Open Books with Martin Bryce

CHRIS BEALE

Hello, I'm Chris Beale and this is Open Books, Norfolk's foremost forum for lovers of literature. Why  Open Books? Well, firstly, because our focus is be that most inviting of sights, open books. We also hope our guests will speak candidly and be, if you will, open books. And finally, we trust that the show's title will not command but cajole viewers, "For goodness' sake, open books!".

Our guest tonight is a broadcaster who has recently stepped out of the radio studio and onto our bookshelves, though not literally, I hope. Let's take a look.

[a montage of clips from Alan career thus far, The Day Today, Knowing Me Knowing You and Midmorning Matters]

My guest today is a broadcasting colossus. He first entered our lives as a sports journalist... 

"Striker!"

 ...where he did a great deal to champion the use of women in sport. 

"It's a great model, it goes like a bomb and the car's not bad, either! Come on, let's go burn some rubber!"

 He was hugely successful... 

"Woah! Hey! Spunky lady!"

...but soon became disillusioned with sports reporting. 

"It's, uh, really quite wet here. It really is quite wet. Well, it's horrible. Really awful!".

Just two years later, he found prime-time stardom as the host of his own television chat show. 

"Well, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn! Of course I do! Of course I give a damn!".

But his flirtation with BBC Television was to end in an unfortunate incident. 

 

[Forbes McAllister] "Be careful with that!"

[gunshot, people scream]

[Alan] "What happens now?"

Having left the corporation, Alan struggled with depression and weight gain...

"Crash! Bang! Wallop! What a video!"

...But then a rebirth...

"Keep your clubs away from his young, it's Seal!"

He re-imagined himself as a local DJ on North Norfolk Digital... 

"Bang! Pepper!"

...where he's become a candid and comforting presence. 

"I try to maintain a healthy anus".

Far from being depressed, he says he is genuinely happier than he has ever been before and has re-emerged into the public eye... 

"Hello! I'm Alan Partridge...".

...this time via the written word, with the publication of his memoir, 'I, Partridge, We Need To Talk About Alan'.

ALAN [his back to camera, speaking into his phone]

You should ask if people want ice.

CHRIS

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mr. Alan Partridge.

[audience applauds]

CHRIS

Good evening to you, Alan.

ALAN

And also to you.

CHRIS

Now, we always start on Open Books by asking our authors about their relationship with literature. First of all, Alan Partridge and literature aren't ideas that necessarily sit together in the mind's eye.

ALAN

No. But I think they do in the brain's ear.

CHRIS

Right. And what would you mean by that?

ALAN

Uh, yeah. Good question.

CHRIS

How did you discover your gift for writing, Alan?

ALAN

Well I was touched deeply by an English teacher at school, and I found that very exciting. And I knew I was good at literature because, of course, for my work that year I got straight As.

CHRIS

And did that come in useful as a broadcaster?

ALAN

It did. I remember amending marketing material when I was at Saxon Radio in Bury St Edmunds, and I realised I had something special. The blurbs about my show were littered with over-familiar references to "Alan", I was changing them to "Partridge" or "Mr Partridge", when I realised I was also slightly improving the copy itself. For example, I changed the phrase "latest chart music" to "freshest pop sounds"...

CHRIS

Right.

ALAN

...and "the best of our output" to "the cream of our discharge". And people really sat up and took notice after that. That's when I realised I had a gift.

CHRIS

If you don't mind me saying, I rather like your choice of clothes this evening. Makes you look like a country gent.

ALAN

No, it doesn't. Makes me look like a writer.

CHRIS

Great choice of colours, anyway.

ALAN

Thank you. I've primarily gone for oxblood and mustard.

CHRIS

Sounds like soup of the month!

ALAN

Ugh. I'm not sure I'd enjoy the taste of that. I'd prefer, um, uh... broccoli and stilton.

CHRIS

Let's move on now and talk about your book. It's titled  I, Partridge, We Need to Talk about Alan. 

ALAN

That's my book.

CHRIS

And as ever on  Open Books, we've asked a local book club to run the rule over the week's book. This week's group are from Blickling, near Aylsham. Welcome! Hello there.

BOOK CLUB [together]

Hello.

And we'll be hearing from you a little later on, um, to find out in general, what did you think of the book? Did you like the book?

BOOK CLUB MEMBER #3

Yes.

BOOK CLUB MEMBER #1

Yes.

BOOK CLUB MEMBER #2

Yes.

CHRIS

Great.

CHRIS

Now, Alan has very kindly agreed to read some selected passages from his autobiography. This is from a chapter entitled, "Beginnings". 

[ALAN walks over to a reading area with a leather high-backed chair in front of shelves of leather-bound books]

ALAN

Where's the book? 

[a member of the production staff hands ALAN his book]

ALAN [annoyed]

It should be there!

'Pitter-patter!' goes the rain on the window. 'Pitter-patter! Pitter-patter!', and outside, cars zoom up and down the road, some of them dropping down to second gear to turn right into Gayton Road. On the pavement, people hurry and scurry, both to and fro. A clap of thunder - bam! - and some pretty gusty wind. Everyone agrees, it's a pretty dramatic evening all round!

