S02E11: Perfect Day

Welcome to the eleventh and final episode in this, series two of From the Oasthouse. Series two, tranche one. There's, in the fullness of time, there will be a second tranche, a second tranche of eleven. Audible want to call it series three, it's not series three, anyway, the point is they can call it whatever they like! That's absolutely fine. But inside my own mind, inside my head, it will always be Alan Partridge, From the Oasthouse, series two, in two tranches. 

You may have to subscribe separately to the second tranche.

Oh, that's really been bothering me. 

[opening theme music]

 

So, today is the last day, and it's a day shaping up to be a perfect day! Now, we all have our own ideas of what constitutes the 'Perfect Day'. In fact, last night, I took to Twitter and asked you to describe your perfect day - your 'PD' - and it's been a real mixed bag!

Jonathan says his perfect day will be taking part in a ride-along with the US Drug Enforcement Agency as they raid crack-houses in South Central LA. That sounds very exciting! He goes on to say, "It sounds very exciting, but it's a sobering reminder of how fortunate we are not to have fallen through the cracks so that we now seek solace in hard drugs". Making me feel guilty about someone else's drug problem?
'South Central LA!' Is it South LA or Central LA?

Hamish on the Wirral says, "My PD, fry up for breakfast, fish and chip lunch, the British Grand Prix, and a curry in the evening". [mock-Texan drawl] That's what I'm talking about! 'South Central LA!' 

Paul in Enfield says "Crisps and wanking".

Marcus in Feltham says his perfect day would be a day of two halves. A morning at the Chelsea Flower Show, enjoying gardening and cake with his mum who's just turned 80. Aaw! And in the afternoon, he says he would hunt paedophiles by posing online as a teenage girl, arranging to meet in a park before bundling the guy into a van for a jolly good-hiding! Mmm. Hmm. I prefer mornings. 

Howard in London says his perfect day will be the Feast of Fools, a medieval festival where masters swap places with their servants for the day and must obey their every whim. He adds that he works as an equerry at Clarence House and the idea of His Royal Highness Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, waiting on him, he thinks is quite wonderful! 

It does sound rather cheeky, "Would you like a gin and tonic, sir?" Yes, please, Charles! Well, don't just stand there, go and get it! And it'd make a good TV series. Probably already done it on Channel 5. Been and gone. There's some fucking shit on TV these days. 

Esther, who writes in block caps, says her perfect day would be yodelling in the Swiss Alps. She says she yodels whenever she can, but as a resident of an assisted-living facility in the middle of Leeds, her yodelling has made her more than a few enemies!

One here from a listener in Myanmar, would you believe, who says she'd like to spend a day in the West where freedom is taken for granted so she can experience a day free from the tyranny of an oppressive regime. She would simply walk to the sea and breathe, freely, surrounded by the loved ones she hasn't seen for over ten years. Together they would watch the sun go down over a land where citizens can go about their lives without fear. Yeah. Fair- that's fair enough. I was looking for ones that were a bit more fun. 

That was all prompted, by the way, when my friend Nathan played me a song I've not heard for a long time, Perfect Day by famous dead man Lou Reed, in which he describes his perfect day. I've got the words here, "Just a perfect day, drink sangria in the park". Hard to argue with that, love sangria with plenty of chopped fruit in it, but it's basically a jug of chunky wine.

But in the park, bylaws differ from region to region, but generally park-drinking is prohibited and you will be moved on. Then again, depends on the park. I mean, at Glyndebourne, guests are permitted to have a picnic and drink champagne on the lawn, but I guess champagne-drinkers can be trusted to maintain a certain decorum that the chap who glugs cider on a park bench can't. And yeah, I can't imagine opera lovers throwing a shoe at a squirrel. 

"As it gets dark, go home, perfect day, animals in the zoo, movie too"... Yeah... I mean, he just said it was dark and he was going home. I don't mind saying Lou's perfect day sounds like a bit of a dog's dinner. Then again, Nathan tells me it's a song about Lou's heroin addiction. So... it sounds to me like he's running around town, smacked off his tits! Not for me, not for me. 

My perfect day; morning, coffee, big 'Ahhhh!', followed by stretches and streaky bacon! Lunch with the guys, political analysis peppered with humour. PM, pint of bitter, veranda. No nonsense, pretty-witty woman of fifty. Two glasses of Pimm's, sun goes down, back to the room and raise merry hell. I'll let your imagination run riot! Oof! Remarkable woman. Yeah. Sex.

Why do I have a perfect day in store? Well, because today marks the grand gala-opening of a little project I've been beavering away at for quite a while now. So I'd like to ask you to join me at my garage. 

[theme music sting]

Just descending from the Eagle's Nest, the recording room above my garage, so named after Hitler's holiday hideaway. And if the eagle-eared among you can hear my clanging footsteps as I'm walking on steel treadplate, give yourself ten points.

