Big Beacon, page 7
Remember, I’d once presented live coverage of the Tour de France, of World Cup football contests, of Saturday lunchtime wrestling, I used to be a big dog45 in the world of sports broadcasting, and while my love or tolerance of sport has waned to the point of disintegration over the years, the fact remains: I used to be an extremely successful sports broadcaster. I used to be somebody.
I turned away from the court, where a man was on his fifth or sixth attempt at getting his serve over the net. And I began, quite simply, to natter. Good, honest chat about my surroundings: ‘A warm welcome to anyone stepping into Cromer leisure centre for the first time. The facility here has been open since 1997, barring a week in 2010 when it had to be shut down after a glass eye was found bobbing about in a ladies’ toilet. This is the sports hall and the panels of composite roofing you can see above were actually taken from a decommissioned poultry factory owned by the late Bernard Matthews. If you look long enough, you can sometimes make out a feather trapped in the steel beams. Often, what looks like a stuck shuttlecock is actually just a bit off a chicken …’
I fizzled out. This was hopeless. I caught sight of myself in the vending machine again then accidentally said out loud, ‘What the fuck am I doing?’ It echoed around the sports hall like a whipcrack. I set down the speaker and microphone and decided that was enough.
I sauntered over to the vending machine, shoved in a quid and punched option zero-four, ‘chicken-style soup’.46 And as fluid filled cup, I realised Brendan O’Coyle was standing next to me.
I nodded at the carpet kingpin, mirthlessly.
‘Brendan.’
‘Alan.’
‘Pleased to meetcha.’
‘Ditto.’
It was a crisp opening, something I imagined the out-of-shape businessman enjoyed, although in his case it’d be a Walkers Grab Bag.
As I pushed back the vending machine’s coin concealment flap to retrieve my 80p change, conversation began to flow. Brendan explained that he’d enjoyed what he’d heard of my commentary but was particularly taken by my description of the leisure centre. He couldn’t help but wonder, if I could bring something so humdrum to life, maybe I could do the same on a much bigger canvas …
I could hardly believe my good fortune. He and a group of local business bigwigs47 had recently got together to launch a project called ‘Horizon Norfolk: speedway to growth’. As its name makes clear, the project’s aim was to boost tourism in Norfolk as a way to increase revenues for their businesses. The central plank of the campaign was to be a documentary called ‘Welcoming, Placid, Lively’ about the best bits of the region, which was to air on local digital channel Mustard TV (formerly That’s Norfolk). And now he wanted me to narrate it. They’d send a videographer to grab a few shots – the market, the high street, the town hall, some countryside, some leisure facilities – then a guy on their marketing team would write a short script and I’d put my voice to it.
Interesting. Would I get script sign-off? I would not get script sign-off. Could we talk production budget? We could not talk production budget. Was there scope to reimagine the format? There was not scope to reimagine the format.
I could sense he was wary of these questions, clearly concerned that I would deviate from the central mission of the project: to get people to move to, and spend money in, the Norwich area. I told him he had no worries there. As far as I was concerned, Norwich was the star. I’d take a back seat.
This was marketing outlay, nothing more, nothing less. We had a shared vision. There was no need for micromanaging.
That seemed to mollify him. So much so that he felt able to loosen the creative straitjacket. I could write my own script, I’d have significant creative input, I could appear on screen in a limited capacity, and if extra budget was needed, we could talk about that. He looked at me then asked, ‘Whadda ya say?’
‘And action!’48
Filming took place over two weeks in April 2012. I had piles for the entire fortnight but I didn’t tell anyone and it didn’t affect the schedule.
The team got on great, we really did. Of course, looking back now, through the lens of the various hashtags we must obey, it seems appalling how little diversity there was. With the exception of the make-up girl who I can’t fully picture but will have been called something like Mandy or Debs, it was a crew of entirely white males. I am a loud and proud supporter of encouraging people of all genders, backgrounds and handicaps into the industry. They may not look like you, they may not sound like you, they may not walk like you, but surely having to put in a little bit of extra effort is a small price to pay for a TV industry rich in different voices and experiences and walking styles. But yeah, as I say, we got on great, we really did. Similar interests, similar senses of humour, all wore bootcut jeans and shoes, it was just a great, worry-free working environment. Yeah, fantastic.
I formed a particularly close bond with cameraman Pete Smithsonby, despite the fact that I didn’t like his name. My view was that it had too many endings. It should either be Smithson or Smithby, not Smithsonby. If everyone used all the endings they liked I’d be Alan Partridgesonsteinbyov. But I’m not.