Pan right. It's a hospital room. A clammy pregnant woman lies spread-eagled on the bed and is about to produce pitter-patter of her own. She's not going to wet herself, although that is often a distressing side-effect of childbirth. I'm referring to the pitter-patter of children's feet.

"Stand back!"' says the midwife, "Her contraptions are massive!".

"Looks like Anthony Eden's going to be named Prime Minister", mutters a nurse as she strolls past the door.

"Chelsea are about to win the First Division title!" replies an orderly, almost certainly not educated enough to follow politics. In the corner of the room, Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley blasts quietly from the radio.

You see, this wasn't now. This was then. The present tense used in the previous passage is just a literary device, so that the next bit comes as a total surprise. The scene is actually unfurling in 1955. The hospital? The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn. The sweaty woman? Mrs Dorothy Partridge, my mother. And the child's head slithering from her legs? It belongs to me. The child was I, Partridge.

"You've done it! Brilliant pushing!" says the midwife. She holds the new-born baby aloft like a captain lifting a fleshy World Cup. And then the child throws back its head and roars the roar of freedom. The noise is relatively nonsensical, but no less intelligent than most babies would produce. In fact, probably a bit more switched-on than average. In many ways, the proud wail that burst forth from my lungs was my first broadcast, delivered to an audience of no more than eight. That still equated to an audience share, in the delivery room, at least, of a cool hundred percent.

"Not bad!", I probably thought. "Not bad at all!".

CHRIS

So would you describe yourself as a book enthusiast?

ALAN

Yeah. I'm a bibliophile. My house is brimming with books. I've got books in the garage! I've got in excess of a hundred books in two cardboard boxes. Um, one box was for a microwave, the other was, I don't know... I can't remember, just... You know, uh... Yeah. But definitely in excess of a hundred.

CHRIS

And what would, um...

ALAN

Sorry, I'm a bit nervous.

CHRIS

That's okay, have some water.

ALAN

Crisps! That was what the box... I'd brought before Christmas. "Crispmas". I love wordplay.

CHRIS

You sound really, you know, like quite the collector.

ALAN

Yeah, people do often come to my house and they see all the books and say, "Ooh! Who's the reader?"

And I reply, "I am!".

CHRIS

I know the feeling, though, Alan. So many books, but just so little space.

ALAN

I know, and a lot of them we'll never read, Martin...

CHRIS

Chris.

ALAN

...I know. We, um... I mean, Richard Hammond's autobiography, for example, which I bought from a car boot sale, as a favour to him. Uh, it came out the boot of a car, much like he did, at high speed.

CHRIS

Are you someone who finds it hard to throw books away?

ALAN

You hear of these idiots, you know, that burn books. But the only book I've ever burnt is  The Kama Sutra.  Uh, yeah. I mean, I had a browse, but I thought the women in it were just a bit too slutty.

CHRIS

Right. Well, I can certainly tell you're an avid reader.

ALAN

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'll read anywhere, Richard. I'll read on the sofa, in the bed, in the bath...

CHRIS

In the shower?

ALAN

No, come on! I mean, uh, the only thing I do in the shower is wash my body. And my hair.

CHRIS

What about the little men's room, the toilet?

ALAN

Well, yeah. You know, we all read on the loo. I mean, I tend to read short recipes from a cookery book,

you know, so I can plan what's going to be the cause of my next visit... um, as t'were. Sorry.

CHRIS

And holidays, are you a holiday reader?

ALAN

Oh, yeah. I'll take numerous novels with me, and non-fiction, fill the boot with luggage, basically as

many books as I can get on the back seat and the front passenger seat, then just head north.

CHRIS

To...? 

[ALAN shrugs]

CHRIS

Still, it's fair to say you're...

ALAN

Dales. Where there are friends.

 

[break, when we return, ALAN is back in the reading area]

"O-o-o-open it!", stuttered my mother nervously. "Y-y-yes, open it", said Dad, frightened. "Cool it, cats!", I breezed. This was the '70s, in my hand was a golden envelope containing the most important pieces of paper I'd ever clutched, my A-Level results.

"'Wh-wh-what does it s-s-say?' my parents whispered in absolute unison. I opened it as gingerly as a rookie bomb-disposal operative would open a fat letter bomb in a creche. In a funny sort of way, the contents were just as explosive as powder-coated acetone peroxide, they spelt the difference between me attending tertiary education, and being consigned to a heap marked 'Don't Have A-Levels', and that was a mound of slag I did not want to be on.

Like the bomb disposal man mentioned above, I swallowed hard and began to remove the letter within the 'lope. A single bead of sweat sprinted down my face, skirting around my temple and pausing at the jaw before throwing itself to its death.

"Bad news", I muttered, "Your son has failed... at failing his exams!". They were confused momentarily by the clever double negative, so I added, "I passed!". The 'It's bad news, ha-ha, no, actually it's good news' technique is one I've always enjoyed. It was really mastered by David Coleman in  A Question of Sport when he'd tonally suggest Bill Beaumont had got an answer wrong, only to reveal at the end of the sentence that he'd got it right.

