S02E01: Rekindlings

I am Alan Partridge, and this is From the Oasthouse. Series two, episode one... [long pause]

... Episode one.

[opening theme song]

Colin Dover, Nathaniel Grabb, Vera Bishop, Trish Trotter, Dottie Garcia, Craig Hoop, Alvin Sambora, Eddie Sambora, Fliss Griggs, Tobias Saddleback, Mickey Malone, Ted Big, Tony Fathom, Father Gregory Beeston, and Rabbi Adi Schwartz.

Just some of the people who've written to me demanding a second series of my podcast From The Oasthouse. And just in case you think I made those names up, get this, I only made one of them up, and it was Ted Big.

That's right, Rabbi Adi Schwartz is real! We're regularly in touch, even though he lives three thousand miles away in America. He's one of the few Jews who listen to the podcast, which is strange because I loathe antisemitism. I'm pro-Jew, peeps! Get used to it.

And guess what? You may have missed the podcast, well, I've missed my podcast, too! I've been itching for ages to step back into the fray and just podcast again! Because, let's not forget, in the world of podcasting, I matter.

Back in 2020, people hadn't really heard of podcasting. Most people thought it was something done by anglers or the name of a sex act, but then came Coronavirus-19. And wherever you think it started, in an evil lab in China or a bat-meat market in China, the subsequent lockdown spawned a tsunami of podcasts. And I found myself surfing the crest of that tsunami, helping the genre to flourish where other techno fads like Betamax or solar panels had failed.

That was a couple of years ago. Since I've been away, podcasting has lost its edge. It's largely posh Guardian journalists who shorten their names to three-letter ones like Ben, Dan, Sam, Tom and Tim. Or the true crime genre limping along, even though all the decent crimes have been done! Now it's just a killer in Scotland who's only strangled about three women! 

Which is why I'm officially back again. Like mullets, or inflation, or polo necks, or fracking.

And back in more ways than one, because not only am I back on podcasting duty, I'm currently back sitting next to an old haunt of mine. Yes, I was pootling around in my car, or as much as you can pootle with a three-litre turbocharged six-cylinder engine, and found myself thinking of the T.S. Eliot line, "The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time". Wise words, TS! 

Yep, TS was no slouch. And I know exactly what he, or she, means, that the passage of time gives us a fresh perspective. You think you knew it all, but it's only later you realise you didn't, but you do now, is what TS is trying to say. Like when you try really hard to impress someone, then you bump into them years later and realise you were in the thrall to someone who's a dick. Be it a friend, or in my case, a father, who fell short of what most people expect of a dad. Next year, all being well, I plan to forgive him.

So, yes, TS's words popped into my head, but I didn't know why. So, I drove back round the roundabout I was on, and I noticed I'd been driving past the offices of North Norfolk Digital, my former radio station, and I thought, 'Aha!', but not the catchphrase. I thought, 'Aha! That's why I thought that then!'.

And I dwelt on it for a while, because these days, if I'm unsettled by something, instead of distracting my brain by putting on loud music, or trying to bounce a ping-pong ball on a table tennis bat for ages, or if I'm not in great shape, simply shouting, "Get out of my head!", I just sit there and think about the thing. 

I let the thought lead me, like a water diviner following his rod. Yes, I'm meant to be doing X, but I'm going to follow Y. I might return to X once I've finished with Y, unless Z comes along, in which case I have a choice between X and Z, now that Y is out of the picture. Assuming I can remember what X was! 

That was a month ago. And today, as we speak, or as I speak, you shouldn't be speaking, your job is to listen. As I speak, I'm currently sitting in my car, across the road from North Norfolk Digital, my former radio station. "I didn't know you were back on the radio, Alan!". I'm not, mate. But there are encouraging rumblings, and not before time, because this is the longest I've gone without a radio or TV job since my days as a young whelp on hospital radio, playing dedications for the dead or dying. Reviewing that day's meals, or just sharing my observations on medical matters. 

When you've spent that long in a hospital, you start to notice patterns, even if discussing them rubs the consultants up the wrong way. For example, I noticed that grey-haired people were twice as likely to die as those with brown or black hair. But when I pointed out this correlation to hospital management, it was ignored. So, undeterred, I wrote a paper, not a scientific paper, just a personal paper, called 'Hair Colour Mortality Correlation Syndrome, Time to Act', which I distributed around the hospital. And I was asked to leave soon after. 

