S02E04: Potholing

[opening theme music]

[muffled] Testing, testing.

You're listening to Alan Partridge as I dust off my microphone in readiness just to record another podcast. I mean [blows] literally dusted off because I've just retrieved it from the very back of my loft or attic. What do you call yours? Loft or attic? I could do a whole podcast on that, different words for the same thing. I mean, that's a very rich seam. Cellar or basement? There's another.

Forgive my voice. If I sound like a heavy smoker it's because I'm having to lie on my chest, which slightly compresses the lungs, making breathing shallow so I can squeeze through the narrow gap betwixt ceiling and a stack of old towels that, for some reason, stink. Perhaps the rotting carcasses of moths. Do they smell? I know they devour natural fibres with a gay abandonment. Many cashmere cardigan and Fair Isle sweaters have been the victim of moth-avarice. Why don't they eat fucking nylon? 

Okay. Several boxes of Christmas decorations. Two Murphy Richards juicers. I don't know why I own two juicers. I don't know why I own one. There we go. And I'm out.

Sit down in this cardboard box housing cassettes from days of yore. Funnily enough, on the way in I knelt on a cassette and I found myself staring down at the broken Perspex and the creased face of Belinda Carlisle staring back at me, illuminated by my phone torch. Hmm. I wonder what she's doing now. I wonder if she's ever been to Carlisle. She wouldn't be saying heaven is a place on earth if she had. 

I bought that cassette from Woolworths, I had my whole life ahead of me. [solemnly] I thought I could do anything. [long pause, perks up] But, as with all these things, you can mope, have a sit down, let the sadness wash over you, weep if needed, then dust yourself down, say, "That's that!", and on we go! 

And that's the thing with lofts, it's a very easy way to get drawn into a tunnel of memories which neatly foreshadows what I'll be doing later, except that this will be a tunnel of rock. Because I, Alan Partridge - get this thing open [loud crash] - I'll be going potholing. And you're coming too. I have to say, as a man of advanced years, I'm deceptively nimble and really quite lithe. 

I'm a lot like Michael Gove in that respect. If you've ever seen him leaping around at a wedding disco, you'll know that he has the footwork and agility of someone like Rumpelstiltskin, the celebrated - what was he? - leprechaun? I'm not sure what he was, I think he was just a small magic man. 

Yeah, I am agile.  For example, if I'm on a Tinder date country walk, I might vault the gate, even if there's an adjacent style. Particularly if it's a low gate and I have my stretchy chinos on. It's a subtle way of saying I'm no slouch, that I'm physically capable. She won't comment, the woman that I've selected, but it's seeded for later. Two or three moments like that, perhaps retrieving a flower from a riverbank, or just simply reaching to a high shelf to retrieve some Nurofen or tweezers. You know, two or three moments like that, laced with humour, and you're on a one-way road to a big kiss! 

[theme music sting] 

Well, got my gear. Waterproof oversuit, wellies, wet-socks... There's a hyphen in there, I don't mean socks that are wet, I mean wet-socks. Google it if you're not sure. Helmets, headlamp, head-mounted microphone, and I should have in the drawer over here... Yep, there we go. Swiss Army knife.

Yeah, I had a great chat with Bear Grylls about knives, god, he's interesting. Absolutely fascinating man, within a very narrow band of subjects. Just don't ask him about Jesus and you'll have a fantastic natter, you really will. Just keep it to outdoor survival, if possible. Actually, even that isn't a guarantee because he will tend to circle back to Jesus. So, for example, talking about knives goes to gutting fish, gutting fish goes to a fish that feeds five thousand, hey presto you're back to Christ. And he can do that with any subject, it's actually quite impressive.

Before you know it, you're having to use your survival skills to get out of a conversation, maybe he does it deliberately... but no, he's all right. I'd love to go on an adventure weekend with him. I've seen him do all kinds of daring do, but funnily enough, I don't think I've ever seen him potholing, or in any confined space. I wonder if he's secretly scared of caves? I might start telling people he's secretly scared of caves. Right, let's pothole! 

