MMM S01E09: Tora Bora Alan

ALAN
Hello, you're joining me, Alan Partridge, on Midmorning Matters. I'm here with my 'Sidekick Simon'. 

SIMON

Hello, Alan.

ALAN

'SS', as I like to call him! Seig Heil! 

SIMON

Seig Heil. 

JINGLE [standard Sidekick Simon jingle, with added Nazi German]

Sidekick Simon, Sidekick Simon, Seig Heil! Seig Heil! Sidekick Simon, Sidekick Simon, Seig Heil! Seig Heil! Achtung!

ALAN

And we're asking which band names would you like to become reality? Line two, we have Mick.

CALLER #1 

Yeah, my mum would like me to find a nice girl and settle down with, get a good job, decent car and nice house... but what she doesn't know is, I'm gay. So what I'd like is everything BUT the girl!

ALAN

Oh, Everything But The Girl, excellent! Good, well, thanks for that, Mick! Hope you resolve your gender-specific issue!

SIMON

Sorry, what was that? 

ALAN

Issue? 

SIMON

Bless you?

ALAN
What, like I've sneezed? 

SIMON

Atishoo, yes. 

ALAN [irritated]

That's shit! Simon, what you got?

SIMON

I have got an email from Carl, who says he longs for a Crowded House, as his wife and kids have recently left him.

ALAN

Aww! What a- that's a lovely one, that! Marvellous.

SIMON

And I've also got a text from an Adrian H, whose wife Elizabeth suffers from a pituitary gland problem, so he would like to see Thin Lizzie. [laughs]

ALAN

I'm sure he would!

SIMON

Slightly pie in the sky!

ALAN

Yeah, probably where he'd like the pie to remain, actually. 

SIMON

Out of harm's way! 

ALAN

Out of reach of his... 

SIMON

...Greedy-guts wife! 

ALAN

Yeah, well, she's not greedy, she's got a problem with her pituitary gland...

SIMON

...Pituitary gland problem, of course. 

ALAN

Yeah, exactly. Well, it's a Bank Holiday, which traditionally would mean you've been in a car all the way to the seaside with a Li-lo, a dog full of sand, some hard-boiled Werther's Originals, or whatever...  

[ALAN and SIMON laugh]

ALAN

But these days, unfortunately it's more likely to mean a child watching a violent computer game and pornography while shouting, "I hate you!" to his parents who are downstairs having a cocaine and ecstasy-fuelled orgy! That's Britain 2011, you're welcome to it! But... sorry, I got a bit negative there...

SIMON

Very negative!

ALAN

...but to lighten the mood, we are having a tongue-twister phone-in, where we invite little kiddies to ring in and attempt to say complex sentences with their under-developed mouths! So do phone in if you're under seven with a complex sentence. 

SIMON

Is it time for a little bit of music?

ALAN

It is indeed time for some music, yes siree, there's no point yelling at that large spotted cat who's dragging the lifeless body of an apprentice zookeeper across the compound! He won't be able to hear you, he's a Def Leppard! 

SIMON

Brilliant. Turn it up Norfolk!

ALAN

...North Norfolk. 

[ALAN fades up Def Leppard and we cut to black]

ALAN

On line one we have Emily! Hello lovey, what's your tongue-twister? 

CALLER #2

What gets wetter the more it dries?

SIMON

Ooh, I'll take this one...

ALAN
Right, hang on. That's a riddle, that's not a tongue-twister. 

SIMON

No? No good? 

ALAN [adamant]

No, we're doing tongue-twisters, we're quite specific about that! Love, you shouldn't have been put through. Who put you through? 

CALLER #2

I don't know.

ALAN

Was it a woman who smokes too much? Does she sound like she's had too many fags? 

CALLER #2

It was a lady. [crying] Mummy!

ALAN

Oh, sod it! 

SIMON

Useless! 

ALAN

Yeah. Parents, if you're going to get your under-sevens, which is specifically what this is for - who are off school today - if you're going to get them to call on the radio station, it's A; a tongue twister, not a riddle, and B; can you please make sure they are reasonably media savvy? Yeah, that's the only point I wanted to make.

SIMON

A towel. 

ALAN

What? 

SIMON

Towel, the erm... what gets wet as it dries. A towel.

ALAN

Oh, right, that was... yeah. I still think I was right to cut her off.

SIMON

Oh, yeah! Yeah. 

 ALAN

Okay, fine.