So, on terra firma, and now... up-and-over garage door. When we open it, we are met with a blast of dry ice from a machine I bought from a former DJ who's had to pack it in because they made the police CRB checks more stringent. And then the audio should kick in. [ambient music, such as the kind played in dark vegan cafés] Yeah, here it comes. 

[recording starts, with Tony Le Mesmer levels of reverb] "Ladies and gentlemen, The Sun".

 That's my voice you can hear. 

"An orb of burning hot plasma heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. Up close, this giver of light and warmth would inflict terrible punishment and eviscerate all known life through a scalding surface temperature of 5600 degrees and the thick radiation it expels. Exposure to this would cause catastrophic radiation poisoning, resulting in massive organ failure and the disintegration of skin, flesh, and even bone".

"And yet it warms us. You see in life, there are some things which could destroy us, but if kept to the distance, it can be our friend. Be it the sun, or be it Kirsty Allsopp. Mercury, a tiny, scorching planet...".

What you can hear is an audio description I've recorded to accompany an interactive educational installation, it's a model depicting our solar system. Sound-design was once again the work of my musical protégé and, yes, friend - Protégé or mentor? We'll clarify that in time - Nathan. His brief was a fusion of Gustav Holst and Jean-Michel Jarre with a garnish of Dire Straits, and yet again, he has nailed it. 

"But zoom further, 200 million kilometres further, and we arrive at Earth. Home to New York, Norwich, Saigon, Dusseldorf, Melbourne, and Caracas. It's a planet teeming with life. You live here.

You, and your mummy and daddy and grandpa Alan. You're great kids, and this could all be yours if you work hard, follow your dreams, and keep attending a fee-paying school. Mars, the Red Planet, the God of War. The chances of anything coming from Mars is a billion to one. But still, they..."

Uh, why have I done this? Well, for a start, astronomy these days has been made fun by Brian Cox and Brian May. In fact, I tried to get them to do a TV program together. Both called Brian, both like space, both been in a band. I said they could talk about the planets, then jam. I said, "It's a no-Brianner! You've got D-Ream for the over fifties, Queen for the over sixties - that's BBC2, signed, sealed, and delivered!". I pitched it to them both, but Brian May didn't want to do it, and Brian Cox didn't want to do it. 

But this, uh, home-installation isn't for my enjoyment, it's for my grandkids. Because in a short while, I'm thrilled to say Jack and Ruby will be coming over to spend the day, so I'm just applying a few finishing touches. Not that there's much to do. My friend Gregor came over last week, so I invited him to help me paint the planets. Yeah, he, when he walked in, he said, "I'll give Uranus a lick if you like", I said, "I thought you were back with your wife!". He said, "I was making a joke", so... it was a blessed relief. 

Why have I invested so much energy in a model solar system? You remember that I was in exploratory talks with my former radio home, North Norfolk Digital, and I'm sure you've been following my journey from Doghouse to Good Books. But since then, I've moved on, for all the positive meetings and snortingly funny curry evenings with the management team, the call never came. And that's fine. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. Because I started to wonder... if any of that even matters!

In the world of showbiz, you think being on air is the be-all and end-all, that makes you the be-all and end-all. You scream at a researcher if they bring you lukewarm coffee. People in the gallery scowl and bark orders like it's the bridge of a nuclear submarine, you're vision mixing for the Pride of Britain Awards, you bozo! 

Radio DJs cry on air when they retire and thank the audience for keeping them company. What are they talking about? None of it matters. Not really. So instead, I've thrown my heart and soul into this project.
Not many viewers, two to be precise, grandkids, but yeah, love them more than... gold bullion. 

Just to describe what I'm looking at, the centrepiece is the sun, a huge paper lantern which is lit by a one-twenty watt halogen light bulb, the brightest B&Q will do, and to suggest a burning flame, pleased with this, I've popped in an amber flashing light from the top of a guide vehicle for a half marathon given to me by the late Keith Chegwin. This sits atop a rotating-pole with arms reaching outwards like the spokes of a wheel, a ball cock from an old loo serves as Mars, there's a high-gloss 1970s doorknob for the moon, Venus is a squash wall, and so on and so forth.

I have each planet connected to a rotating axle and each one geared to give them appropriate speeds of orbit. That's hooked up to a car battery, but the bulk of it, lights, audio projector, are fed off the mains, so it's a hybrid system. Is it safe? Well, I'm not a qualified electrician, and it's all a bit ad-hoc, but it was important to me I made it myself. And if some parts of it are live, it's a manageable risk, so long as the kids wear the rubber shoes provided they'll be perfectly safe in here. 