My parents were elated. My mum patted me and Dad joined in one of the first high-fives that Norwich has ever seen. "I passed!", I kept saying. "I passed them both!". The exact grading isn't important, suffice to say I was the proud owner of two shiny A-levels and nobody could take them away from me.

CHRIS

Would you say you've come to books quite late in your life, Alan?

ALAN

No, that's wrong. I've been reading avidly since the age of... a half. Of course, they were very rudimentary books. You know, some didn't even contain words, they were merely squeaked when you squeezed them. But they were certainly books nonetheless. In those books, my task might have been to identify and reproduce the sound emitted by farmyard or domestic animals, e.g. a cat, which would be...

CHRIS

Meow.

ALAN

Yeah, but higher.

CHRIS [high-pitched] 

Meow?

ALAN

Yeah, great.

And how do you consume books? On good old-fashioned paper, or on an electronic device?

ALAN

Oh, paper! Oh, paper! Paper!

Mmm-hmm.

ALAN

There's something about the smell of a book, isn't there? You must know. The feel... 

CHRIS

The smell, the aroma.

ALAN

The aroma. Same as smell, that. It's the same as smell. But, yeah, the feeling when you sort of stroke your palm across the page, the sensation of turning the page using a wet-licked finger.

CHRIS

Oh, it's totally inspiring. I spent a lot of time in the British Library...

ALAN

Right.

CHRIS

...when I was researching my novel  Boy of Hope. 

ALAN

Oh yes, you sent that to me.

CHRIS

Yes, I did. Did you ever read it?

ALAN

No. Terrible title!

CHRIS

Well, actually, funnily enough, the choice of the title wasn't actually my own, so... it's one of those things in publishing that I'm sure you're aware of. But the whole book is about the Crimean War and, many people don't know that children were used in vast numbers to relay messages between Central Command and the front-line but suffered appalling treatment, it really is harrowing. The central character is an 11-year-old messenger boy named Thomas Wineford. He is the boy of hope, hence the title, and he got through the whole conflict only to be arrested for stealing carrots and was ultimately hanged. Tragic.

[ALAN lets that hang in the air a while, he's not interested in the slightest]

ALAN

Um, I think the best thing about old books is the smell. There's nothing quite like going up to the bookshelf with your nose just beneath the spine of an old book and just... breathing deeply. 

CHRIS

That familiar musty lungful, as it were.

ALAN

Yes. Be careful, though. I once breathed something that blocked my windpipe for a second. I panicked,

quickly gave myself the Heimlich Manoeuvre and coughed up an old dead bee. But I love books. Love old books.

CHRIS

A lot of people say technology and books don't mix.

ALAN

That's true, with the exception, of course, of the bookmark with a mini-torch on it.

CHRIS

But these e-readers, they all have internet browsers, as if you need to surf the internet while reading!

ALAN

Well, you can't physically do that with a book,which means, you know, you can enjoy a good novel,

free from the nagging distraction of, you know, hardcore online pornography, which is great for me to know that when I'm reading a book, I don't know, like House of the Spirits by Isabel...

CHRIS

Allende...

ALAN

Isabel Allende.

CHRIS

Allende.

ALAN

Allende.

CHRIS

Allende.

ALAN

I simply cannot access images of an explicit sexual nature, however tempting or necessary that may be.

CHRIS

All right. Time for another extract from  I, Partridge. It's 1974, and Alan is about to begin studying for a degree.

[ALAN makes his way to the reading area]

Yep, 1974 was a crazy, hazy time for Alan Partridge. The '60s had come to East Anglia and it was

a time of free thinking, free love and, in my case, free university accommodation. I was quite the man about town in Norwich, striding confidently through the dreaming spires and hallowed halls of East Anglia Polytechnic. 

Enigmatically, I decided to stay not in the woodworm-infested squalor of university halls, but commute in from my home, my parents' home. Of course, it meant that I was something of a mystery man on campus. While my fellow students lived in each others' pockets and played out their debauched lifestyles for all to see, I was far less well known.

I'd be glimpsed at the back of lecture halls, ghosting through the student union with a glass of cider or shushing idiots in the library, and then I'd be gone. All this added to my aura, as did my idiosyncratic dress sense. Thick-knit, zip-up cardigans, flared brown corduroys and shiny black pepper-pot brogues set me apart from the long-haired layabouts who bore an uncanny resemblance to the Guildford Four and some of the Birmingham Six, Irish long-haired layabouts 'wrongfully' convicted of bombing England.

It was a sexy time and I enjoyed erotic and informative afternoons with a student whose essays I was writing. I'm happy to recall those eye-opening afternoons with me and Jemima sitting bollock-naked on her bed, me exploring her body with my quivering hands while she coquettishly feigned indifference by reading album sleeves or smoking.

Young I may have been, but I was confident enough to speak my mind. This strutting, young, cock-certain Alan would often dish out compliments as he perused and felt her body. "You're a really busty woman, Jem", I said once, "One of the bustiest on campus!". "Thanks," she said, through her cigarette. "You've got quite a long torso but your legs aren't in the least bit thick".

"Believe me, if I didn't have lectures, I'd love to kiss you from top to bottom and from side to side. Also diagonally". Things like that."