[cut to black, when we return ALAN and SIMON are joined in the studio by survivalist TOMMY GASKELL and already in conversation]

TOMMY GASKELL

...What you have to do is use your experience to find out where they've been, and once you've done that you can get inside their heads and work out where they're going to be next, and you do that by taking a look at where they sleep, where they eat, where they go to the toilet.

ALAN

Right, okay. If you've just joined us, by the way, that's not not not, er... some sort of stalker's blueprint! Although I'm sure the same logic can apply to pursuing vulnerable women. No, I'm joined by Tommy Gaskell, who is a survival and naturalist expert. Tommy, have you yourself ever been, to coin a phrase, up the creek without a paddle?

TOMMY

Yes, yes, well, you mean... I've been in trouble in the wilderness a few times. But if you are up a creek without a paddle, then you should think laterally, because there are always paddles around you. The solution to many problems in the wilderness are in the immediate vicinity.

ALAN

Right, that chimes very much with me. It takes me back to '74 when I was walking in the Chilterns, and that year the nettles were particularly virulent, and that's where my story begins because I fell into some nettles. My knees gave way after what I can only describe as a very, very long walk! I said to my colleagues, "You go on without me, leave me be!". They said, "Ape, we ain't going nowhere without you..."

TOMMY

Ape?

ALAN
Ape, Alan Partridge, an abbreviation... They said, "We are not gonna go anywhere without you", and they're some of the most principled scouts I have ever rambled with. 

TOMMY

So what did you do?

ALAN

I can spot a dock leaf from thirty feet. 

TOMMY

Well, that's great, so you used the natural flora around you as an antidote. 

ALAN

...As an antidote! They came up with some sort of balm, green balm, rubbed it over my leg, and so my leg swelled up like a big, fat, green leg. 

SIMON

They must have thought you looked like Shrek! 

ALAN

Well, that film didn't go out for another twenty-six years!

SIMON
Hulk then, Incredible Hulk. 

ALAN

And we found a farmhouse... 

SIMON [interrupting]

Or, sorry, the Jolly Green Giant.

ALAN [to TOMMY, ignoring SIMON]

Do you ever find there's any kind of serenity in the wild and windy moors?

TOMMY

Well, in the wilderness in general, that's a very good point you make, Alan. I find that I get great comfort from the strength of nature, especially... it's quite weird how it can bring you comfort in even the most adverse conditions! I remember a particularly nasty incident once, I was in Afghanistan with my men, hanging off a cliff face in dense, freezing fog. Waiting for this fog to disperse for about three hours, and I felt incredibly at peace. That's what nature can do for you, I think.

ALAN

Yeah. So why... were you were in Afghanistan, was that on holiday with some mates, or were you actually... 

TOMMY

No, I was in the Forces.

ALAN

Yeah, of course. I mean, that makes more sense. 

SIMON

Which force? Parcelforce? 

ALAN

Yeah, have some respect, he means Special Forces. I'm correct, right?

TOMMY

Yeah.

ALAN

Yeah, okay. You must have some very interesting stories about clearing insurgent Talibans from the caves of Tora Bora.

TOMMY

Well, with respect, I'm just here to talk about survival in the outdoors, I'd rather not go into counter-insurgency techniques or classified operations of any kind... and specifically not about the Tora Bora caves.

ALAN

Okay, all right. I'm just very interested to hear about hand-to-hand combat, which I am told took place. Pretty ugly stuff, but I know, sometimes... 

TOMMY

I can't.

ALAN

Okay, well... let's talk hypothetically. The caves don't necessarily have to be Tora Bora. 

TOMMY

So where are they, then?

ALAN

Cheddar Gorge. They are outside Wookey Hole. That's where the cell is based.

SIMON
Somerset? 

ALAN

Somerset. The tea shop outside the paper mill at the foot of Wookey Hole, which they know like the back of their hand, the SAS have to use a tea towel map to find their way around!

TOMMY

So the Taliban have come over to Cheddar Gorge? 

ALAN

Not necessarily the Taliban. Could be a radicalised, home-grown terrorist cell. 

TOMMY

Like? 

ALAN

The RSPB.

TOMMY [scoffs]

I'm pretty sure that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is non-violent!

ALAN

At the moment they're non-violent, but what if we kicked it up a notch? Let's paint a scenario;

the last osprey in Britain is killed by a football. The last osprey egg is stolen and scrambled for a Russian oligarch's breakfast, who eats it without one iota of remorse, in his leather jacket, simply wipes his lips and says, "Simples!". 

TOMMY

Where are you going with this?

ALAN

Bear with me! So rare bird's eggs are being scrambled for Russian oligarchs, and Bill Oddie goes apeshit! He shows up at Claridge's, wearing his twitchers' jerkin, and the pockets are full of every conceivable explosive...