[music; Queen's We Will Rock You, or at least a basic version thereof]

This summer, Partridge Players present: A theatrical-reimagining of Oscar-nominated movie Bohemian Rhapsody, adapted for the stage and directed by Alan Partridge.  'The Rhapsody of Bohemia' tells the story of Queen, from conception to Live Aid. 

Starring Partridge Players stalwart Graham Bather as Roger Taylor, Alan Partridge as Brian May, Darren Howe as John Deacon, and introducing Daniel Beddingfield as Freddie Mercury.

Fifth to the twelfth of October, The Playhouse, Norwich. Gay men get in free. 

But like I've always done, I turned this set back to my advantage and into my lap fell a glistening career, a career that, since then, has been a pretty unbroken stream of on-air output. It comes to define who I am. Yet it's been two-and-a-half years since I took off the headphones, handed them to an office junior, and said, "Wipe those and hang them on my hook". The wipes weren't even antibacterial, I just had a box of lemony-fresh ones you get from KFC. But I wanted the headphones wiped. I mean, this was in the early days of COVID, when people weren't sure if the virus could be transmitted ear to ear.

Little did I know, I would never don them again. If I'm honest, and I am honest, Grant Shapps says I'm the most honest man he knows, my broadcasting skills have withered like the unused muscles of a retired wrestler, whose pecs have... turned to tits.

The penny dropped when, at a recent party, I was asked to change the CD because the current one had been on three times. I inspected the CD racks, my fingers nimbly dominoing the CDs across one at a time, then when I found The Best of the Police, I popped it on, put the karaoke mic to my lips to introduce the track, and... words just deserted me.

I had to press play without introducing the track. Utterly mortified! Time was when I would have said, "Hello, hello, hello, this is The Police", or "And now a band with more sting than a bee's backside, it's The Police!".

Or even just, "Paul! Swallow your SIM card, it's The Police!", which would have been doubly funny because our friend Paul had recently been arrested for Whatsapping a 15-year-old. A boy, a boy, a strapping rugby player with a beard. But no, he shouldn't have done that. That was... he was out of line. 

But that day, nothing. I knew straight away I have to get back on the TV or radio. Fast forward to a fortnight ago and a chance encounter with a bigwig, he is one and he wears one, from my former radio station, North Norfolk Digital. I was at the opening of an exciting new building development in what used to be a care-home, which shut down after unscrupulous business practices resulted in serious neglect and the deaths of some of the inmates, or residents. Yeah, yeah, residents.

But from the ashes of a bent care-home management scandal, rose the phoenix of a stunning luxury residential development. And I found myself at the trendy buffet of an off-plan apartment subscription party, fingering sliders next to Guy Winch. Anyone who's anyone in the sphere of regional broadcasting will know that Guy is a hotshot.

As the station's director of brand and marketing, he's the Mr. Big-Balls of commercial radio! The JFK, the Elon Musk, the Simon Cowell, not heard of him? Well, what if I told you he's the man responsible for nearly all of the station's rebrands over the last decade? In his time alone, the station has been;

North Norfolk Digital, Shape, North Norfolk Digital again, North Norfolk Extra, North Norfolk Live, Norfolk Live, Snap, Snap Digital, Kick, Kick Digital, Jump, Jump Digital, Easy, Easy Digital, Breezy, Breezy Digitrudal, Keep It Breezy, Keep It Norfolk, Keep It 80s, Nothing But 80s, Nothing But 80s Hits, 80s Hits Radio, 80s Hits Digital, Hits Digital, Hits Digital Extra, HD Extra, Hits Extra, Hits Radio, North Norfolk Hits Radio, North Norfolk Hits Digital, North Norfolk Digital, Shape, and North Norfolk Digital again. He's a visionary!

I said, "How's it going at North Norfolk Digital?". He said, "All good, thanks!". I raised an eyebrow and popped an olive in my mouth, something I'd once seen Roger Moore do as a means of punctuating a killer line to a villain, although I had to spit the olive stone into a bush. I'm assuming his were pitted because I've never seen Roger Moore spit out an olive stone.

Olive stone. Olive stone. Didn't he direct JFK? [burst of recorded laughter] Thank you. Thanks. [laugh track abruptly stops].