CHRIS

Alan, let's turn back to literature now. Do you fear the dumbing-down of books?

ALAN

Not really. If I see a young woman sitting on a grassy knoll, you know, or on a park bench, reading

Shopaholic Ties the Knot, I don't think that's a terrible book, or a shit book...

CHRIS

Right.

ALAN

...I'm just pleased that she's reading. The good thing about that book, of course, is that the title fully explains the plot, so that if you don't want to, you don't have to read it.

CHRIS

I see.

ALAN

So you could save a lot of time if, for example, The Da Vinci Code was called 'Church Puzzle Collection'. 

CHRIS

True.

ALAN

Or if they, you know, renamed Tom Clancy books, er, I don;t know, 'Harrison Ford Thinks the Government Are on His Side but Actually They're Not'. 

CHRIS

Literary shorthand, if you will.

ALAN

Yeah.

CHRIS

Of course, Dickens was wonderful at that.

ALAN

Oh, Dickens!

CHRIS

Wonderful, and, of course, he'd communicate complex characters by giving them such evocative names.

ALAN

Yes, yeah.

CHRIS

One thinks of Pip, Smike, Mrs Cruncher...

ALAN

Mr Tickle.

CHRIS

That's... 

ALAN

Oh, no, that's the  Mr Men. 

 

CHRIS

Mr Men. 

[break]

CHRIS

Now, Alan, this isn't your first book. You've previously published another book,  Bouncing Back, 

which was pulped?

ALAN

Correct. I mean, you'll know about that.

CHRIS

No. Well, my book, Boy of Hope, was withdrawn actually, so...

ALAN

Right.

CHRIS

But does it bother you that Bouncing Back  is no longer with us?

ALAN

No, I don't really think of it as gone. It's like biscuits, you know. If you pulp a packet of biscuits, you haven't lost some biscuits, you've gained the base of a cheesecake.

CHRIS

Right.

ALAN

Besides, Bouncing Back  was going on to a very exciting new life as recycled paper. One particularly

unkind reviewer said...

CHRIS

We've all had them!

ALAN

We've all had them, I know you have! But he said he wouldn't wipe his arse with it. His words, not mine. Well, if he buys his toilet roll at Tesco, he may well have done.

CHRIS

So it doesn't bother you at all really?

ALAN [annoyed]

No!

CHRIS

Right. Okay, well let's have a question from the audience. The gentleman in the yellow jumper.

ALAN

Primrose yellow.

CHRIS

Primrose yellow, indeed.

PRIMROSE YELLOW

I want to know what you think of the book and if you were a critic, how would you rate it?

CHRIS

That is a very good question! Alan, how are you going to answer that?

ALAN

Ooh, that's a tricky one! Um, I'd probably say, "I, Partridge left me astonished, elated and humbled. His is a faultless piece of work, one which hunts down and dismembers the rulebook before brilliantly reinventing the autobiography genre for the Skype generation. Candid and touching, wry yet powerful,

I, Partridge is truly a book for our times, and around a tenner for 87,000 words, Partridge is no slouch in the value-for-money department, either. Five stars out of five". Something like that.

[ALAN points to a man behind him, wearing the exact same outfit] 

ALAN

Are you a twin?

PRIMROSE YELLOW

Yes.

ALAN

Right. With that man?

PRIMROSE YELLOW

Yeah.

ALAN

Why aren't you sitting with him?

PRIMROSE YELLOW

We came separately.

ALAN

Okay. It's just quite distracting that you're sort of far apart, that's all.

CHRIS

If your parents were still around, Alan, what would they make of the book?

ALAN

Well, books were always very important to my mother. As a child, she used to read me bedtime stories.

I mean, when I was a child, not her. I wasn't born. No, she would read to me for about half an hour

every night before hitting the stopwatch.

CHRIS

That must have been really wonderful for you, though. Soothing.

ALAN

Well, she tried her best, but she struggled with the characters' voices, I don't know why. I don't think it was because she was thick.

CHRIS

What did she used to read to you, for example?

ALAN

Well, I remember a half-hearted attempt at Paddington Bear, which she made sound German.

CHRIS

Hmm.

ALAN

The same with Rupert the Bear. She basically Germanised any bear, which ruined it for me. But on the flip side, she did an outstanding Noddy.

CHRIS

What about your dad, your father? Would he have enjoyed the book?

ALAN

Well, Pop and I had a very difficult relationship, although I must say it's much better now that he's dead.

CHRIS

Right. Was he a keen reader, Alan?

ALAN

Martin, he wasn't.

CHRIS

It's Chris.

ALAN

The only book I ever saw him read was The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

CHRIS

By Edward Gibbon. A seminal work.

ALAN

Yeah. Except when I picked it up one day, I found that there was a different book under the dust jacket.

CHRIS

And what was that?

ALAN

It was  The Secret Seven, umm, by Blyton. But it was one of the few things that... that was redeeming

about my father. In many ways he could be a very cruel, messed-up guy but I love the fact that he had this secret love of looking at books about children.

[ALAN thinks back wistfully then realises how this sounds]

CHRIS

You're not afraid to settle old scores in the book, Alan.