TOMMY

I've got the picture. 

ALAN

He walks into the buffet area, the breakfast buffet. People turn round, they say, "Isn't that the man from Springwatch?". Someone else says, "Wasn't he once one of The Goodies?", yeah, not any more, now he's a baddie! Seconds later, carnage! Oddie is like a bearded Catherine Wheel, scything through the crowd. Ironically, the oligarchs wearing the leather jackets are protected from the worst of the blast, but an innocent couple from the north-east, on a city break, are vaporised!

TOMMY

Sorry, are you asking me a specific question? 

ALAN

Yes. 

TOMMY

And that question is... if an RSPB neo-fundamentalist was radicalised, Oddie sacrificed himself, the rest of them holed up in Wookie Hole, and I was sent to neutralise the threat, how would I proceed?

ALAN

Simples.

SIMON

Really want to know?

ALAN

Yeah, let's hear it. Hand-to-hand combat, commando-style. 

TOMMY

Do you mind if I stand up?

ALAN

No, please. 

SIMON

Take the floor. 

ALAN

Take the floor. The floor is yours, you have the floor.

TOMMY

So, in Special Forces, we're given licence to use bespoke techniques, improvised weaponry, that sort of thing. My favourite for hand-to-hand combat is this brass knuckle which I've adapted, I've stuck a protruding blade on one side, very sharp. 

What I would do is, I'd attack the first insurgent, punch him full in the face as hard as I could, until I felt the splinter of bone, and that his nose was truly shattered, and then, as he's toppling backwards, grab hold of him with your right hand, and bring my hand back with the blade, like an arc across his throat, severing one, or preferably both, of the carotid arteries. 

It's... you've got to be careful here, because you've got to avoid the squirt of the jet of blood, because, you know, you don't want to be blinded moving on to the next fella! It's quite weird this, actually, because if you get it right, the neck opens up... completely... yawns back... like a Muppet's mouth...

ALAN

Oh, my god!

TOMMY

...So then you let them drop. Take care not to trip over them, I've seen that happen! And then you repeat and adapt... you repeat and adapt... you repeat and adapt... you repeat and adapt... you repeat and adapt... until the cave is clear. It's very bloody, but it's quick, and it's quiet, and that's why I like it.

[TOMMY returns to his seat]

TOMMY

Any questions?

ALAN [at a loss for words]
No.

SIMON [after a pause]
Yeah, um... Which Muppet?

[cut to black]

ALAN
You re-join us on Mid-Morning Matters! Tommy Gaskell, survival expert, still with us. And on line two, we have Sophie! Sophie, what's your tongue twister?

CALLER #3

Did that man hurt the Muppets? 

ALAN

No, love, he didn't hurt any Muppets, he simply dispatched some terrorists from a radicalised RSPB in Wookey Hole. It was, simply, that when he slit the throats of the bad people, they resembled the  mouths of Muppets. Hope that answers...

CALLER #3
Did they get better? 

ALAN [to TOMMY]

Did they get better? 

TOMMY [smiling, unfazed]

We cleared the cave.

ALAN

No. No, no-one survived, Sophie. He cleared the cave.

CALLER #3

And when the man hurt the other men, did the man feel bad?

ALAN [to TOMMY]

Did you feel bad? 

TOMMY [entirely without remorse]

It's my job. 

ALAN

No, he didn't feel bad, Sophie.

CALLER #3

Did the man get into trouble? 

ALAN

No, because... No, because the government allows him to kill people. Sometimes, when the government's exhausted diplomatic means, they allow state-sanctioned killing. Hm? Sometimes you have to... When you grow up, you'll realise that sometimes you have... to tackle tough Taliban terrorists to topple totalitarian tyrants, that was a bit of a tongue twister, wasn't it?

CALLER #3
Is Bill Odie dead? 

ALAN

No, Bill Odie's alive and well, Sophie! Well, he's alive. All right, cheerio, Sophie! 

[ALAN fades down the CALLER]

ALAN [to TOMMY]

Thanks very much, Tommy, for being on the show. Fascinating stuff, loved your wise words! Interestingly, Tommy's the first person we've had on North Norfolk Digital who's killed someone... deliberately. We all know, of course, of Simon Pickering from Travel, who reversed over a nurse, which was an accident... so he says. This is the Simon Park Orchestra, with Eye Level, otherwise known as the theme from Van der Valk. Okay.

[ALAN fades up the Van der Valk and we fade to black]