"Uh, meaning?", said Guy when I finished spitting the Oliver Stone into a bush. "Oh, nothing!", I said. You know, "If you're cool with it all, that's cool. It's just, uh... Have you heard your daytime output? Wally Banter runs a quiz every week where you have to guess the weight of a dinner lady. It's demeaning to the listener, to the station, and in a way, to the dinner lady!"

"Mid-morning with Gavin Evans and a Welsh accent so guttural he sounds like he's choking on a cough sweet! He is properly Welsh. I don't mean John Humphrys' Welsh, I mean worse than Huw Edwards! It's that bad!

"A Sunday Affair with Cameron de Vere, the guy's in his 80s! An affair?! An affair with who, his nurse? Love At First Song with the Aldridge Sisters, they're the only people I know who use vinyl because they don't know any other format. 

"Reflections with Pat Farrell always going on about his dead wife! Evenings with Neville Trent, that shows pretty good, to be fair. 

"Barbara Bickerton never thanks the sponsors! You've got the whole of North Norfolk's 55 to 80-year-old demographic in the palm of your hand Guy, and I'd hate for you to waste it!" 

Silence.

It was as surgal and brutical a takedown as I have ever delivered. It showed I had passion, know-how, and balls! "Interesting thoughts", he nodded, "Shame you've retired". "Have I?", I said, and wandered away, knowing I'd laid the bait, but perhaps it was a bit too subtle, so wandered back, reached across him for a Jenga of fat fries, and said, "I haven't retired". "Then you should talk to Wilf", he said, meaning the MD Graham Wilford. "What, direct?", I said. "Well, you seem to know your onions". 

"Gee Doubleya?", he said he just likes to be called Graham now. "Got it", I said, and he started to walk off towards the bathroom of the show home. To spare him his embarrassment, I put my hand on his shoulder and whispered gently, "Guy, the toilet's for display purposes only". It must have played out in his mind the fallout had he actually followed through, and I knew that would stay with him. Yep, it was a good day at The Digital. But I thought, retired? I'd never even entertained the tho- the- the thought.

[gentle guitar music]

Oh, by the way, guys, if you're like me, you lead a busy life, and you want good, fuss-free food that doesn't cost the earth, why not try Meal Maker? 

I tried one of its recipe boxes recently, and I have to say I was blown away by how fresh and tasty and bloody simple it was! You just sign up for a week, choose your meals from a range of fifteen delicious recipes and hey presto, you get a sealed box full of sustainable-sourced, chilled ingredients delivered to your door. Fresh veg, super meat, great big portions.

And as for cooking, it really was child's play. I'm not the most confident cook, I get hot and flustered and sulky when things go wrong, but with step-by-step instructions written by someone who speaks English as a first language, and colour pictures it was hard to go wrong.

I had a couple of friends around to watch Strictly, so I went for the vegetable lasagne. Cooking time was one hour twenty, and though it took me double that because I wanted to get it right, we ended up enjoying mouthfuls of deliciously cheesy pasta long before the final dance. Did it come out exactly like the picture? No, mine was much flatter and browner, but I'd definitely eat it again, although next time I'd just pop it in a blender and add egg.

I'm not giving you the hard sub, but if you want to make a meal without making a meal of it, try Meal Maker, and if you sign up with the discount code OASTHOUSE1, you get 10% off your first order, and it works out nicely for me as well! 

Meal Maker, making a meal without making a meal of it. Said that bit already, but they wanted me to say it right at the end as well, which I've now done.

I've been enjoying my life immensely, being stuck at home has given me the time to do all manner of things I hadn't had time to do before. I've taken, what you might call, a sabbatical and lent into it. I don't just mean cleaning out the attic or auditing the fridge by consolidating half-used jars of mayonnaise into a single pot. I've been busy! I spent a month going through my phone and sending my favourite photos off to a framer.

Three weeks later, a lorry arrived with four thousand heavily framed photos, effectively an analogue version of what was on my phone. I've been told if I want to store them at home, I'll have to get the attic floor reinforced, so for now, they're in a safe storage depot and I'll sometimes spend an hour there strolling the aisles, pulling out a photo and just holding it in my hand.

