Review: I Partridge, we need to talk about Alan

'I, Partridge, we need to talk about Alan' is a magnificent book. Clearly printed on good quality paper and soundly bound, with a pleasingly robust dust jacket, the quality really shows. As a hardback, it's solidly enough put together to cause either a pleasing thump to a desk or table, or injury to a small child, should it be dropped on either. It's also lavishly illustrated with not just one but two sections of pages containing full colour photographs. The publishers obviously believed in this book, or considered it a last desperate throw of the dice to save the non-fiction arm of the company after a difficult year.

With Celebrity autobiographies timing is everything. It's amazing the number of celebrities that are caught up in sex scandals or suffer and untimely demise just as their book is about to be published. After reading this book, I can imagine that the publishers were craving a timely celebrity death to boost sales. Ghoulish, but there it is. Something tells me that prior to publication a publishing executive executive was filing out a 'treat day' form for Alan to go base jumping.

This is a book that's going to be around for a long time, it will be in remaindered bins, charity shops and discount book outlets for years to come. And that colourful front cover will be beautifully preserved as it sits, undisturbed, for years on library shelves until the library is closed down and it and the rest of the stock is incinerated.

I was lucky enough to pick up this book at my local petrol station. Dawdling by the travel sweets, deciding whether to go with 'Maynards' or own brand wine gums, I noticed the books in a wire bin by the till, a fluorescent sign declaring that they were free with every ten litres of petrol. Well I had a full tank and a full of a sense of entitlement. I grabbed my wine gums, a copy of Razzle and the book.

I was so eager to look at it that I actually stopped in a layby on the way home and flicked through it for about ten minutes. Then I drove home and started reading the book.

This is not the sort of book that one reads and re-reads regularly, although I would suggest that it is the sort of book that will regularly be found in the homes of people who have perpetrated a shocking crime on society, or a celebrity, before turning the gun/taser on themselves.

As a general rule of thumb when reading this book, if you find yourself making notes in the margin, step away from the book. If you find yourself nodding and muttering 'fuck yea, Alan', seek help. And if you find yourself underlining passages, especially ones that end in "needless to say, I had the last laugh!"' which you double-underline, mix yourself a sedative and go for a lie down in a quiet room, that locks from the outside.

This then is the autobiography of Alan Partridge, boy, man, media personality, radio presenter and if not quite king of chat then at least minor courtier at the court of the king of chat, the chap who empties the chamber pot, that sort of thing. The story takes us through the medium-highs and the many lows of a broadcasting career that can often be described as breathtaking. The man literally has made a career out of hot air.

What's fascinating is the way in which Partridge uses the book as a platform with which to set the record straight about many incidents in his life, hitherto unknown except to himself and, if they can be arsed to remember, the person Alan thinks slighted him. Alan pulls no punches in letting the reader know exactly what he thinks of everyone from school bullies to BBC executives. Presumably the punches were pulled later in the publication process by the publisher's lawyers, judging from the disclaimers and qualifications surrounding the accusations. Alan is not one to let go of a grudge and this same petty minded tenacity has seen him rise to a career in local digital radio.

What's fascinating about the book is the amount of help that Alan needed to write it. The thing has four other authors! While ghost writing might be an accepted if not acceptable practice in publishing, there is surely a limit. What sort of cack-handed author needs four people to help him write a book, is it one to read the manuscript notes, one to type them up, one to do a spell check and one to make the tea or what? Another major issue is the editing. God knows the book could have used some, it's littered with unfinished passages or drafting notes to have facts checked. Something tells me this proof was approved after lunch.

These petty annoyances aside (and I imagine that Mr P is pretty miffed by this sort of slipshod quality control), this is an entertaining and sometimes surprisingly heartwarming story of an outsider in the world of talent.

So, why was I 'lucky' to pick it up? Well, upon examination of the till receipt that I had been using as a bookmark, I noticed that although the petrol station had been giving the book away free with every ten litres of petrol, I had only bought seven litres (I favour a 'top up' strategy - others might call it the 'Arab Spring' or 'the spread of democracy', to me it's straightforward unrest in the Middle East and we all know what that does to prices at the pump. You don't want to be caught with an empty tank when it all goes tits up in Syria, let me tell you). I had, in essence, got the book for less than free! Needless to say, I had the last laugh.

Postcard from Yorkshire: Malham Cove

Malham Cove is a spectacular limestone feature, best described as an inland cliff face with a spectacular limestone pavement on top. Not the sort of pavement one sees lining the side of a road, this one is full of huge cracks and uneven surfaces. Actually, it's just the sort of pavement one expects to see lining the side of the road.


One reaches the village of Malham by following what we now recognised as the standard issue succession of increasingly tiny twisting narrow country lanes, or 'roads' as they are known locally, until you reach a line of cars indicating the boundary of the village and a succession of people too tight to pay for car parking.

