S02E02: Novel

[a light laugh, a happy sigh, the sound of a page turning, another light laugh]

Ah... Oh, hello. [book loudly snaps shut] Sorry about that, I was just reading. I do so... love books. [loud slam as a book is tossed to a hardwood floor]

I can't think of many truer pleasures than settling into a fat armchair, letting my mouth fall open and reading a novel. And I mean really reading one, not just skim-reading it before a live TV interview, or pretending to read Middlemarch while smiling sagely to look more attractive in a departure lounge. Genuinely reading.

For me, books aren't just a feast for the eyes, I love the feel of books, the flaps of reformed pulp nestling compliantly in the crook of my hand, my fingers tracing their supple spines. I love the sound of books. I don't mean audiobooks, I don't like audiobooks, I've never liked audiobooks. If I want to hear Sam West reading Inspector Morse out loud, I'll go to one of his garden parties. No, I'll only allow audiobooks if you're operating heavy machinery or are just plain blind. And don't forget they have been given braille. 

I mean the sound of a book. The moth-like thrum of flicked pages. The ga-doink of a thudding tome as it lands on the bedside table. But most of all, I love the stench of books, the thick odour that leaps from their pages. If I'm feeling a little low and I'm in a library, I've been known to open a book just a little, slot my nose into its tempting crevice, and inhale a deep whiff of book, until my eyes roll back in the socket and I have to lie down in a section where no-one goes, such as African Literature.

For me, nothing beats the delight of quietly slipping my nose into the crack of a Brontë or A Few Good Men and letting the aroma tantalise my olfactory nerve endings. Oh, the smell! Oh, the smell! The trusty, musty, dusty, fusty, crusty and, if it's a Jilly Cooper, busty and lusty smell of literature! 

[sniffs in] Mmm, books! 

[another long sniff] Mmmmm, books!

[abruptly] Mm, books. 

[opening theme music]

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

In short, I really love books. And not only do I love books, I love to love books. J'adore les livres! To me, nothing beats reading. Well, almost nothing, because of late I've discovered an even truer pleasure. The pleasure of sitting down at a desk, sticking my feet on an Ottoman pouf, taking a big swig of soup, brackets cream of chicken, and writing.

In the last month, I've written hundreds and hundreds of words, words pouring out of me like coins from a fruit machine when you win. Why? Well, if necessity is the mother of invention, then poverty is the father of hard work. And, yeah, I've found myself confronted with both necessity and poverty recently.

I admit, I'm short of a few bob which has forced me, like a struggling single mum, to think about alternative revenue streams. I'm not poor, perish the thought! If I were to let you into my house, perhaps in an emergency, or if you'd won a competition, you'd find a home that was comfortable, welcoming, and peaceful, but most of all, large.

But I have been struggling with my liquid collateral, i.e. access to cash. There's the cost-of-living crisis, which has hit me just as much as the single mum in her high-rise. Like everyone, I've had to tighten my belt.

God forbid anyone think I'm comparing myself to those less fortunate than me. But while they have to choose between eating and heating, I'll forego Duchy pork sausages in favour of less expensive brands that mince up cheaper bits of the pig. More or less the same, it just means one bite in five, you hit a bit of gristle.

And my broadcasting income's taken a hit. A year and a half ago, I was a fixture on BBC1 and remunerated accordingly. But that all stopped after I made some on-air comments about BBC management and the awful Julian Fellows that led to the termination of my contract. And the spin-off work went the same way. I thought I was set up on the after-dinner circuit for life, but the bookings start to thin out pretty quickly when you're off-air. You end up about as welcome as a bumblebee in a toilet bowl! I have got to try stand-up. 

All indulgences had to go, you can't live a David Gandy lifestyle on a Mahatma Gandhi budget. Not that I care about material possessions, I'm a guy who travels light. I could pack a bag tomorrow and take off on a motorcycle. With a sidecar. No-one's coming with me, it'd just be to carry a fat bag of towels. And then I'd hit the highway, just me on that steel horse next to a steel pig for the fat tag of bowels. But yes, I'm on my uppers financially.

And I was bemoaning my bad fortune in the office of my friend and proctologist during a recent appointment. I've no shame in saying I get myself checked out every other month, and Dr Gordon is happy to take a look. Erm, not worryingly happy, there's nothing wrong with him, he's married. But he always provides quality care, he even warms his hands on the radiator before he starts.