I took my friend Ronald there. He said "It's like a cathedral of memories!", and I laughed a long laugh that... after a while turned into crying before... turning back into laughter again, at which point I quickly stopped so everything was okay. 

And I do other things too. I'm a man who's always wondered, "Am I using the best product to style my hair?". So I set out to answer that once and for all, trying out just about every product on the market. You name it, I'd been smearing it on my hand and applying it to my head. Gels, mousses, lacquers, creams, waxes, clays, pomades and gums! Before eventually settling on a matte finish, sculpting putty and a diamond hold volumising spray. 

It means I can tend my hair safe in the knowledge that I'm using the best product for my hair. And I've been reading avariciously biographies of Ant Middleton, Ann Widdecombe, Tom Hiddleston, Val Singleton, Ken Livingston, Jack Nicholson, Dave Dickinson, Vic Pendleton and Seal, nestled alongside novels that are both recommended by friends and under three-hundred pages.

Movingly, I've struck up a friendship with a local lad called Nathan Griggs. He works in the studio where I record the idents that pepper this very show, and just so happens to be some kind of musical savant. Twiddling knobs, writing harmonies and programming drum machines with quite staggering results!

He was once in a band called 'Barabbas Is My Name'. It didn't work out, but he's taken all the energy he'd thrown into the band and now channels it into making jingles, idents and music beds. Always putting in something extra, be it a blip, tinkle, drone or romper-pom. I'm pleased we connected over a shared love of Slade! And now he's agreed to help with the podcast, so keep an ear out or peeled for that. 

But the fact is, these days I live the pace of a country gentleman. In relative quiet, interrupted only by the sound of birdsong, the 'vip-vip-vip' of my corduroy trousers as I stroll and occasionally my neighbour revving to warm up the engine of his Morris Oxford, which I don't mind because it's an old British car from an era that we all miss. Sometimes we sit in it together and as we breathe in the musty air of damp leather and engine oil, we pretend it's 1959 and we can say whatever the fuck we like. Yes, Philip's Morris Oxford is a safe space.

I potter, I pootle, I bimble where once I would stride, dart, grab and scamper. Cod liver oil and Kellogg's All Bran keeps me supple and regular, but am I losing some of that spark? I read some words of wisdom on an app that sends you thought for the days, or thoughts for the day, "A tree without wind may grow tall, but only a tree in the wind will grow strong". Sometimes we need the hurly-burly, the argy-bargy to stay vital. 

Problem is, my relationship with North Norfolk Digital soured quite badly towards the end. I won't go into detail about what went down, all pretty standard stuff; raised voices, choice swear words, finger-pointing the odd "Keep out of this Debbie!". And then a man got shoved and had a verrrry minor heart attack. So, yeah, some bad blood, perhaps that's why he had a heart attack. 

Honestly, someone has a bad diet and lifestyle, and muggins here gets the rap for pulling out the final KerPlunk straw, while 'Mr Instant Gratification' always chooses the burger over the grilled fish. Moral of the story, don't argue with people who have high cholesterol. 

But piecing together that shattered trust requires painstaking patience, the rebuilding of cordial relations calls for careful statecraft. The same kind of tiptoeing you have to do around Israel or identity politics. Heavy-footed idiots might say "It's blindingly obvious to anyone with the balls to say it who's the aggressor and who's the victim", or in the case of identity politics, "What? They don't say that, do they? No, really? Oof! I give up!". 

But you can't speak like that in front of one of the new types of people. Tiptoeing is very important in the art of diplomacy. So tiptoe I must around North Norfolk Digital, which is why Alan Partridge and North Norfolk Digital are engaged in a delicate dance of courtship, like two dogs tenderly sniffing each other's bums. Normal animal behaviour. 

Anyway, several DJs returned to the North Norfolk Digital fold, in fact, I'm pretty sure the Mazda there belongs to Dan Collingworth, who does a Friday night show called In Da Club. Dan's a fantastic man. In fact, there's Dan now, I'll just, erm... [car window winds down]

Dan? Dan? Dan! Great, you saw me. [window winds up]

Dan's Friday evening show manages to capture some of the hedonism of Norwich in the '90s. He always says on his show, "If you remember the 90s, you weren't really there!", although he genuinely wasn't there. He was in prison for half of it for a benefits scam where he claimed to be twelve people, enjoying brief local notoriety as 'The Apostle Swindler'. 