[in car] I know what you're thinking, "I didn't know you liked potholing, Alan!". Well, I didn't, slash don't. I've never tried it, but recently I've been trying to do a lot of new things because I've made what is known as a bucket-list. It's a list of things you'd like to experience before you kick the bucket. And I did it in conjunction with my friend, my new friend, my new best-friend, Ronald, after we both faced something of a health scare. We weren't even particularly close friends until recently. He was just a familiar face at the Boxley Wheatsheaf.

We truly bonded when we got a little spooked by a couple of health scares around the same time. We're both fine. Neither of them turned out to be anything to worry about. Ronald basically had a skin flare up around his backside and thought it might be colon cancer, but it turns out he wasn't drying himself properly after his bath. 

I said, "For Christ's sakes, pepper yourself with talc!". He said, "It's microscopic balls of plastic". I said, "Well, that makes two of you with microscopic balls!", and he laughed, you know, which surprised me because one of his is smaller than the other, but I just came out with it and he took it on the chin. My health scare I'm not going to talk about because it's private.

But it's true that talcum powder is not good for you. I think everyone for the last fifty years has been hoodwinked by Big Talc. Anyway, in the days before we got our all-clears, it was tough. Your mortality weighs heavy on you like a wet donkey jacket. And we said, if we get through this, we're going to make every day count. So we each made a list of things we wanted to do.

So he went for things like; see the pyramids, hang-glide, learn chess, kiss a guy, visit the Falklands. Mine would include skidding sideways to a halt in a car, operating a machine gun turret from the back of a pickup truck in Afghanistan or any sandy country, kissing a guy and conducting a gospel choir. But top of my list would be potholing, and that's where we're off to today. 

Our destination, once I've collected Ronald from his house, is Giant's Hole in the Peak District. Funnily enough, I was talking to a From the Oasthouse listener recently and he, or she, said that the input I get from listeners and my Twitter followers is the best bit of the show. And whilst that's just not true, I still thought it would be worth asking my Twitter followers the one thing they would like to do before they die. 

Probably shouldn't be reading these out as I drive. So I'm just going to pull in to a safe place. This lay-by here. Yes, this will do fine. There we go, let's pull in here. Okay. 

So Leonard in County Down says his only wish is to say goodbye to the people he loves and make his peace with God. Very nice, Leonard, but not really what I'm looking for. That's sort of ruining the game, I'm after things you've always wanted to do, not deathbed things like telling family you miss them or confessing to an unsolved crime. Actually, that's a very good one. 

Simeon from the Inner Hebrides - you don't often hear about them - says he'd like to swim with dolphins, ideally two of them. This is much more like it. He says he'd lash one foot to the back of each dolphin and attempt to stand up as they course through the waves, wearing them as floating, grey shoes. I suspect there may be animal rights concerns. Best to run that past PETA first, and if they give you the thumbs up, I say go for it.

Edward in Bedford said he'd like to be able to turn invisible for the day and visit a women's sauna. That's superpowers, slightly different discussion but, for what it's worth, I know a lot of people might say that that is suspect in today's gender climate, but I think if the women can't see him and he doesn't touch them, I don't see any harm. That's not to say I in any way support or indeed sanction the use of peepholes. 

Pamela from Gateshead says she would like to track down the blimmin' traffic warden who gave her a ticket when she was dropping her friend off at a dental appointment. Hear, hear, Pam! She says she'd teach him a lesson and no mistake before turning the gun on herself. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have read that one out. 

And one here from Flora, who's 10 years old, and she says she'd like to go to Amsterdam, where she'd visit the Anne Frank Museum before kicking back in a café and rolling a fat one. I'm not sure what that means, but sounds fun. 

[theme music sting] 

Okay, well, here I am in the Peak District, and once again you'll be able to hear that I am on the move. In the last series, you joined me on a country stroll. This time the pace is very different, my strides are longer, my torso is angled forward at the hip as I walk into a stiff breeze, and I am shifting.

You'll hear just from the tempo of my footsteps that my pace is more Sultans Of Swing than Brothers In Arms, which makes it sound like I'm in Dire Straits. I'm not in dire straits, although I'm sure being in Dire Straits would be on many people's bucket list. 