And while they warm, we chat freely and I got on to the subject of my financial affairs. And I was asking, how come someone like Titchmarsh is spending money like a Russian in Harrods while I'm looking at holidays in Wales? And he said, "Well, Titchmarsh makes all the money from his novels".

I said, "No, Alan Titchmarsh". He said, "Yeah, he makes money from book sales". 

I said, "No, I'm talking about Alan Titchmarsh, the TV gardener". He said, "Yeah, he writes novels". 

I said, "Alan Partridge writes novels?", he said, "You're Alan Partridge". 

I said, "Alan Titchmarsh writes novels? Alan Titchmarsh, off the telly, hair like Scargill, always going on about Yorkshire even though he lives in Hampshire, looks like a Toby jug, that Alan Titchmarsh?" He said, "Yeah, that guy".

I said, "Wow!". And I looked it up later and, bum me sideways, Titchmarsh has written novels that have sold by the wheelbarrow-load! I just thought, I've gotta have me a piece of that pie. And now, two months later, I'm close to completing my first novel. You'll have questions, I'm sure.

Is it a good book? Yes. 

How good? Very good. 

How long is it? Exactly three-hundred pages.

Does it have illustrations? Yes, six in the middle and a map on the opening page of the fictitious village of Lichtenstein. 

How did I get my ideas? Well, in this case, the book came to me in my sleep and when I came to in the shower and rinsed myself off with a nozzle, they were just fully-formed, these brilliant, wonderful characters in this brilliant, wonderful story! 

And that morning, I was just walking on air! I got to my Rackets Club and me and the guys there usually chat about normal guy things; that morning's traffic, our respective divorces, back pain's a big one. We have a giggle at some of the new genders, discuss our fave James Corden Carpool Karaoke. I mean, that will go on into the early hours. Or each name the best fictional TV cop or top female newsreader right now.

But that morning, in the clubhouse, I said, "Guys!" - one's a woman, Trish Beasley, but she doesn't mind - I said, "Guys! I want to tell you about a novel I have in my head!". 

And they sat there, rapt, for forty minutes, listening to my story. Eventually I said, "I don't know if I should stay here, running ideas up the flagpole and spit-roasting with you guys, or just go away and write the damn thing". And they said, "Alan, you must go away and write it!". And that vote of confidence really meant the world to me.

I don't even have to type! I mean, not when modern Apple devices have a dictation function. It means I can stroll around the room, sometimes chucking a softball into a pitcher's mitt I'm wearing, and just talk, because at the end of the day I'm a broadcaster. I don't make magic with my hands like Paul Daniels or Martin Daniels, I make it with my mouth. Just as George Best did his talking with his feet, and blind people do their reading with their hands, I do my writing with my mouth.

[jazz café background music]

Alan Facts. Facts about Alan. 

You may be able to hear, due to a slight, almost imperceptible, decline in the high frequencies, that I've grown a beard.

I decided to grow the beard after watching an environmental documentary with Greta Gunnberg, which troubled me. So after discussions with my team, I've decided to personally re-wild my body. 

Alan Facts. Facts about Alan. 

As for the book, how to describe it? It's essentially a love-triangle between four incredibly beautiful young people, technically a love-square, but that doesn't sound very sexy. Triangles are sexier than squares, my friend Mick who has a salty sense of humour says "That's because an upside-down triangle is the shape of a woman's fanny hair". That's the thing with Mick, he goes there! I don't mean the clubhouse, they won't let him. Or women's fannies, again they won't let him. 

Let me tell you about the characters in this love-square, the novel's called 'Autumn in Berlin', by the way. One is Rupert Summers, a fiercely-intelligent British fighter pilot who could have been a codebreaker at Bletchley Park but he hated sums, so he joined the RAF and had been named Spitfire Pilot of the Month two months in a row. He can make a Spitfire dance like a ballerina at the Bolshoi Ballet!

"He's not a pilot!", one of his colleagues says, "He's an aeronautical gymnast!", and he removes his pipe from his mouth to laugh, as well as he should laugh. So, Rupert, the brill pilot, he falls in love with Erin Hesseltine, an incredibly beautiful young socialite who ran away to the south of France to have treatment for her eczema. Now healed, she's blossomed into one of the most desirable women in the world. She's really fit! When she walks by, she turns heads. I mean, literally turns them right round. Hence, she is known as 'The Owlmaker'. Men would... pull muscles in their neck just to get a glimpse of her lovely, chubby bum.

