Television Alan Partridge-Funniest thing on tv

Twitter



ThisisPartridgeAlan G Partridge

Less than 24hrs on twitter and already I have 37,000 worshippers.
Click to expand...


ThisisPartridgeAlan G Partridge

Seems Brand Partridge remains a compelling proposition for potential advertisers.
Click to expand...


ThisisPartridgeAlan G Partridge

If I can hit 1 mill by lunch I pledge to donate £1000 (ONE THOUSAND) to disabled kids.
Click to expand...


ThisisPartridgeAlan G Partridge

Phased over ten monthly payments.
Click to expand...


ThisisPartridgeAlan G Partridge

And that offer is GENUINE.
Click to expand...
 
An extract from I Partridge. "Smell my cheese, you mother"

I, Partridge: Exclusive Extract
"Smell my cheese, you mother!"

It’s 1997 and life isn’t going well for Alan Partridge. He’s been kicked out of the family home by wife Carol, his company, Peartree Productions, is suffering from the fatal shooting that occurred in the final episode of his chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You, and there’s no word on a second series getting the green light. Only one man, Tony Hayers, can save Alan now…

Let me tell you something. For a man who works five days a week in the BBC, Hayers was incredibly hard to get hold of. If he wasn’t at the chiropodist or at his daughter’s graduation, he was on holiday in the Gambia or in a broken lift. I mean, he was never ever at his desk.

I knew that scaling back my schedule of cold-calling might look like I’d lost some of my hunger and I didn’t want to give that impression at all, so I kept trying. At the same time, I didn’t want to sound like a broken record because I’m not. So I displayed my creative side in my correspondence. I’d send him a teddy with a note saying, ‘Alan can BEARly wait to get started on series 2,’ or a honey-roast ham with the message, ‘When can we MEAT?’

I was on the verge of stopping because this approach was costing me a fortune and I was running out of puns. But then the call came. “Tony wants to meet.” I was a bit disappointed by this, because I didn’t see the need for a meeting. Why wouldn’t he just bike over contracts for the next series? I thought that was a bit off actually (still do) but, ever the professional, I just said: “Fine.” “He’s booked a table in the BBC restaurant, Friday at 1.”

I knew for a fact this establishment served ‘modern European’ whereas I’d hoped we could meet at a TGI Friday because I wanted something with chips. So I politely declined, but then reconsidered and called back very quickly to accept. Victory at last. I phoned down to hotel reception and told them I’d be moving out at the end of the week and then asked my assistant to find me a house that befitted a prime-time TV personality. She found one.footnote 154

Two days later I was buying a five-bedroomed house to live in. I didn’t expect Carol to come back to me but, knowing that she was living in a four-bedroomed residence, it was out of the question that

I would live somewhere inferior when I was to be one of the faces of BBC television for the next decade.

As I was inspecting the facilities, the BBC called. Unable to wait until Friday, they brought the meeting forward. I had one hour to deodorise and get to TV Centre. Tough call. Ingeniously, I ended up doubling up on the two tasks by getting my assistant to hold the wheel on the A140 while I reached into my shirt and swabbed my pits generously with a roll-on.

I felt, looked and smelt fresh and was in high spirits, electing to forgo a conversation role-play in favour of a singalong to The Very Very Best Of Tears For Fears. (Their album was actually called The Very Best Of Tears For Fears but I didn’t like The Way You Are or Woman In Chains and had taped it on to a C90 minus these two tracks, then renamed it to create a compilation that really was the crème de la cream of their output.)

Hayers came down to the restaurant door as I was deep in conversation with Steve Rider. (I’d called Steve on the way and asked him to meet me there and engage me in ‘high-level chat’ to impress Hayers.)155

We sat down and Hayers began to make small talk. “My Lunn Poly brochure arrived this morning so I’ve just been looking at holidays,” he started.

I could tell something was wrong — he was nervous, shifty. I ordered food and wine for us both — a nice German wine, some Italian food and UK water — as he tried to manufacture some chit-chat. “This is so BBC,” I thought. (Try meeting someone in the BBC and taking the lift with them — I guarantee they’ll make some comment about the lift being slow or full. They are inane.)

“Portugal is supposed to be nice,” he stuttered. “Cut the sweet sh*t, twinkle toes,” I said, like a latter-day Jack Regan.

If I smoked I’d have stubbed it out at that moment.Instead, I set down my knife and fork and swallowed my Italian food. It was clear one of us was going to have to take charge and that someone was going to be me. “Let’s talk about the next series. I want a yes or no.”

His big face went pale and he averted his eyes. “It’s a no,” he said. Nearby diners who’d been secretly eavesdropping on our summit gasped and stared. I’m fairly sure one let a roast potato fall out of his mouth. “Whaaaat?” they all thought.