No, I'm in a wonderful place. Literally, I'm in the Peak District, Just outside the village of Castleton. There's no Ronald, it's just me. Yep, Ronald decided to sit this one out after we had a disagreement on the drive just now, or a contretemps, as he would call it, because he likes to use French and Latin words, as many dicks do.

It wasn't even that big an argument. His wife had made sandwiches, and I said she uses far too much butter. He said I was being ungrateful. I said, "I'm not being ungrateful! I'm thankful she made the sandwiches, but that doesn't disqualify me from lodging constructive criticism. The fact is, when you look at a cross-section, it's like an EEC butter mountain".

He said "You can't have too much butter", I said "Yes you can, and this is it. This is too much butter. I mean, what I have here is basically a butter sandwich with the thinnest sliver of bacon. It's like a pig has leant forward and shaved his face onto the bread. So, we have a butter sandwich and a penguin, basically. I mean, what's going on? It should've been a Double Decker at the very least". 

Then he snatched the sandwich back and pretended to laugh. He said "Right, we're not going potholing". I said "Fine, I'll go on my own". He said "You're not supposed to", I said "Watch me". He said "You've broken the first rule of potholing!". I said "Well, until I receive a fixed-penalty notice from the Society of Potholing Pedants, I'll be on my way". I tried to get out of the car, but he had child locks on.

I forgot to say I was in the back, because if I sit in the front of a car when a man of similar age is driving, I feel like a wife. So I had to wade through into the front passenger seat and stomp off that way. I'm sure he'll follow me. I'll just walk to the brow of this hill and then look back and no, he's still in the car pretending to text. Trying to look nonchalant, as he would say. But it's not working. He looks non-nonchalant, if anything, he looks chalant. 

[calling to Ronald] Ronald? Ronald, what are you doing? Are you just going to sit there? Are you just going to sit there, pretending you can't hear me? Fine, you stay there then, I'll do it on my own! 

[Ronald, distant shouting] "You can't do it on your own!"

Aah, so you can hear me! 

Anyway, I'm very happy to do my potholing alone. Ronald's forgotten I have a detailed guide to the cave, written by Ronald himself, in what I don't mind saying is annoyingly florid prose. It's all 'sweeping vistas' and 'veritable smorgasbords', he thinks he's Bill Bryson. 

[interlude; upbeat, layered a cappella tune with 'pom de poms' as the beat and jaunty whistling as the melody]

Here we are at the entrance to the cave. It's an impressive aperture all right, Ronald's notes say it's a 17-metre opening. I'd say it looks like a good-sized carport, able to take three cars for the wealthier man. Although why anyone has a carport is beyond me, I think they're ugly. They offer nothing in the way of security. They're basically an umbrella for your car, unless the rain's coming directly down, how often does it do that? Silly, really.

Once cars are painted and sealed with a PVC Plastisol, it protects, you know, the metal against penetration by water and of course if it's zinc-galvanised, then you've got another layer of protection and wax oiled, etcetera, etcetera. I mean, the body work of a modern car does what a carport does. So you might as well make a carport for a carport. It's like a half-hearted garage, really. Just stick some walls on. See it through. 

Echo! Echo! 

I love saying "Echo" and hearing an echo. 

The Liverpool Echo! 

And it's a few hundred feet down to the first sump, which is a passage that is only navigable underwater. I'm not going to do that, I don't want to get my hair wet because it's only just been lacquered and set, but according to this, over here is a route that bypasses the sump, which involves walking through a blasted tunnel.

Now, to some view, that will sound like I'm swearing. I'm not, it's one of those describing words that sounds like a profanity. A blasted tunnel, or bleeding radiator, or bastard cut file, or cockfight. All open to wilful misinterpretation by the mischief-makers. 

Right, there's a chain across an entrance here, and a sign saying 'No entry', but I'll just ignore that. I'm an adventurer. If Christopher Columbus had only gone where other people went, there'd be no America, would they? We'd still think it was just sea all the way to Fiji. I mean, America would still be there, inhabited by natives. Big Chief Sitting Bull, dives like an eagle, walks like a chicken. But I'll tell you this, they wouldn't have their casinos.

