Alan Partridge: Nomad

by Alan Partridge

People will say I’m being too complimentary and that there’s no way they’re this good, but I genuinely believe that if the people of Norwich were Cheddar, they’d be Tesco Finest Cheddar. Full-flavoured and matured for four weeks, the keenly priced milk derivative has been winning the hearts (and, I believe, minds) of customers for the best part of a decade. Personally, it gives me heartburn and makes me feel like I might be sick any minute, but if you’re after the market leader, look no further.

As to the charity I’m supporting, well, I’ve given it careful consideration. After all, ours is a nation not lacking in good causes. There’s Help the Aged and Barnardo’s, and even charities for animals, supported by the growing number of people who haven’t got their priorities right. Yet if you’re truly going to throw your weight behind something, it’s important you’re passionate about it. Consider Help the Aged. Don’t get me wrong, I have no axe to grind with (or at!) the elderly, but am I passionate about them? Of course I’m not. Why would I be?

Like many funerals, there was a bugler there, who was OK, I guess. You don’t come to a funeral and start reviewing the musicianship, but there was an unspoken agreement, certainly among the mourners I made eye contact with, that he was quite a weak player. High notes felt strangulated, his pursed lips were over-salivating so that you could hear spit gathering around the mouthpiece, and I thought his rhythm was off. I kept nodding at him at the start of each bar but he failed to take my cue. He also pulled quite a funny face – which I know a lot of trumpeters do, from Roy Castle to the black chap who sang that song on a Guinness advert once – but this guy’s was really stupid. He looked ridiculous. Anyway, he was only about thirteen (part of the Combined Cadet Force at a local school), so maybe he’ll grow out of it.

Martin Luther King’s son, Martin Luther King Jr, once said, ‘We’ve got to keep on keeping on.’ I say something similar, and a touch more poetic: ‘I’ve got to not stop not stopping.’

One of the locals told me that Newton Flotman’s claim to fame is that 16th century humanist writer and mathematician Thomas Blundeville once lived there. He offered to tell me more but I asked him not to. I’ve never heard of Thomas Blundeville and didn’t want to clog my brain up with facts about him in case it meant I then forgot some other, better facts.