ALAN

Ah. You noticed!

CHRIS

I did indeed!

ALAN

He said, twirling his moustache. It's actually more distracting that they're now together.

[shot of the PRIMROSE YELLOW twins now sitting together]

CHRIS

They're together.

ALAN

Weirdly, bizarrely. Uh, yeah, no, I was tempted to call the book 'Knee Jerk', but I thought it sounded like a Geordie saying, "Not a joke", you know, "Nee jurk".

CHRIS

Right.

ALAN

"There's nee jurks". You know. But there are jokes in the book. At other peoples' expense.

CHRIS

Was it hard to get the book through the legal team? Were there any things that you had to take out?

ALAN

Yeah, some things. Um, Martin Bashir's [beep] addiction, uh, the incredible sweat problems faced by, um, [beep]. Um, there's a whole Toksvig saga. Um, [beep]'s addiction to fascism. Uh, the time Alastair Stewart was found... [long beep] ...two chicks with dicks.

CHRIS

Right. And how did the people you mentioned react?

ALAN

Not everyone responded. There's a big chunk on Sally Gunnell. I didn't hear anything from her. But then, I never do. I'm beginning to think she's changed her number. Then again, when I do call her up from a payphone, she does pick up briefly.

CHRIS

Right. And anyone else in particular?

ALAN

Uh, Eamonn Holmes sent me a JPEG of a mutilated squirrel.

CHRIS

I saw that, too, actually.

ALAN

Yeah. But, yeah, Big Eams is, uh... He's in a bad place.

CHRIS

Yeah, he is. And your ex-wife Carol, what did she think of the whole...

ALAN

I actually think the book gives a fair portrayal of our time together. Not least the beautiful moment up Helvellyn, when we conceived one of our children against a big rock.

CHRIS

Time for another extract from  I, Partridge. Alan explores the breakdown of his marriage.

[ALAN makes his way back to the reading area]

Truth be told, I knew it was probably curtains for me and Carol in 1989, when I asked her to act more demurely at a Radio Norwich Summer Road Show and she responded by downing her glass of wine and getting another one. You don't piss about with a guy's career like that.

I first got wind of Carol's infidelity when she came home from the gym wearing a pair of black Asics cycling shorts, after having gone out wearing blue Adidas ones. Also, the Asics pair were for men. Suddenly things that had seemed innocent, the snazzy new hairdo, the packet of condoms in her glove box, reported sightings of her in nightclubs with a man, started to collect in my craw.

What was she up to? I began to keep a diary. 30th of August 1995, Carol smells of a new aftershave. L'Homme, I think, but I'm still using a giant bottle of Pagan Man. It was an ex-display model off a ferry.

26th of October, 1995, Carol forty percent less randy than this time last year. Menopause or sourcing sex from alternative supplier?

8th of December, 1995, struggling to find a spare moment to confront Carol. She's always at the ruddy gym!

21st of December, 1995, had a long chat with Bill Oddie, an experienced birder. He lent me his binoculars and gave me some advice on how to remain still for long periods of time and go completely undetected in undergrowth and shrubbery.

22nd of December, 1995, Told Carol I was off to the office, then set up a vantage point opposite the house. Binoculared her entering the premises with a man, then shutting the bedroom curtains. This French-smelling sex-provider was Carol's fitness instructor! Far from being French, he was actually from Luton, his only French-ness was his cowardly duplicitousness and the kissing he did with my wife.

I was waiting for Carol when she got back from the gym that evening. She breezed into the kitchen as I sat at the kitchen table with a bottle of wine. I hadn't drunk from it or opened it, drinking during the day makes me nauseous, but I think the effect worked. "Been enjoying yourself?" I said, but with loads of emphasis so that it was clear that 'enjoying' might have a double meaning. "Mmm-hmm", she said, like she didn't have a bloody clue.

"Have a nice time at the "gym"?' I said, making inverted commas around the word gym with my fingers. "Yes", she said. Her knowledge of mimed punctuation was pitiful! "Have a good workout?", I said, slotting my right forefinger in and out of a hole I'd made between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand. "Yes", she said. Not a flicker! Who doesn't understand the finger sex mime, for God's sake?!

I lost it, throwing my empty wine glass crashing to the floor, but it landed on the carpet of the hall in one piece. "Careful!", she said, suddenly irritated, "You nearly broke that!". 

"What, like you broke my heart?". Silence. I was particularly pleased with that line, because it's the sort of thing that I usually think of long, long afterwards and then admonish myself for not having come up with at the time. "I know, Carol. I know!". But then she turned to face me and looked so sad that I started to cry on her behalf.

She picked up the wine glass and handed it to me so I could have another go, and this time it clattered onto the lino, where the stem snapped. Still not the smithereen-effect I wanted, but better than before. "Thanks", I said. 

The doorbell went, Bill Oddie was there. I opened the door to him and was just saying, 'This isn't a good time, Bill!" when he saw Carol. He could see I'd been crying and was clearly doing the mental maths. No one spoke for a while and then Carol gathered up her things, brushed past us and headed back to the Micra. She turned on the ignition and a blast of The Winner Takes It All came through the speakers before she could switch it off. I began to cry, and she looked at me through the windscreen and reversed very proficiently onto the road.