The only real risk, as I see it, is, this is very unlikely, a fire caused by an overloaded socket. And that's easily solved. I've got five fire extinguishers dotted around that I've painted in fun colours, so they look like rockets. And, worst case scenario, there's an emergency cord on the garage door. If we do need to get out fast, you just pull the cord, the hinges drop away, then all you have to do is throw your body weight at the door with all your weight, and it collapses and you're out of there.

But as I say, that's very unlikely. 

[swelling, orchestral music]

The Twins of Norwich. 

Norwich is twinned with Rouen in France, Koblenz in Germany, Novi Sad in Serbia, and El Viejo in Nicaragua. And this year, I'm visiting them all, with the exception of the one in Nicaragua. Last month, it was the turn of Norwich's delightful twin sister, Rouen, a credit to the Norwich name with its Gothic churches and medieval half-timbered houses. 

This month, it was the turn of Koblenz, an altogether different story. If it's a twin of Norwich, let's just say they're non-identical, and Koblenz is very much the runt of the litter. It was industrial and grey, and would have been more suited to twin-ship with Warrington or Hull.

I'll be demanding a judicial review to overturn the council's decision to twin with Koblenz, and seeking a public inquiry so that Norwich can never again be forced into twin-ship with a shit town!

Yeah, they should be here just after lunch. A pleasant surprise, I left a voicemail a few weeks ago saying, "If you're ever in my orbit, I'd love to show you the solar system", but I hadn't heard back. Then I wake up this morning, turn on my phone, and in flies a message from Fernando, "We'll drop kids at twelve, collect at three. No dairy for Ruby". Well, I don't mind telling you, I leapt out of bed and started hopping around like a leprechaun on a hot tin roof. I really did. 

[phone buzzes] Sorry, I've just got to read this. Ronald sent me a text, or an SMS, as he would call it, because he's a bit of a dick. Weird, it just says, "North Norfolk Digital Now". What for? Okay, let me just get it up. Here it is. Here it is. 

[on the radio, female voice badly singing] "I'm every woman!". 

Oh, dear.

"I'm every woman! What? It's just got- coming down!". 

Oh, dear. Oh, dear. 

"I'm every woman! I'm- get out of my ears!".

[male voice interjecting] "I think it might be time for the travel news, Barb-" [radio turns off]. 

That's a shame. Oh, Barbara, Barbara! It would seem that Barbara Bickerton, who does early afternoons, is - and I hate this phrase because my heart goes out to her - is pissed up on air. And it's the kind of thing it's very hard to come back from. Broadcast drunk, do a Rasta voice, introducing a Shaggy record, make a joke at the sponsor's expense, you're on thin ice. Oh, poor woman! [sighs]

Sounds like right now what she needs isn't a formal disciplinary and suspension pending an inquiry, but a bloody good arm around her bloody shoulder! Someone to say, "Barbara, talk to me!", because it sounds like she has no-one. That's the thing with Church of England spinsters, they're formidable when they're chiding a schoolboy or popping a football, but when they hit the skids themselves, they've got no one to open up to. There's an HR department, but she's not in on Wednesdays.

I guess... I could talk to her, but it's the kind of thing I've done before. I once had to sit down a Detective Inspector, Geoff Goff. DI G.G. Digger, we called him for short. He's a friend who got into drink driving. I said, "Geoff, one of these days the cop who pulls you over is going to forget to turn off the dash-cam and they'll have to arrest you!". He said, "Yes, but I have the IPCC to protect me". Of course, he was quite right, I apologized and immediately stopped nagging him. 

Yeah, yeah, I'll head over to the radio station, load-up the sympathy stuff, do the Wise-Uncle Act, and I might lob in an, "Oh, by the way" parting-shot of, "If you need cover, I'm happy to twiddle the knobs". Right, got to go, got to go.

[theme music sting]

Well, I'm driving back now. The guys didn't really need me, truth be told, I was a bit of a spare-part in the end. Now I know how James May feels. Yeah, it turns out Barbara wasn't actually drunk, she's a diabetic and was having a hyperglycaemic episode. I can't pretend I wasn't disappointed. People just started shuffling back to their desks. But some people started saying how thoughtful it was of me to come, and I thought to myself, well, hang on, think on your feet here, Alan. You've got this. I just said, "Hey, a slurring DJ is like a bat-signal to a fellow broadcaster. When you see shit's going down, you think, you don't act. You act, you don't think. You just don't think, you act".

I didn't fumble like that, but I said the correct version of that. Guy Wench, Head of Marketing, patted me on the back - which is a first - and said, "You're a good egg, Partridge!". Quick as a flash, I said, "Well, if I can lay anything for you!". And yeah, we had a nice chuckle, it was a nice moment. 

