Alan Partridge - I, Partridge - We Need to Talk About Alan

One day, I decided enough was enough, so I plucked up the courage to confront him for an almighty showdown. It was 5pm on a wet Tuesday and I took a deep breath and went for it.

‘Oi,’ I said. ‘McCombe.’

He hesitated. ‘What?’

‘Watch it, mate.’

A pause. The guy was rattled. ‘What?’

‘I said watch it. Watch what you say and watch how you say it, you snivelling little goose. 27 You might find you push someone too far one day and they unleash hell in your face.’

‘What?’

‘Stop saying “what”. Listen to me. You’re going to start showing me a bit of respect, buddy boy. Or you will reap a whirlwind. The days of infantile name-calling and sexually explicit graffiti are over. It stops. Right?’

‘What? I can’t hear you, mate.’

‘I’m not your mate.’

‘What?’

This was infuriating. I unwrapped my jumper from the mouthpiece. Oh, I forgot to say, this was on the phone.

‘Just watch it, McCombe.’

‘Who is this?’

‘See you around.’

‘Is this Partridge?’

I hung up. My point made. My parting shot – ‘See you around’ – had sounded particularly menacing. I would have said ‘See you in school’, but we’d both left a few years before. And ‘around’ sounded more threatening anyway.

McCombe had left school at the first opportunity, his mindless decision-making conducted almost entirely by a hormone-addled penis desperate to impregnate the first chubby cashier it could slip into. Sure enough, McCombe and Janice have a litter of four children, not much younger than they are. Way to go, guys.

McCombe worked for several years in the warehouse of British Leyland before a back injury scuppered his forklift-truck driving. He now lives on disability allowance in Edgbaston and has gained a lot of weight. No prizes for guessing which of us is the ‘Smelly’ one now.

Interestingly, McCombe’s career-ending back complaint is so cripplingly debilitating, he can only manage the three games of tenpin bowling per week, a fact that may or may not have been documented and photographed by my assistant.

The dossier may or may not have been passed on to Birmingham City Council. And I may or may not be waiting for a reply, although this is the public sector so I shan’t be holding my breath!

The divergence between our two lives (mine: successful, his: pathetic) is best illustrated in our choice of garden furnishing. I’ve enhanced my lawn with a rockery. McCombe has chosen a broken washing machine.

And what a pair he and Janice make. I spoke with her once, when she asked me what I was doing outside their house, 28 and her language was appalling. Very aggressive woman.

McCombe rarely, if ever, strays into my consciousness now. But in some ways I thank him. The ribbing that he orchestrated – and to be fair there were probably others involved too 29 – has given me a thick skin that has served me well. I grew a teak-tough, metaphorically bullet-proof hide, essential in the very real warzone that is broadcasting.

I could give you three examples right now of times that the ‘Smelly Alan Fartridge’ barbs have stood me in good stead. When Bridie McMahon (failed TV presenter who you won’t have heard of) pointed out on air that an anagram of Alan Partridge is Anal Dirge Prat, sure, I wanted to shove her in the face, but had the self-discipline not to. When formerly significant TV critic Victor Lewis-Smith described my military-based quiz show Skirmish as ‘a thick man’s Takeshi’s Castle’, I wanted to hurt him physically, but had the restraint not to. I just left 60 abusive voicemails on his mobile (plus 12 on Valerie Singleton’s for which I have apologised. She’s above him in my contacts list.) There’s probably a third example too. But the point is, the inane taunts from my school days had given me strength and perspective.

An addendum: in 1994, I was named TV Quick’s Man of the Moment. At the same time, McCombe contracted glandular fever. Needless to say, McCombe, I had the last laugh. And I’m still having it.

23Not racist.

24Press play on Track 4.

25Disclaimer: Not in any legal sense.

26Press play on Track 5.

27Not sure why I said goose or what I meant by it.

28I’d stopped to let the engine cool down when I was in the Birmingham area looking for Pebble Mill, and coincidentally it happened to be on their street.

29Andy Bendell, Joe Cowes, Alan Holland, Richard Toms, Justin Parker, Noel Scott, Daniel Groves.

Chapter 3

East Anglia Polytechnic

‘O-O-O-OPEN IT,’ STUTTERED MY mother, nervously.

‘Y-y-y-yes, open it,’ said Dad, frightened.

‘Cool it, cats,’ I breezed. (This was the 70s.)

In my hand was a golden envelope 30 containing the most important pieces of paper I’d ever clutched: my A-level results.

Rectangular in shape and with my full name typed across it in ink, it looked important because it was of real import(ance). The foldable flap hugged the back of the sheath tightly, bound together in a solemn, gummy embrace. Unable to slip my nail beneath its coagulated clasp, I nodded to myself. I was going to have to tear the paper along the top fold. I did so and then reached inside to extract the papery contents.

‘W-w-w-w-what does it s-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 crèche. In a funny sort of way, the contents were just as explosive as a powdered acetone peroxide. They spelt the difference between me attending tertiary education and being consigned to the 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 31 mentioned above, I swallowed hard and began to remove the letter within the ’lope. A single bead of sweat sprinted down my face, skirting round my temple and pausing at the jaw before throwing itself to its death.

I pulled the paper out further, until I could make out the letters it bore, letters that had been formed into words by a kindly typist. I gulped again and looked at my parents, before emitting a sigh.

‘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-no-actually-it’s-good-news technique is one I’ve always enjoyed. It was really pioneered by David Coleman on 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! The judges on ITV’s X Factor 32 use a similar technique to reveal that a singer has made it to ‘boot camp’.)

My parents were elated. Mum patted me and Dad joined me in one of the first high-fives that Norwich had seen.

‘I passed!’ I kept saying. ‘I passed them both!’ 33

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. 34

1974 was a crazy, hazy time for Alan Partridge. The Sixties 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 Norwich, 35 striding confidently through the dreaming spires and hallowed halls of East Anglia Polytechnic – whose alumni included news woman Selina Scott and meteorology whizz Penny Tranter – and soaking up all the knowledge that this seat of learning had to offer.

The free accommodation? Well, enigmatically, I had decided to stay not in the woodworm-infested squalor of university halls, but to commute in from my home (my parents’ home). Although misinterpreted by some of my peers as reluctance to cut the apron strings and live independently, the decision to reside at home was a canny marshalling of my resources. It enabled me to avoid the scruffiness of my shaggy-haired, sandal-wearing colleagues. By using my ‘rent money’ wisely, I was never less than beautifully shod.