We watched her go until she disappeared round the corner, at which point we stopped watching.

I noticed Oddie was just standing there. "Not a good time, Bill". "Yeah, I know", he said. "I just wanted my binoculars back".

CHRIS

Okay, so time for another question. Hello, sir. Yes, you in the front row.

LARGE MAN

Um, I really, really enjoyed the book, Alan. It made me cry.

ALAN

Oh. Sorry.

LARGE MAN

My son came in and, um, I was... I was crying. And he said to me, "Dad, why are you crying?", I said, "It's just a book I'm reading. It's making me cry". So he said, "Stop reading the book, then", and I said,

"Just because it's making me cry doesn't mean it's a bad thing. You know, You can still cry and be happy".

[ALAN nods approvingly]

CHRIS

Authors often tell us that their - thank you - state of mind shares a big role in how they write about the world. So how about you? Are you in a happy place, Alan, at the moment?

ALAN

I'm in a delighted place, I'm so happy that I sometimes wake up laughing because I'm doing so well. My career is strong, uh, I've got a good group of friends, and crucially, I live in a large detached house.

I mean, the other day I went into my double garage, stood there and thought, "My garage is bigger

than some people's entire flat!". I wasn't bragging because I didn't say it out loud. And it's a fact, you know it was just... just a factual thought.

CHRIS

Right. Okay, well, um, time for another question. Anyone in the audience?

[LARGE MAN puts his hand up]

CHRIS

Um, we had you. Anyone else?

ALAN

What about the chap with the hat on?

CHRIS

Chap with the hat.

ALAN [to the YOUNG MAN sat beside LARGE MAN]

Did you like the book?

YOUNG MAN

I've come with him.

ALAN

Right. Um...

CHRIS

Question from you.

LARGE MAN

Yeah, the guy who bullied you at school. He was really... He was horrible, wasn't he?

ALAN

Yeah. Is that your question?

LARGE MAN

No, it's... Yeah, that's what it is.

ALAN

Yeah, he wasn't too nice. I wasn't too keen on him.

LARGE MAN

He was horrible!

ALAN

It's true.

CHRIS

Okay, well, let's examine your...

LARGE MAN

Really, really horrible!

CHRIS

...examine your writing process, Alan.

LARGE MAN [off camera, whispering]

I haven't done anything!

CHRIS

There's an incredible level of detail in your book. Of course, most writers say that the research takes way longer than the writing. How do you feel about that?

ALAN

That's a very... That's...a very good question. Uh...

[LARGE MAN is now replaced by a member of the production staff]

CHRIS

How did you decide which bits to include and which bits to omit, to leave out?

ALAN

Well, I began by mapping the major events of my life on a large whiteboard that I bought second-hand

from a special-needs school. I got a very good deal, actually. They gave me a discount because I said I'd come back and give a talk to the kids on the history of fire.

CHRIS

And where do you like to do your writing? Roald Dahl famously wrote in a converted shed at the bottom of his garden, of course.

ALAN

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I did think about that... um, that's much better, by the way...

[shot of the PRIMROSE YELLOW twins now sitting apart from each other again] 

ALAN

...You know, I did think about that, but there's so much stuff piled up in my shed, if I try to open my door, the Black & Decker Workmate will fall on me, and it will kill me.

CHRIS

Well, I imagine that it must be hard to summon up the feelings you felt at the time, when you were just...You know, there you are, Alan Partridge, just sat there in your study.

ALAN

No. No. If I want to summon up anger, I will eat an entire bag of Skittles. And after a brief sugar high,

I'll usually fall asleep with my forehead on the computer's trackpad. Uh, later on my assistant will come in, rouse me, see the rectangular mark on my head and say, "You've fallen asleep with your forehead

on the trackpad again!". I'll say, "Yes", and then she'll... you know, then she'll just open a window.

CHRIS

Right. 

[break]

CHRIS

And how many words would you write a day?

ALAN

Generally I aim for fifteen hundred words a day although I count long words as two.

CHRIS

Frederick Forsyth does the same.

ALAN

Yes, that's right. Well, that's why he calls himself Frederick instead of Fred. 'Cause straight away,

that's two words instead of one.

CHRIS

And would you write for long stretches? How did it all work for you?

ALAN

I try to take a break every couple of hours. It's good to get the blood pumping. So I might do press-ups,

shadow boxing, sometimes shadow judo, or, if you like, "shad-doe". That's the same as "shadow". Anyway, I mean, I love... I love wordplay.

CHRIS

Do you make sure you eat regularly? When I was writing Boy of Hope, I used to eat carrots.

ALAN

Right. Like the boy who was hanged.

CHRIS

Yes.

ALAN

Is that where you got the idea from?

CHRIS

No. That was historical fact, from the British Library, et cetera.

ALAN

You didn't make it up?

CHRIS

No. Not at all.

[ALAN looks doubtful]

CHRIS

But moving on to you, what's your regime, eating-wise?

ALAN

I keep boiled eggs in a bowl in a drawer.

CHRIS

Do you?