I was more sanguine. Don’t get me wrong, it was a hammer blow. But I’d expected it and didn’t really have my heart set on working with Auntie anyway. The BBC is nothing if not risk averse and I was seen as a bit of a maverick. In fact, some of them called me Maverick behind my back I think.

No, I’d foreseen my career would be with other broadcasters anyway, so I really wasn’t arsed. I felt a bit sorry for Hayers then. Shadowy powers had clearly forced his hand, and he was snivellingly torn between losing a major piece of talent and upsetting his idiotic paymasters.

“Have you got any other ideas, though?” I snorted. Did I really want to entrust my portfolio of projects to this shoddy outfit? I don’t think so. But he practically begged me (it was a bit unseemly actually, people were watching) so I went ahead and listed them. Norwich-based crime drama Swallow, Knowing ME, Knowing You (a factual show looking at the disease), Inner City Sumo and Monkey Tennis.156

But as I reeled off format after format — each more daring than the last — I could see he was retreating into his cowardly, safety-first shell. All genuinely original ideas, all snubbed. I did have another ace up my sleeve: Motorway Rambles — a travelogue of me walking the hard shoulders of British highways, with special permission from the British Transport Police — but it had been co-devised by Bill Oddie and he’d made me promise I wouldn’t pitch it if he wasn’t there. Fair enough.

The meeting was over. I had things to be doing that afternoon anyway, so I thanked Hayers, and stood up. “But… but… we’ve not even had the cheese course,” he said.

I looked him square in the face and, without breaking his gaze, I struck the handle of the knife that was resting on the cheese board. The wooden edge acted as a pivot, the blade as a springboard, firing a cube of cheese up into the air. I caught it and wrapped it in a napkin, which I slotted into my pocket.

“While I’m on the subject of cheese,” I said, as the waiter hovered nearby, “it’s an open secret in the BBC that you smell like cheese.”The waiter caught my eye. “Ha! I’ve been dying to say that,” he thought.

Well, Hayers didn’t know what to say. I didn’t care. I’d had enough and the meeting merely confirmed my long-held desire to continue my career well away from the BBC. I wasn’t going to let a coward like him pay for the meal, so I took out a hundred-pound note and slotted it down the waiter’s cleavage. And he did have a cleavage.

A noise snapped behind me, like the sound of a piece of flesh hitting a nearby piece of flesh. It was a handclap. It was followed by another from the far corner of the room. Then another. And another. And as I turned to face them, the diners broke into rich applause. It was as if they were saying: “So long, Alan. The bigwigs might not appreciate you, but by God, we do.”“Thanks, guys,” I thought. “It means a bunch.” Then I very calmly, very slowly, very proudly walked through the lunchtime diners and away into the night. It felt good.

I, Partridge: We Need To Talk About Alan by Alan Partridge is available from 29 September (Harper Collins, £20)

Footnotes: 154 Antagonistic talk show host Trisha now lives there. 155 Thanks again, Steve. 156 His loss. Monkey Tennis was later snapped up by TV stations in Laos and Taiwan and ran for two successful years — after which the format reached the end of its natural life and the monkeys were quickly and humanely destroyed.

Images: I'm Alan partridge: A Talkback Production for BBCTV.
Click to expand...
 
The audio version of this is already available in the usual scum haunts. 7 hours long.

The hardback should be here today hopefully. Will be a good train journey read.

Sample quote (and possibe topic for the general/current affairs forum) ...

Wikipedia has all but made University education redundant
Click to expand...

Discuss...
 
CassiusClaymore said:
The audio version of this is already available in the usual scum haunts. 7 hours long.

The hardback should be here today hopefully. Will be a good train journey read.

Sample quote (and possibe topic for the general/current affairs forum) ...



Discuss...
Click to expand...

Bastards! Is nothing imune from the filth of piracy?

On a completely unrelated note, I am currently listening to that very audiobook. Very good, I can't imagine the paper version being half as good, it's all in the delivery.
 
decorativeed said:
Bastards! Is nothing imune from the filth of piracy?

On a completely unrelated note, I am currently listening to that very audiobook. Very good, I can't imagine the paper version being half as good, it's all in the delivery.
Click to expand...

I had it on in the background last night whilst I was surfing and just kept hearing random stuff that made me piss.

I think the book will do the same tbh because I know the character so well i'll be hearing it in my head in exactly the way it was intended.
 
having another listen now. It really is first class. The section about the birth of Fernando made me crack up.
 
I tried to do the right thing and get the audio book from itunes, audible or amazon.

Apparently it's 'unavailable in your region' so I did nothing and definitely did not download it from a torrent website while cursing that the stupidity of regional licensing for internet products could potentially have cost them a sale. If I had been weaker.
 