The reader yearns for her and Rupert to marry, but her head is turned, though not right round, by another man, Rufus Winter, who's also a Spitfire pilot but is also a psychopath who scares women by saying he wished he had big hands so he could strangle a whale. But Erin fancies him, so she laughs off the big hands thing as locker-room talk. Barracks-banter. Mess-chat. 

However, there's another woman on the scene. Helga Damocles is the talk of Cannes. She is a lounge singer who smokes really long fags, actually, an ivory cigarette holder with just a Silk Cut shoved in the end, and she has a steely Germanic beauty like an Audi. Vorsprung durch Technik? Yeah, and the rest. 

She's a funny one, Helga. I found her to be a wonderful character to write, because on the one hand, she's transgender, so you're kind of rooting for her, but on the other hand, she's a Nazi, so she's a woke Nazi. No-one can figure her out, she's a riddle within an enigma within a man within a woman. Does she have a penis? Again, a mystery, but if you just stick to cuddles, it's fine.  You know, what you don't know can't hurt you. 

Again, the love-square plays out in the south of France with a looming spectre of another world war threatening to ruin everything. It might be easier, actually, if I just read some to you. I've had it bound, and it's not been published yet. Let's have a look. That's it, nice.

Chapter 1; War Birth.

[light thunderclap and stormy background]

Europe is pregnant with World War, heavily pregnant. Tired and breathless, with borders straining at the seams, she is prone to short temper and constant mood-swings. Soon she will go into labour. The midwife? Adolf Hitler, a no-nonsense medic whose bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired. I say again, Europe is pregnant with war.

It won't be her first. She had one in her teens, and while she enjoyed her twenties, here she is approaching 40, ready to birth a second global conflict, which, even now, would be quite old to have a child, even in Poland, which is where it happened. But come, come a while, walk with me among the lemon groves along the La Croisette. 

[background audio segues into summery birdsong] 

The lemony-fresh odour that is now the hallmark of washing up liquid and sherbet was then the perfume of a pure Mediterranean summer. The groves stretch as far as the eye can see, the fruit hanging in the air like a constellation of floating yellow eggs. On the breeze floats some music from an accordion, an air-powered musical instrument known to many as the bagpipe of the French but, unlike bagpipes, the sound is exquisite. Even Scottish people think bagpipes are shit. But the lemons, oh, the lemons! 

Erin picked one gaily as she strolled past and touched it to her fantastic nose. The lemon, so firm, so yellow, its bumpy skin calling to mind the pockmarked face of an uncle who had touched her inappropriately. It was under mistletoe, he was allowed, he insisted, but she said, "Yes, but I still have to agree to it".

She was so modern! She stamped on the lemon, and juice flew out, and she imagined his brain squirting out, which might seem a bit violent, but don't forget he did try to kiss her and she didn't want him to. But she was on her way to meet a man she did want to kiss, which was how, minutes later, she was spasming in a fog of tingling, shuddering glee.

Just to say, this is a lovemaking scene, which I'm sure you don't want to hear. Actually, I am going to read it, I do think sexuality and sensuality are nothing to shy away from and, as a sexual and sensual person, I want my writing to celebrate sexuality and sensuality and if it helps someone else discover their sexuality and sensuality, great.

They kissed at first, deep, hungry kisses that compelled them to breathe exclusively through their nostrils, their arms tangled as they sought to embrace one another, their glistening limbs interlaced like some sort of erotic waffle. Within moments, clothes had been scattered like big pieces of fabric confetti. They tumbled onto the bed, he on top, her underneath.

She made a quiet "Oof!" as they landed, but she didn't mind for her heart, mind, and genitals yearned for him. Rupert yearned too, the solid pipe of his manhood was positively hammering at the front door of her womanhood, "Let me in!" it seemed to say. She swung open the door of her warm, wet home and welcomed him in, and as soon as he was their bodies were like a stormy sea, rolling and swelling and grinding, the grinding continued apace. Rupert ground and ground and ground until he groaned!

The intensity of his climax detonated something inside of her like a subaquatic depth charge. It erupted quietly, but its force made its way to the surface until she was giving full voice to the delight with which she was being furnished. For then the pleasure soared! The pent-up desire rocketed upwards like a murmuration of starlings, or a colony of disturbed bats in the eaves of a rectory, barrelling heavenward, amending up her. "Oh. My. God!", she said. 

