Alan Partridge: Nomad

by Alan Partridge

On this occasion there is no one I wish to acknowledge. Thank you.

For I have reached a roadside bench atop a hill, from where I can look down on Suffolk, literally as well as metaphorically.

This box tells of a journey my father made. An important journey. A journey of hope to secure a better future for him and his family. A journey from Norwich to the nuclear power plant at Dungeness for a job interview.

Her yelling continues until I answer the door to find her on her knees shouting through the letterbox, like a gynaecologist bellowing into a woman.

Unlike factory workers, cabbies or teachers, radio DJs can’t just take ten days off whenever the feeling takes them.

I threaten to call in the union, the station says that’s my prerogative. I remember that I’m not a member of a union and I hate unions.

Many was the time I’d spend entire afternoons jammed into the smallest of spaces, barely able to suppress my laughter as my hapless parents, unable to find me, got their coats and went to the cinema or the pub to see if I’d hidden there.

A less enlightened city council might have reimagined the street as a leisure centre or playground. Instead, by providing competitively priced office space to a large corporation, it has turned the land into something of real value to the community, and that gives me great comfort.

These aren’t just the everyday toots of a male driver assisting a female driver by pointing out that she was braking too early or pulling out without looking.

How much actual science is involved in being a sports scientist anyway? I mean them no disrespect but they’re PE teachers with laptops.

It was clear that Farrell, like Marlon Brando in that film when he was all fat in the jungle, had gone quite, quite mad.

Well, I almost spit out my sherry. I had no idea I had a following in the homeless community.

In the words of a Geordie man I once knew, ‘Worst things happen at sea!’

Now, this is an uncomfortable thing to discuss, but I run towards discomfort like a man who has strapped truth explosives to his body and made his peace with God.

BUT QUESTIONS REMAINED. Why had my father failed to make it to his Dungeness interview? What had befallen him that day?

They learnt that my father had actually made it to the interview but performed exceptionally badly and hadn’t made it to the next round. It seems he fabricated the letter concerning his failure to attend because he didn’t want his family and friends to realise how thick he was.