But there's definitely a thawing of hostilities. I'm pleased to say, in the last few weeks, I have Liked a dozen tweets from North Norfolk Digital. For their part, they've followed me on Instagram. Important steps on the roadmap of peace, and enough to give me the confidence to do what I'm doing now, sitting outside their office in order to engineer an encounter with Graham Wilford that could be mutually fruitful.

Sure, some would see it as a backward step, but was it a backward step when Bucks Fizz reformed? Was it a backward step when Jesus Christ wandered out of the tomb into Jerusalem town centre? Was it a backward step when Vin Diesel walked away from the first Fast & Furious movie, but then returned for Fast & Furiouses five through nine, claiming it was because the scripts had improved? In all cases, no, it was brave! 

Sorry, I'm just going to open the car door, it's very stuffy. I'm doing this entire podcast from inside my car. Oh, Christ, that's good. It's like Darth Boot in here.

I must say the building seems a lot smaller than I remember, although it did always have those very narrow parking spaces. I remember seeing Dave Clifton turn up once in a Bricklin SV-1 sports car he'd hired for the week, pleased as punch. Drove past a few of us in the car park but parked it between two other cars, and the gull-wing doors didn't have enough room to open. He didn't want to lose face, so he sat there waiting for us to go inside, but we just stood there and watched as he pretended to be looking for something in the glove box. Twenty minutes we stood there, he never did get out of the car. He just reversed out and drove off, giving us the finger. Sad bastard. That was a good day. 

Now, there'll be those of you thinking, "Hang on a second, this is why you've... brought your bloody podcast back? You're boosting your profile to try and pop yourself back in the shop window? You're using us, Alan and we don't like it!". Well, it's not not that, but nor is it that. I adore podcasting as much as I adore Lucozade Sport after a game of hot squash, or correcting a local counsellor on her grammar, it's a genuine passion of mine! 

No, I have my dignity. Having said that, I very quickly dashed off a PowerPoint presentation of what I feel I could bring to the station. A 32-page document divided into six subheads; Cache, Gravitas, Elderly Listeners, Affiliated Sponsors... Hang on, I'm just going to shut the door again. I'm going to duck down in my seat... slightly, because there's a man I do not want to chat to. Sunday Mornings With... Yeah, it's Maurice Higgs. Talk about being pleased with yourself. 

You'd think you wouldn't be able to tell over the mic that he has long, thick, glossy hair, but somehow you can. It drops from his voice like honey off a teaspoon.

With the exception of Noel Edmonds and, in my forties, me, I've never known a man more proud of his hair. Oh God, there's a security guard. [stern knock on window, winds down] 

Hello. Trevor, isn't it? 

"No, it's Terry".

Terry, yeah. I knew it was a name with a T that sounded like a greengrocer.

"Can I ask what you're doing here?".

Just a trip down memory lane, mate. 

"Right".

The old gang's still here? 

"Yeah, yeah, all here".

Is Graham Wilford around? 

"Yeah, yeah". 

Can I have a word? 

"Well, you'll probably have to make an appointment". 

Get him with your walkie-talkie!

"Yeah, okay". [walkie-talkie bleeps on]

Great. 

[into walkie-talkie] "Someone here to speak to Mr Wilford, over". [pause]

"All right, go on". [Terry hands Alan the walkie-talkie]

Hello, it's me Graham, over. 

"I don't know Graham Over".

No, it's Alan, over. 

"Sorry, Mr Over, I don't know you or your brother". 

No, It's Alan Partridge, the 'over' is just an indication it's your turn to speak. I was using the correct radio telephony procedure, Graham. You end by saying over, over. 

No, you don't need to do it. Most people don't adhere to that protocol...

[voice over] Our conversation, or at least a bit where I kept saying 'over', quickly came to an end. But I'm pleased to report that five minutes later, I'd sorted out the confusion and rescued things with Graham by recounting the story about Dave Clifton not being able to open his gull-wing doors and pretending to look in his glove box. It was the foot in the door I needed, Graham and I had a big old laugh about it and Dave even joined us and had a good chuckle about his attempts to appear cool, which hinted at a much deeper psychological malaise he's been grappling with for the best part of twenty years.

Suffice to say, the ice was broken and we all agreed to go for a curry. Goodbye!

[closing theme music]