[Rosa, from downstairs] "Are you OKAY, Mr Partridge?".

Yeah, [sheepishly] yes. 

"Are you hurt?".

No, no, no.

"Maybe you read your book again?".

Yep. 

Apologies, that was my housekeeper, Rosa. Sorry about that. She worries. Actually, I do need to get going. I have another check-up at Dr Gordon's. And tomorrow, I have a rather exciting evening ahead. As I say, I'm very keen to secure a publishing deal. And to that end, I've become involved in a Norfolk-based writers' group called 'Write This Minute'.

We meet above a Café Rouge once a fortnight and talk about the creative process. I go along to help them really, until one evening they did a full one-eighty and started trying to give me notes on what I'd written! It made me chuckle, but I quietly jotted them down so as not to hurt their feelings, got home and, yeah, gave them a cursory scan and, just because I couldn't be bothered to ignore them,  incorporated the notes into the next draft. 

Did it improve the quality of my novel? [laughs, then embarrassed to admit] Yes, yes. And I suppose we'll find out tomorrow, because every so often they invite along an independent publisher to come and enjoy some of the writing, offer their thoughts, and who knows? Might be a potential revenue stream, might be a waste of an evening.

[jingle; ominous synth chimes] Lost and Found.

One woman's red handbag with a silver zip left on a park bench in Sheringham. It contains a tangerine, one medium-sized tampon still in its wrapper, a hairbrush strewn with long brown hair and a packet of chewing gum, and a set of keys with a Harry Potter keyring, which suggests we're looking for a pre-menopausal brunette with fresh breath and thin hair, educated to some way short of degree level.

If you know somebody who fits that description and is missing a big red bag, ask her to get in touch. 

[chimes jingle] Lost and Found. 

Well, it's the following day. It's just gone eleven, the meeting is over. Just driving back. Didn't go brilliantly. Made a couple of editorial decisions that misfired or backfired, or failed to fire. It's a shame, I suppose. I just lost a bit of confidence in what I'd written. As I say, I had an appointment with Dr Gordon yesterday and was giving him a flavour of the book as he went about his work. Not the love scene. That wouldn't have felt right. 

He placed his hands on the radiator to warm them, as normal, as he listened, and was so captivated by my work, he forgot they were there. So when he finally did the examination, my goodness did he have a hot finger! 

But I sensed the rest of him was lukewarm about my work, he said he preferred spy novels. I don't know what it was, whether it was what he said or the examination itself, but suddenly thoughts were tumbling around my head like trainers in a washing machine. So when I got back last night, I wrote and wrote and wrote.

By this afternoon, I'd written the beginnings of a spy novel that I believed would become the defining novel of my life. Better even than 'Autumn in Berlin'. 

The piece had clearly been gestating inside me for some time. It is a novel about a British spy called Axel Peacock who is tasked with poisoning Vladimir Putin, but falls in love with a Russian medic. And, perhaps because I was thinking of Dr Gordon, comes up with a novel way to administer the poison. You've probably fingered out where this is going.

So earlier tonight, in a corner of the upstairs room of a Café Rouge, I began to read. [clears throat]

"Dr. Virginia Longfinger", said a woman's voice. Peacock looked up. Dr. Longfinger smiled and flicked her hair off her face with a sideways head jerk. She was incredibly beautiful. She had the regal nose of Fiona Bruce, the eyes of Lady Diana, and the pretty pink ears of Nicholas Witchell.

They shook hands warmly. "And what is it you do?", Peacock asked. 

"I'm a top international proctologist", she replied. "I inspect a patient's colon for signs of disease".

"Interesting!", mused Peacock. And without breaking eye contact, he withdrew his hand and squirted it with a blob of sanitiser. "And how do you get into that?" 

"You just part the bum cheeks", she replied. "No, I meant the profession", he said. 

"Got it!", she said. "Well, after medical school, the Kremlin called and made me Head Proctologist". 

"I've never heard of a head proctologist!", he said. "I thought you guys just did backsides".

"We do", she said, "I meant the Chief Proctologist". 

"Got it!", he said, a plan forming in his mind. He'd always imagined poisoning the Russian premier orally, but if this woman really was at the heart of the Russian government, maybe, just maybe, it could be introduced through a different medium. 

"So how does a woman like you gain access to Putin's inner circle?" 