If someone were to pm me the link for where to avoid that download, I'd probably do something sickening to them.
 
decorativeed said:
having another listen now. It really is first class. The section about the birth of Fernando made me crack up.
Click to expand...

I also later had a daughter who evoked similar feelings
Click to expand...

:lol: Cock.

Believe it or not the book is actually better than the audio version.

It comes with a foreword, acknowledgements, a very funny interview style intro, loads of pictures with notes and annotated notes at the bottom of pages.

It's a really well rounded package.

I think in the foreword Alan states that he wanted to inculde a cd soundtrack of recommended listening to complement each chapter which he describes as 'mandatory' but the publishers wouldn't let him for various reasons. He does however kindly include the song list on Page 331.
 
CassiusClaymore said:
:lol: Cock.

Believe it or not the book is actually better than the audio version.

It comes with a foreword, acknowledgements, a very funny interview style intro, loads of pictures with notes and annotated notes at the bottom of pages.

It's a really well rounded package.

I think in the foreword Alan states that he wanted to inculde a cd soundtrack of recommended listening to complement each chapter which he describes as 'mandatory' but the publishers wouldn't let him for various reasons. He does however kindly include the song list on Page 331.
Click to expand...

I picked up a copy from the shops (old school) last night. I'm about 60 pages in and it has made me chuckle quite a bit. The notes at the bottom of the page are some of the funniest things in the book.
 
CassiusClaymore said:
I think in the foreword Alan states that he wanted to inculde a cd soundtrack of recommended listening to complement each chapter which he describes as 'mandatory' but the publishers wouldn't let him for various reasons. He does however kindly include the song list on Page 331.
Click to expand...

I found somewhere someone had put together an mp3 playlist or download of all of those tracks but now I can't find it.

edit: Think this might be it: I, Alan Partridge - Music from Alan's Autobiography by Neil Inglis on Spotify
 
:lol: @ the tramp who finds solace in cider and swans...."better than finding solace inside a swan"......"well, that's only a matter of time"


Quality!
 
CassiusClaymore said:
The audio version of this is already available in the usual scum haunts. 7 hours long.

The hardback should be here today hopefully. Will be a good train journey read.

Sample quote (and possibe topic for the general/current affairs forum) ...



Discuss...
Click to expand...

The bastards ripping this already! We're might one find this site to complain too?
 
Finished the book on the train last night (i'd been reading in spurts so as to prolong the experience) and I can hand on heart say its one of the funniest pieces of prose I've ever read. The section near the end on his self transformation talks to the staff at richer sounds had me in stiches...

'So you see, its not about "self help" or "self improvement". What I'm talking about is "self transformation".
Oh now they're listening.
'Self transformation. The actions I've given to you - to you Daniel, to you Marvin, to you Sam, to you Andrew - the actions I've given to you are nothing less than a Self-Transformation Diagnosis. Now I've given STD's to men, women, children in some cases...'
They're smiling now.
'Actually I find that its most pleasurable to give STDs to kids. The younger the better really. When I go into schools and give STDs to kids, I know that I'm really having an impact on the rest of their lives. And that excites me.
Click to expand...

:lol:

Seriously do buy a copy of the book in any form. Like I said some of the footnotes that you won't get in the audiobook are equally hilarious. Ianucci and Coogan have excelled themselves once again.
 
I'm half way through. The thing that's impressed me is the continuity. This basically is the book he'd written in Series 2, Bouncing Back. Complete with numerous "needless to say, I had the last laugh"s..For people (like me) who've seen/heard most of the stuff he's done as Partridge all the way back to On The Hour, it's a joy. His explanation of the fate of Monkey Tennis (picked up for 2 series in Laos & Taiwan) had me creasing.
 
Did he also mention that in one of the Mid Morning Matters episodes though? It seemed very familiar when I read/listened to it.
 
Possibly. It's more than that though. It's the way it treats everything as cannon. So Glenn Ponda and Chalet are mentioned in detail, along with Chris Morris & Peter O'Hanraohanrahan from The Day To Day, but all as if it actually happened, with him describing (often falsely) how he perceived it. It's just quite in depth for a fictional character, but nostalgically eventful if you remember all the things he's talking about. Especially the radio ones. I'm a (rather sad) stickler for continuity in things, so I was probably over impressed with this.
 
Yep. It really fleshes out the character so well and there are plenty of rewarding nods and winks to long time Partridge fans.

His whole deluded interpretation of events that we already know about is just one of the things that fit so well but honestly, trying to pick a favourite chapter out of this is near impossible.

Wait till you get to the end. ;)

It's just picture perfect Partridge and something you can 100% see happening.
 
My favourite things about it were the way he described his "traumatic" childhood and how he spoke of his parents thereafter. It was brilliantly done.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.