The car park is full of people with a uniform sense of excitement and a uniform of walking boots and waterproof hiking jackets in a variety of primary colours that presumably make it easy to locate one in a snowdrift or a heard of sheep. Foul weather gear was not needed today, as the sun was shining brightly enough for your average walker to be comfortable in a tee shirt. But, if you have sprung a couple of hundred quid for an anorak and a performance fleece liner, I can see the logic in wearing the damn thing no matter what the weather.

One does feel a little under dressed without a dog. Surely it is time for us to start emulating Japan which, I believe, has a thriving 'hire a pet' industry with the added benefit if you are Oriental that anything that disappoints by misbehaving can be turned into a snack. Behaving very well in the car park was a cocker called, what else, Jarvis. He was at that doggie adolescent age where everything is over-exciting and yet at the same time a bit daunting, leading to leaping around the place but with a note of caution.


The footpath meanders to the foot of Malham Cove where one is confronted with a sheer rock face, with water and free climbers dripping from it. Free climbers all tend to be very much of a type, wiry from climbing and very thin from either keeping extremely fit or crapping themselves on a regular basis because of the sheer drop and lack of big bouncy inflatable castle below.

The free climbers in question looked to be enjoying themselves very much, yet one had to asking, for safety's sake, one should perhaps spoil their fun and break it to them that the is in fact a sarcasm, cut into the rock,that winds it's way very gently to the top of the cliff and has a constant stream of tourists aged eight to eighty using it.


As one climbs, so the view unfolds and one found oneself looking for Aragorn and the rest of the Fellowship of the Ring. This is exactly the sort of landscape hat they would pass through, on their way to do something violent to an orc. In fact, one would be more likely to bump into HarryPotter, as this is where they filmed one of the scenes from the last movie, Deathly Hallows, when Harry and friends are on the run and camping. The scene, and the scenery, looks like CGI and one imagines that after huffing the camera kit to the top of the Cove, the unlucky hampers were wondering why the scene couldn't just have been rendered in a graphics place in Soho.

The reason was to be found in the gift shop by the car park afterwards, where a youngHarry Potter fan was entertaining the staff with a Harry Potter quiz. The hap was obviously thrilled to visit a place that was in a real live movie about the boy wizard and that in itself must give satisfaction to whatever burly rigger carried the camera and lights and to the runner who was constantly up and down the staircase with coffee.

No lighting was required on top of Malham Cove, up here the brilliant sunshine was reflected back from the snow that still lay on the hills in pockets. It was an odd sensation to stand in the snow in the sunshine with waterproof and fleece tied round the waist, basking in the warm sun as the snow crunched under your boots. It makes one appreciate why walkers walk, hikers hike and people go outside at all, especially here. The whole area is essentially an enormous breathtaking photographic challenge and photography always looses because even if you kit superior to the Hubble telescope, there comes a point where you put your camera away and just sit there, trying to take it all in, knowing that the best favour you could ever do to somebody when trying to convey the beauty of the area would be to replace your photograph with a small piece of card bearing an OS map reference and the phrase 'just go'.


Returning from our walk (less than a hike, but very much more than a stroll) we decided that a cream tea would be just the job. Well, one of us fancied a cream tea, I was very much in the 'chips for lunch' camp. While the snow lay in isolated drifts, I had still been walking in it and so decided that a hot lunch was more than justified and, if that lunch consisted of chips, so much the better. Not that I need an excuse to have chips, but chips being required is quite a different proposition to chips being desired.

Returning to the village by a footpath that ran alongside houses where locals sat in their gardens, enjoying the sunshine and nodding to visitors 'ow do', we happened upon the Beck Hall Hotel, where, beside a brook that, to the delight of the Yorkshire tourist board, was babbling and sparkling in the sunshine, happy groups of tourists tucked into their lunches while opportunistic mallards waddled from table to table on the look out for the odd dropped crust.

A waitress, a young girl of about twenty with the sort of enthusiastic energy that one only finds in the young or the chemically enhanced, rushed to greet us. Her welcome was fairly unconventional; 'Have I told you about our cake disaster? There's no lemon drizzle. We're right out of coffee and walnut and there's barely a slice of Victoria sponge to be had!'. All this in a sort of breathless rush. I was relaxed, as nobody had mentioned a lack of chips yet.
'Do you have scones?'
'Oh aye, fresh baked. Tea with those?'
'Yes please, and a bowl of chips, and a sandwich, with meat in it.'

Five minutes later the table was groaning with food and tea and ten minutes later so was I. The drawback of staying or eating in a hotel that is walker and pet friendly is that it is always going to be just a tiny bit scruffy, those boots in the hallway and the paw prints on the tile floor knock off stars from the rating. And let's face it, nobody expects somebody who runs a hotel catering for walkers or dogs to keep the place spotless, you'd have to employ somebody just to Hoover from dawn to dusk. What you get though is a relaxed and friendly atmosphere and, when it comes to food, an understanding that it is best served promptly and in the sort of portions that are appreciated by folk who have just walked from one edge of their OS map to the other with only a banana to sustain them. My sandwich came with crisps, salad and coleslaw. As well as chips. This wasn't a snack, this was a meal!

The mallards went hungry.