ALAN

Yeah, for snacking. Because it's important to keep one eye on fibre content. Early on in the writing of the book, I got that badly wrong and I spent four days without going.

CHRIS

That's a long time.

ALAN

My cleaner said I turned yellow. In the end, I was so desperate I just knocked back two pints of Milk of Magnesia.

CHRIS

And did that work?

ALAN

Oh, yeah. Christ, yeah. Be careful what you wish for! I mean, I passed out. I just... thank God

I was in a forest, by a river. I burnt my clothes, waited till it was dark and then just ran home.

CHRIS

Moving on to a question of literary style, at moments in the book you switch to the present tense.

ALAN

Yeah.

CHRIS

And I just wondered why you decided to do that?

ALAN

Now, this is a technique I borrowed from Andy McNab, who was actually the first person ever to do it in a book. So instead of saying, "At midnight, they started shooting at me", he'd say, "It's midnight.

They're shooting at me". It makes the reader sit up and go, "Oh, my God, is this happening now?"

CHRIS

Mmm.

ALAN

And... Yeah.

CHRIS

Okay, well, let's join our book group now, to see what they thought of this device. Over to you.

BOOK CLUB MEMBER #3

Yeah, good, I thought.

ALAN

Thank you.

BOOK CLUB MEMBER #2

I wasn't quite sure... I didn't think it was all that helpful, the device, having read the book, Alan...

ALAN

You haven't read the book? A bit rich to start criticising it if you...

BOOK CLUB MEMBER #2

I said "having read the book".

ALAN

What?

BOOK CLUB MEMBER #2

"Having read the book."

ALAN

Oh, right. Carry on.

BOOK CLUB MEMBER #2

I mean, the one thing that leaps out is this, this, um... well, your preoccupation with form, in the sense that there's this constant tinkering with the, um, the author's voice. It sort of lurches between styles of, you know, tone and sentimentality. It's almost schizophrenic, if you like.

ALAN [interrupting]

Schizophrenic? Right. I've been called... I mean... What, like someone who dresses up as their mum

and stabs people in the bathroom?

BOOK CLUB MEMBER #2

No. No, schizophrenic in the sense that...

ALAN

I don't want to stab anyone to death, you know? Well, uh... I'd quite like to... stab you to death. Sorry, I take that back.

CHRIS

I think what he's asking, Alan, is, have you put on an antic disposition? Is there a method to your madness?

ALAN

"To be or not to be", that same play. You two should get together. You sound like Rosencrantz and Goldenstein, a couple of Danish Jews. Sorry, I take that back.

CHRIS

Um, well, you seemed to pour a lot of yourself into the book. Would you say you are an emotional person?

ALAN

Sure, sure. I can cry for all sorts of reasons. Sadness, onions, racism, not blinking, um... Mainly sadness. And onions.

CHRIS

Okay, let's have a question. Um, yes, you. Please, the lady over there.

YOUNG WOMAN

Who would you like to play you in a film?

ALAN

Ooh! Can't pretend I haven't thought about this. Damian Lewis, the ginger actor, or 'jactor', uh... I love wordplay. Dye his hair, make him slightly less smug, that's me ten years ago.

CHRIS

Thank you. Next question, please. Yes.

MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN

So how did you celebrate when the book came out?

ALAN

Tenpin bowling. Next question.

CHRIS

You, sir.

BOOKISH MAN

The title,  I, Partridge, has been called needlessly grandiose...

ALAN

Thank you very much.

CHRIS

Um, the lady second row from the back. Yes.

WOMAN, POSSIBLY A TEACHER 

Are you planning on writing any more books?

ALAN

I am planning on penning a novel about the  Titanic, which I'm hoping will be ready for the 110th anniversary of the disaster.

CHRIS

Does feel like a story that's quite well-worn...

ALAN

Mine asks, "What if?"

CHRIS

Mmm.

ALAN

What if the ship hadn't crashed? In my version, someone's gone back in time and insisted that the boat

be built with a double hull so even if the iceberg penetrates the outer hull, the boat will still be afloat.

But a double hull also means the cost of the boat would go up. What would that mean? Higher ticket prices, therefore fewer passengers and, of course, fewer fatalities.

CHRIS

But surely, if it has a double hull, there'd be no fatalities anyway.

ALAN

They, they get to New York in record time but the captain is arrested for breaking the speed limit. And in court the captain says, "I know I was breaking the speed limit, but what if I'd gone slower and hit, say, an iceberg?"

CHRIS

Right.

ALAN

And he tells the authorities that he had a nightmare in Southampton...

CHRIS

Which is where the boat left from.

ALAN

I know! ...about the boat sinking, and that is what we know to have actually happened. But to him, it's a dream.

CHRIS

Its rewriting history, it's about how we should take a more epicurean approach to life?

ALAN

Yes. And, and... it's also about the UK government's attack on motorists through the willy-nilly use of speed cameras.

CHRIS

So it's both epicurean and anti-speed camera?

ALAN

Yes.

CHRIS

Now in our next extract from  I, Partridge, Alan realises that...

[there's a crunch of glass as ALAN makes his way to the reading area]

...fame has a dark side.

