Alan Partridge: Nomad

by Alan Partridge

When I stroll, my heart swells, my mind races, my soul soars. For that is the power of walking. It doesn’t just transport us, it transports us – which I know is the same word twice, but the second time should be said louder and slower.

Legs are the heroes of walking.

They are among the largest limbs on the human body, comprising an average of 45 per cent of our overall length, and yet so little is known about them.

My calves are so distressed they’re almost mooing, like their farmyard namesakes.

Having saved so many souls, I am overcome with a full-body euphoria and I realise I’m celebrating, jumping up and down, arms aloft, like Rambo on the steps of Philadelphia town hall. And then: sandwiches.

I open my hands as if to say, ‘And there you have it,’ silently mouthing the words by accident and wincing at myself for doing so.

‘Oh, I see,’ I say, laughing at the idea of Julia Bradbury presenting a show in which she walks from her house to the bank. Can you imagine! Although I would watch it.

‘It helps if it has some historical or personal significance, you know,’ says Harvey Kennedy, and he pats my shoulder as if to say, ‘I like you, Alan.’

On my arrival at Broadcasting House, the PA doesn’t sound pleased – but then nor would I if I had to appear in the background on BBC News every time I popped to the lavatory.

‘The song you just heard was “Midnight Train to Georgia”. The Georgia in America, presumably, rather than the failed Soviet state of the same name – where I’m sure the only “midnight trains” you’d find are the ones taking dissidents to death camps! Still, good song.’

I look down at the box. I gulp loudly and like that [I’ve just stopped typing in order to click my fingers], I am transported back in time, spinning through space in front of a backdrop of calendars, alarm clocks and newspaper cuttings (or I would if this were a movie).

Up until this point, Dad had been a wonderfully avuncular figure – certainly to me, since he spent most of his time with my cousins.

Don’t forget, this was a time when whistling mattered.

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.

The Footsteps of My Father Walk is to honour my father. Raising money or awareness for a good cause can only subtract from that.

It doesn’t bother me either way if this is turned into a television programme or not. I’d just like to find out if I’m going to be on camera so I know whether to pack my good comb.

Once there, it is to be assumed that I will crumple into a heap on the ground, my nose tenderly caressing the rich, nuclear soil, my soul finally soothed. Then I’ll probably just get my assistant to drive me home.

And now I’m picturing a young John Travolta walking his walk on a New York City sidement. I like it. Before long, I’m imagining Travolta as he is now, in a kimono and underpants, walking the same walk in a hotel suite, his eyes fixed on the terrified intern he’s instructed to watch him. I snap out of it. That’s the thing with imagining – you can’t always choose where it leads.

And that is-she-or-isn’t-she61 storyline will run in the background of the serieses. It puts a romantic kibosh on the simmering romance between Flint and his now-divorced area commander, a former school friend he hesitates to call ‘an old flame’ out of respect for the flames that may or may not have enveloped his wife.

I want to stop, need to stop, but stop I cannot. Within fifteen minutes the jam is no more. All that remains is a mouthful of spent cling film pieces and a nagging sense of self-loathing.

As for me, well, I had to come this way because Tilbury is home to one of Britain’s largest shipping container terminals, and it would have been a bit weird of me not to take a look.

I ask the man at the gate if they do tours. He says they don’t. I ask the man at the gate if they do tours for VIPs. He says they don’t. I ask the man at the gate if they do tours for VIPs who will keep out of everyone’s way and promise not to be a nuisance. He says they don’t.

It’s fun to stand over the road and watch the terminal at work, my mind afizz with images of timber and cars and paper. I love the sense of mystery. What treasure lies within each container? Is it timber? Is it cars? Is it paper?

my imaginary car of choice is a Vauxhall Cascada. Obviously I’d never drive one in real life as it’s a bit of a hairdresser’s car, but in the land of make-believe no such stigma applies.

I was able to assess businesses with a clinical eye and a surgical ear.

Within minutes of striding into any office or shop, I was (and am) able to identify failing processes, dream up an attitude matrix, suggest mantras that management must repeat to staff each morning and generally map out a roadpath to collective betterment. And all without the mumbo jumbo you often get from management consultants.

Normally, Partridge would be in his element – this was a man who was pretty much defined by small talk

DAY NINE. I PASS THROUGH Stoke Newington and Crouch End, two pleased-with-themselves North London enclaves where, in the words of Alan Titchmarsh, you could slap a stranger and feel sure they deserved it.

It’s at this point that my slick, if slightly loud, sales pitch is stopped in its tracks by Harvey placing a kindly hand on my shoulder (I should stress that the hand is one of his own).

She asks why I’m sighing and I inform her that it wasn’t a sigh, it was just decisive exhaling.

After ten days of dating, Angela and I moved in together. Some people thought that was a bit quick, but it wasn’t and they were wrong.

I wouldn’t say the foot’s ballooned – it’s not ballooned – but it’s definitely put on a bit of weight. Still, happens to the best of us. You want to see my back! No, but seriously, it’s definitely become infected – whether from the stick that cut it or the damp old bread that I found in the park, I know not. What I do know is that it’s swollen and emitting a kind of yellow gel (I guess you could call it ‘foot tripe’), while – and this might be my imagination – audibly humming with germs.

I check the wound again. I know this sounds weird but I swear it’s developed its own pulse. A rhythmic throb that seems for all the world to be spelling ‘Help. Antibiotics’ in Morse code. But I might be wrong about that.

Of all the disciplines involved in swimming, I am perhaps most adept at the getting in.

They clearly belonged to a small child or a grown up with learning difficulties, but I didn’t feel bad about stealing this one because I liked it and I wanted to have it.