So I'm over the chain, and just on the right hand side we have an oxbow, a little slit-cum-fissure that can be crawled through by the more slender caver. I have to say, Ronald wouldn't get into this. He's not what you'd call fat, but he has teddy bear dimensions. He's all big head, big bum, whereas I am, oh, I'm just much slimmer. 

Put the head torch on. This is quite something, just to describe it to you, I'm essentially crawling through a narrow chute made entirely from rock. I don't know if you've seen Bruce Willis crawling through an air-conditioning duct in the popular action movie Die Hard, or Tom Cruise crawling through an air-conditioning duct in the popular action movie Mission: Impossible. It's a bit like that.

Not exactly the same. I don't have a firearm tucked in the back of my trousers. And those guys wore slightly tight fitting t-shirts rather than waterproofs. Ooh, I'm sliding forward quite easily! The algae is sort of soaping my progress. Oh, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, what's going on? 

This is interesting. It's gone very narrow. I mean, it's...  impassable, really. Yeah, I mean, a small child, perhaps, but no, this is... Okay, I'm wedged in. I can't go backwards because I have nothing to push against because the aperture is, it's slithery, it's just slithery. I mean, oh, Christ, there's like a stalagmite there, but if I push it, that'll snap it off. And it must've taken a million years to grow, but anyway, not my problem.

Ha, I'm literally stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's good that I can laugh in a situation that should ordinarily induce panic. 

Oh, God. You fucking dick. You fucking dick! Help! 

Oh, help! Help! Oh, don't panic! I'm wedged in by the hips, I can't believe this. Why did you do this?! It really is quite a narrow passage. I feel like I'm... I feel like I'm being born, and the rock all around is the inner walls of my mother's cervix. I mean, it does look a bit like it, but it's hard and unforgiving. 

Apparently, I got stuck then as well. My mum said they had to yank me out with forceps, and the midwife just pulled me out by my head. My mum's always said that's why I have a long head, but I don't think I have a long head. I like my head. 

I'm just going to have some water, just reach. Here we go. It's good to have like a bicycle bottle, as it were. I'll tell you, when you're thirsty the water tastes as good as Ribena. [strains to push himself free] Oh, fuck! Excuse my French.

Ronald, you silly bastard! Ronald! You silly bastard. Listen to me!

Oh, fuck. Oh, come on. He's not going to hear me from the car. He'll have the stereo on too loud. He was listening to the audiobook of Long Way Down, where Charley Boorman and Obi-Wan Kenobi ride motorbikes from John O'Groats to South Africa. Sounds amazing, two men with shoulder-length hair riding motorcycles and just feeling free. Lucky them. I'm not free, although I am a long way down. I just hope someone comes soon.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow. If the cave fills up with rainwater, I'm a dead man. Oh, God, why did I start thinking of that? Help! Help! I don't want to damage my voice. I should warm up if I'm going to shout. [vocal warm-ups] Wu-aargh! Wu-aargh! Whu! Whu! Whu!

[speaking from deep in his throat] Help! Help me! Help! Help! [coughs] That's the way Brian Blessed would do it. Mind you, he'd never get in here. The advantages of being big, you don't get in this shit in the first place.

[theme music sting] 

Well, it's an hour later. I'm still here. Sorry about before, I panicked briefly, but then I fell asleep. I wouldn't say I had a waking nightmare, that'd be too strong, but I dreamt I was stuck in between two slabs of rock. Then I woke up and thought, "For pity's sake, I am!". 

I don't really know what to do. My phone has no signal, I don't know if that's because I'm encased in solid rock or because I'm with O2. I despise O2. I don't want access to the VIP area at Twickenham, I want my phone to fucking work! I've read Ronald's Guide to the Caves twice already, it's actually quite well written. Where is Ronald? He can be so stubborn! I just hope he realises that no argument is worth dying for.

Help me, Ronald Carnforth, you're my only hope! Unfortunately, I can't send a hologram via a droid. I hate Star Wars. And people who like Star Wars, I hate them too. And people who learn that Star Trek language, they're dicks as well. And all the Doctor Who people. Get a life. What am I talking about? Look at me. I don't have a life right now.