ALAN

Shit! I've stood on... I've broken... I've stood on my glasses.

[ALAN has been furnished with bigger replacement glasses]

 

ALAN

This is an account of a real fight I had with a mad fan. 

Maxwell twists my arm and fixes me in a headlock. Clever! He knows that one wrong move from me and my head will be ripped clean off. I have to act fast. Quick as a flash, I elbow him in the nuts, nodding as I hear the satisfying thud of bone on gland. 

I've turned his testicles into a couple of bollock pancakes and it feels good. "Would you like lemon juice with them, sir?" I roar inside my head. No, Maxwell, Alan Partridge isn't ready to die, not just yet. Despite the fact that my wife has left me and my kids rarely take my calls, I have a wife and kids to live for.

At this point he's still doubled up. I charge over and bang! bang! head-butt him twice in the back. He screeches like an alley cat! "Looks like I've got the kidneys, then!" I roar, still inside my head. I quickly consider my next attack. "Time for a bunch of fives, methinks". Looking around I see Maxwell catching his breath. Then, like an animal rearing up on its hind legs, or like a human being standing up, he stands up.

I send a command to my brain. Instantly the fingers of my right hand start to curl inwards. Within seconds, a fist has been formed. I launch it directly at my assailant's eye. "Delivery for Mr Maxwell!" I roar, this time remembering to say it out loud. "Really? What is it?", his furrowed brow seems to ask. "A knuckle sandwich!", my fist replies!

Somehow recovering from the force of the blow, Maxwell picks up a chair and swings it at my brain. I duck, thwarting him with the sheer speed of my knee bend. Now on my haunches, I have an idea. Tucked my head into my chest, I launch into a ferocious forward roll. It skittles the insane super-fan in the blink of an eye. For several minutes, we thrash around on the floor like Tarzan and that crocodile. I am Tarzan, he's the croc.

If I'm honest, the rolling around does little to advance the fight and causes neither of us any injuries. We get back to our feet. Maxwell now has me by the throat. We both know we're entering the endgame. He seems to think he's got me. I can see it on his ugly mug, but he's not counted on one thing, pow! I floor him with a classic one-inch punch. Textbook stuff, a real gut-buster!

With Maxwell fighting for air, I see my chance and make haste for the exit. Before I can catch my car, he's giving chase, in his hand some sort of weapon. I don't get a chance to look properly, but my hunch is that it is either a gun or the brush from a dustpan and brush. By now Maxwell is almost upon us. I swivel on my heels and begin to sprint, leaping over a six-foot stile like it isn't there.

I just manage to stagger to a public phone box. I call my assistant and tell her to A, collect my car and B, deal with Maxwell personally. Hanging up, I slump against the side of the phone box and slide into a heap on the floor, the calling cards of a hundred local whores raining down me, on top of me, like big drops of prostitute rain. I begin to weep. I have cheated death. I am free.

CHRIS

One of the people you acknowledge at the start of the book is Prince Charles. Why was that?

ALAN

Well HRH is always someone I've felt great affinity with. I fully support his views on architecture, whatever they may be. And I love his Duchy Originals vanilla ice cream. At first I thought it was too sweet, but I was wrong. It's not too sweet, of course it's not too sweet, why would he do that?

CHRIS

A lot of recent autobiographies contain explicit portrayals of sexual encounters. Yours less so. What I want to know is are you averse to writing about sexuality and sensuality?

ALAN

I'm not preoccupied with sexuality and sensuality, nor do I shy away from sexuality and sensuality.

CHRIS

So do you explore sexuality and sensuality?

ALAN

Certain passages broach sexuality and sensuality, yes. With women. And that's all it is with.

CHRIS

You say that, but apart from the episode with Glen Ponder...

ALAN

What... How's that to do with sexuality and sensuality?

CHRIS

Well, you spent the night with him.

ALAN

That wasn't sexual.

CHRIS

Was it sensual?

[long pause]

ALAN

I don't, don't think so... But these days, if I see an attractive woman on a petrol station forecourt, I'll think nothing of striding over, inviting her for coffee and, if she agrees, I'll park up by the cash machine

until she's filled up, then I'll head to the nearest Starbucks and she'll trail me there.

CHRIS

And women actually agree to this, do they?

ALAN

No, not generally. But, you know, when you're over fifty you have to accept a degree of humiliation. It's a numbers game, isn't it? If you run into a chicken shed with a truncheon and a bin bag, you're not going to get them all.

CHRIS

Would you care to give us one final extract from your book?

[ALAN thinks for a second and shakes his head]

CHRIS

Alan Partridge, thank you very much indeed. And I'm afraid it's time to close Open Books  for another week. Join us next week when our guest will be agricultural historian Andrew Beeston. And there'll be another exciting opportunity for you to win £50 of book tokens in our Ten Second Review competition. Last week's prize was won by Giles Fisher in Holt for his review of Fifty Shades of Grey. He wrote, "As addictive as drugs, this is a novel which will obsess you, "possess you, distress you and undress you. An unworldly treat!". I've been Chris Beale. Good night.

[closing theme plays, ALAN and CHRIS share a few words, inaudibly, as we fade to black]