He said, "What can we do to return the favour?". And I look around the room, they were all there, present and old-faces; Guy Wench, Dave Clifton, Graham Wilford, Angela from the front desk, who I used to be in a relationship with. Ahh, yeah, "What can we do to return the favor?", and I just, I said, "You know what, nothing. Nothing". Boom! Cool as a cucumber! I could hear the kind of collective intake of breath, like, "Wow, that's a big man!". That was the inference, loud and clear, from their expressions and breaths. 

Popped a piece of chewing gum in my mouth, I found in my coat pocket, and said, "Guys, when you broadcast at a station, a piece of you stays at that station. I got your backs. Always have. Always did. Always will do". Again, boom! A little cool pebble in a pond. Small, cold, cool explosion. Again, some mouth-breath. And I just thought, 'Cap it! Cap it, Partridge! You're on top. Don't outstay your welcome', so I just simply said, "Don't you never think I ain't never not going to be not around", which was probably one double-negative too many and quite hard to follow, but they got it. They got it loud and clear-ish! 

You know what? Even though I was lying about not wanting anything, it felt good to be nice! I thought, "If I'd actually meant that, I really like that man!". It's a piece of advice I got from my friend Grant Schapps. Schnapps, he once said to me, "Alan, if you ever want to succeed in life, be kind to people! Just be kind to people!". 

I said, "Is that it?" He said, "Hey-hey, I haven't finished the sentence yet!". He said, "Be kind to people, and through a gradual butterfly-effect, you'll find, long term, all the money comes. All the money comes!". I like Grant. He's such a breath of fresh air. He put me on to Corsodyl. Oh, shit! [car skidding to a halt]

The garage is on fire! [car door slams shut] Jack! Ruby! Jack, come here! Ruby, come here! It's all right! It's all right! Pappy's here! Pappy's here! Chief Pappy's here, it's all right. Oh, my God! Oh, my God, my universe is burning! My universe is burning! Ohhh! [sound fades]

Bit of a scare there. I got back to the Oasthouse to find the garage ablaze due to an electrical fire. Fernando had dropped Jack and Ruby there, they were being looked after by the woman I'm seeing, Katrina. So no one was in any danger. And they had the rubber shoes on, which I was glad to see.

I just... pulled them in for a hug and we watched together, a granddad and his grandchildren, as the flames consumed my double-garage and solar system, which I think is what a black hole does. I held the kids close and we watched it burn with tears in our eyes.

Jack, the oldest, said, "We'll rebuild it. Don't worry, granddad, we'll rebuild it". And the youngest, Ruby, said, "Papa, I'll help you!". 

I said, "Let's make this go with a proper bang!", and I ran inside, came out with two boxes of fireworks and hurled them onto the fire and said, "Run for it!". And the kids absolutely loved it! It was a night they'll never forget. And I'm sure they'll remember it long after I'm gone. Yeah, the next door neighbour said it was irresponsible, miserable bastard. No kids, no grandkids, just dogs. I'd like to see them wipe your arse when you're old! 

[somewhat discordant piano and hi-hat music] 

Oh, do you know, my perfect day, I have to say, will always be a Sunday. 

[singing] Took a walk to that new bar for a crafty beer. 

Served to me by a young man with a bushy beard. 

Took the dog up on the hill, I like to keep him fit. 

Left the poo bags in the car. We'll just have to stick-and-flick.

I can see the sea beyond Mackie Dee's. 

Must be ten miles away! I'd say, 

Taking in the air, I don't have a care 

On this wonderful day!

My perfect Sunday time! 

The rich tapestry of my life! 

The only way to get high. 

Out of my head on my life. 

[spoken] Aah. Sunday. 

[theme music]

[Alan's voice recorded on an answer-phone] Hello, Lynn. Can you please get this list to Audible? It's a list of credits. I mean, I can't be bothered with this shit, but apparently we're obliged to do it. Here goes, pass it on to them. No need to call me back, in fact don't call me back.

Written by Steve Coogan, Neil Gibbons, Rob Gibbons.

Starring Steve Coogan and featuring Neil Gibbons, Rob Gibbons, Lourdes Faberes, Dan Skinner, Kay Lumoz, Polly Kemp, Sam Heath. 

Directed by Neil Gibbons and Rob Gibbons. 

Produced by Joe Fraser.

Production Coordinators; Christian Field, Louise Brightman and Emily Betts. 

Edited by Jonathan Cronin, Nick Webb and Joe Fraser. 

Sound Design Mixed by Sounds Like These. 

Music by Martin Coogan. 

Head of Production for Baby Cow, Xinyi Liu.

For CH Podcast, the Executive Producer was Louise Barry. 

For Audible, the Executive Producer was Sam Bryant. 

The Production Executive was Hayley Nathan and the Commissioning Editor was Sam Bryant.

That's it.