People say partridges and magpies can't mate but we can be mates and we are friends. We always will be. Always will be. 

But he should be with his own people. That's, er... yeah. Oh there he is! He's flying quite high! Goodbye Morris! Come back any time! Y-, y-, [swallows, emotional] you're a good bird! [background sounds fade to silence]

I don't mind admitting, I had a bit of a wobble there. But I'm back inside and I'm able to see things in their proper perspective now. I'm clearing up some of the magpie dirt from just in front of the fireplace. Morris. Let's have a bit of oboe.

[gentle, pastoral oboe music plays]

Quite mournful. It's... uh... I think it's it's just really captures the... the introspective, contemplative mood I find myself in, um, after saying goodbye to... some- [trails off]. 

Listen to the oboe and think about what's gone before and reflect on whether you've learned anything these last few weeks.

[oboe continues, a low bass chord fades up in the background]

Are you finding this useful? 

[oboe fades out, theme music fades in. Rosa reads the credits]

Written by Steve Coogan, Neil Gibbons and Rob Gibbons.

Starring Steve Coogan.

Also featuring Clare Cole, Lourdes Faberes, Joe Fraser, Neil Gibbons, [[[Idi Corbett?]]]

Directed by Neil Gibbons and Rob Gibbons.

Produced by Joe Fraser.

Production Coordinator: Clare Cole.

Sound recorded by Jerry Peel, Josh Ward and Will Whale. 

Edited by Joe Fraser, Nick Webb and Jonathan Conley. 

Mixed and mastered by Tom Corbett and James Evans.

Post-producer: Chelsea Chandler. 

Head of Production for... Baby Cow?! Judith Bantock.

For CH Podcasts, the Executive Producer was Lewis Bury. 

For Audible, the Executive Producer was Sam Brine. 

The Production Executive was Hayley Nick.

And the Commissioning Editors were Sam Brine and Steve Carsey. 

[Alan] 

Thanks Rosa. Really good.

I'd like to thank all the people at Audible who've become my close friends. Just as Morris has flown, it's time for me to fly. Time for me to fly. Goodbye.