What I'd give to be sharing a Diet Coke with an asthmatic who lives with his mum. We don't last long on this earth, we should be nice to one another. Love conquers all. And you know what? If I ever see Ronald again, I'm going to damn well tell him that I love him. In a non-sexual way. Nothing wrong with loving another man. Nelson and Hardy. Laurel and Hardy. Morcame and Wise, non-gay footballers hugging and kissing after a goal.

Phoo! God, I am in dire straits. Again, I don't mean the band. Another thing I'd love to be doing right now. Even if they'd just let me play the bass, only takes a couple of weeks to learn the bass. Especially in Dire Straits because everyone's looking at Knopfler. Always look at Knopfler.

Knopfler. Knopfler. 

Knopfler.

Knopfler. Sounds weird if you say it loads of times. Actually, it sounds weird if you just say it once.

Knopfler. Thing is with bass you only have to learn about three notes. [Alan imitates the bass chord changes] "One one one one one one one two three three three three three three three two one one one one one one, dance dance dance dance to the radioooo!". Poor fella. He was in dire straits, the real ones. I think I'm going to have to eat my penguin. If I can squeeze it out over the top of my bicep pocket. 

Yep, it's a quandary, because I need the food to keep my strength up, but I also don't want to gain weight, and extra girth. It really is quite tactical. Apparently Shackleton and his men survived on penguins, but I think they would have been real ones.

Thank god I'm not claustrophobic, I can see how easily you might be. Agoraphobia, on the other hand, I mean, that to me is much more confusing, fear of having, what? Plenty of room? I mean, the idea that someone could, say, stand on the top of Kinder Scout in Derbyshire on a crisp March morning and shit themselves is impossible for me to understand.

Unless you slip, you know, then you'd be a goner. I've often thought if I ever wanted to kill someone, I'd just take them for a walk up a peak, you know, Rushup Edge in the Peak District, Indian's Head in Saddleworth, Cheddar Gorge... All you'd have to do is push them off, that way you get to do away with an enemy and enjoy a wonderful vista.

It's a perfect murder. There'd be no evidence, you'd just say, "I heard a scream and he must have lost his footing because I turned and he was gone", and they'd say, "So why does he have your skin and fibres from your fleece under his fingernails?". And you'd say, "Well, because I tried to grab him, but it was no use! Now, if there's nothing else, I really must get on", and they'd say, "Well, how could you have grabbed him? You just said you'd turned and he was gone", and you'd have to go on the offensive. You'd just say, "Look! It's not altogether clear! I'm traumatised for God's sake. How dare you? I'm grieving the death of my friend Grant Shapps! And you accuse me of being the one who killed him! Will you please have the decency to leave me alone?". Yeah, I enjoyed that. I'd love to write a Midsummer Murders, you know, really get my teeth into it. 

[distant voice] "Alan?".

Hello? 

"Alan?! Alan!".

Hello?! 

"Alan?".

Er, hi, Ronald.

[closer now] "Oh, my god. How long have you been here?".

Not long. Just, you know, just having a rest.

"Well, you're in a right pickle". 

I am, yeah. A hellish pickle.

"Well, as long as it's not a Hellmann's pickle. I'm not sure I could handle another row about sandwich-filling!".

No, but some of the excess butter your wife puts in hers would be pretty useful right now as a lubricant to get me out of this jam, that's another sandwich filling. [overcome with emotion] It's great to see you, Ronald, you're fucking great mate! So happy you're here. Did you finish the audiobook? Did they go all the way down? 

[voiceover] I'd become quite emotional. I learnt a lesson that day, which is that it's easy to find discord, but how much better it would be for our lives if we sought what we have in common and hung on to it for dear life. We're on this planet for a very short time, so make every minute count. It's not a rehearsal. Carpe diem. 

Be present. You know the script. And I think Ronald learnt a lesson, too, which is if your wife makes bad sandwiches, have the balls to tell her.

Goodbye.

[closing theme music]