"You just part the bum cheeks", she said. 

"I meant the Russian government", he said. 

"Got it!", she replied. "Well, it's not easy. Putin has a ring of steel".

"Can't you just push harder?", he asked. 

"I'm talking about his security set-up!", she replied. 

"Got it!", he said, "I can't believe all this Putin bum confusion!". And they laughed. 

They laughed and laughed, and as they laughed their lips came closer until the laugh they were laughing turned into a long, sniggering kiss. 

And at this point, I just told the group I was going to skip forward in the novel to the Kremlin two weeks later. By now, Peacock and Longfinger have fallen in love, and Peacock has persuaded her to administer the poison next time she examines Putin's backside. He's come disguised as her assistant, and they snuck into Putin's residence. [clears throat]

"I've been expecting you", said a voice. Peacock wheeled round to see Putin sitting at the end of one of those long tables, stroking a cat and dabbing his mouth with a lacy napkin. His own mouth. The cat didn't require a napkin. "Please sit and have some caviar", said Putin, sliding a plate along the table like an air-hockey puck.

"No, no, after you", said Peacock, sliding it back. 

"Nyet, I've just eaten", said the pisshole-eyed premier, sliding it back to him. 

"You sneaky bastard!", thought Peacock, "I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you. That's about a quarter of the length of this table, which is ridiculously long, by the way". 

"Not hungry, Doctor? Or should I say Mr. Peacock?", smirked Putin. Peacock froze. "Poor Mr. Peacock. You are but a helpless pawn in this intricate game your western puppet-masters play".

Peacock decided to play his ace. 

"Oh, yeah? Well, people think you're a dick for sitting at the end of that long table, and your face has gone all chubby", he smiled. "Anyway, how did you know my name? Did someone blow my cover?". 

Putin's eyes narrowed, or should I say they became even more narrow than they already were. He looked at Dr Longfinger. Peacock turned to the woman he loved. She had tears in her eyes and wiped them away with her long finger.

"I love you, Axel!", she said, "But I cannot betray my country and this espionage you do, it's such a dirty business!". 

"Dirty?!", he replies, "You're a fucking proctologist!". 

So that was the excerpt I read at... To cut a long story short, they didn't like my book. There was no subtext, blah, blah, blah, but that's fine, because I didn't like their books either. My God, the dross! One woman had written god knows how many pages about three generations of mothers in Indochina. By the time she'd finished reading it, it felt like I'd been sitting there for three generations!

Yeah, people were moved to tears, and so was I, you know, from boredom. Another was about a kid who teaches his homophobic, illiterate granddad to read, and through their shared love of books, the granddad comes to terms with his grandson's homosexuality. So dreary!

One about a bloke who found out his sister is really his mum. Yeah, go on. Another about one bloke who had to expose himself as a conman to save the life of a woman, but in doing so, knew he would end up losing his own life. So a sort of Christ-like self-sacrifice from a guy who'd been a lifetime criminal, but who redeems himself through his final act. Just interminable! 

Another was an East African community which decides to take on the global might of a bully-boy petrochemical multinational trying to build a pipeline through their village, and in the end the company sends in death squads who try to terrorise the villagers into submission. But they hadn't reckoned on the ingenuity of a young girl called Fatima - which means 'beautiful like the stars' in Arabic - who starts writing letters to various people throughout the world, but one is read by a Jordanian human rights lawyer, and he decides to help her but she's left no address. So it's a ticking clock, and you don't know if he's going to get there in time, so he recruits a mercenary army who go down there and kick the shit out of the petrochemical knuckleheads. And the last chapter is just a firefight.

I didn't mind that one. But for them to criticise what I'd written, I mean, I knew they wouldn't quite get 'Autumn in Berlin', but when they said they didn't like 'September Song', I just thought, these people aren't serious! 

The thing is, I don't need their approval. I'm not actually in it for the critical praise, or even the money. For me, writing is a way of flexing my creative muscle. Anyway, I get offers all the time. Only this morning I was invited to become writer-in-residence for the gym franchise LA Fitness. 

It involved me hanging out one day a week at its flagship London club, taking inspiration from that, and then just writing. There's a nominal fee, but it's really a chance to shine a light on both my writing and the user experience for LA Fitness members. So, I can write about anything from kettlebells to protein shakes, from treadmills to direct debits. I might do it. I might just do it.

[closing theme music]