Smithsonby had served in the Falklands, and because I like wars and he’d been in one, we buddied up big-style. He’d loved his time in the Malvinas and said on his days off he’d wander down to the beach to see the penguins. He explained that the islands are home to five different types and that his favourite had been the stunning Magellanic penguin, Spheniscus magellanicus, found all over the Falklands. He added that they typically dig their burrows around the coastlines, preferring areas heavy in tussock. It was at this point that I said I hadn’t realised you get days off during a war. He said, ‘You don’t get a full weekend but you do get one day a week.’
Something about this didn’t ring true to me and, sure enough, when I called bullshit he immediately folded. He knew I was a fan of wars and had just wanted to impress me. And I was fine with that. I’ve never had a problem with people coming up with lies to impress me. It makes me feel important and that’s a feeling I enjoy. Besides which, Pete had a real flair for camera angles and I was determined that the programme should feature absolutely loads of them.
For me, the centrepiece of the episode was an interview I conducted in a leisure centre pool with nervous physiotherapist Annabel Swanson. To the best of my knowledge it was – and remains – the only British television interview ever conducted while treading water.
The idea had come to me the previous Tuesday during Weekly Bath. Weekly Bath is a practice I had begun several years earlier after some friends bought me a hygiene consultation for my fiftieth birthday.
One of the many fascinating things I learned from Debbie that day, during what was a hugely interactive and at times quite emotional session, was that for Alan to be truly clean, showering alone just doesn’t cut it.
One word: gravity. You see, showering is hard to beat when it comes to sploshing off grub and grime from the bulk of Alan’s body, but there are certain harder-to-reach locations that escape scot-free when gravity is allowed to decide where water goes and where it doesn’t. And for these areas, only Weekly Bath will do.
Block out an hour in the diary, half-fill the tub with the hottest water you can bear and it’s time to begin. Going at your own pace and taking care to perform the clean just as Debbie showed you, the results really do speak for themselves. Because whether lying on your back with your ankles round your shoulders, or floating on your side with your knees tucked up to your chin, Weekly Bath affords the cleaner a degree of access traditional stand-up showering simply cannot rival.
And it was while performing the first of my chin-tuck arse-cleans that the treading water idea came to me. When I pitched the concept to nervous physiotherapist Annabel Swanson, she wasn’t keen, but when I clarified and explained that I wasn’t really asking her, I was telling her, she soon agreed.
The screening of the edited show took place at the lavishly carpeted headquarters of CarpetChief Ltd, a former slaughterhouse on the A47 between Norwich and Blofield. Drinks and canapés were laid on before the main event, and even though most members of ‘Horizon Norfolk: speedway to growth’ were driving, Brendan was friendly with the chief constable so having a few was absolutely fine. I offered to say a few words by way of introduction, but Brendan said there was no need and I was cool with that. And so, with bellies full of champagne and sliders, we entered the boardroom and sat down to watch.
I would say frowns first appeared when the title screen popped up. The title my employers had given the project – ‘Welcoming, Placid, Lively’ – had, as things often do in the whirl of the creative process, slightly mutated into something fresher and better. Through various iterations, it had evolved like so:
‘Welcoming, Placid, Lively.’
‘A Welcoming Place – and Lively!’
‘A Welcoming Place to Live.’
‘Welcome to the Place to Live.’
‘Welcome to the Place You Live.’
‘Welcome to the Place of Your Life.’
‘Welcome to the Place of My Life.’
‘Welcome to the Places of My Life.’
And finally: ‘Alan Partridge: Welcome to the Places of My Life.’
Yes, the naming process had gone a bit Chinese whispery back there, but the final title better suited the show I had created, which turned out to be a deeply personal journey around the places that had formed the child I was and the man I had become.
Forty-five minutes later, and as Chumbawamba’s ‘Tubthumping’ boomed out over the final credits (a song choice I maintain was a good one), I began to feel an immense sense of pride; a powerful I-want-to-say-throbbing feeling inside of me that I liked very much indeed. As conceiver-producer- writer-director-presenter, every decision had been mine. And to see my vision realised so superbly was deeply gratulating [Lynn, check word].
Yet as I looked around the boardroom table with my eyes, flicking my balls left and then right, something seemed off. Instead of the founders of ‘Horizon Norfolk: speedway to growth’ whooping and hollering like Ainsley Harriott at his kid’s nativity, the room had fallen silent. What I had seen as a love letter to Norfolk – a deeply personal journey around the county I knew best – they saw as a self-serving puff piece, an attempt to promote not Norfolk but brand Partridge. My blood ran cold, much as it must have done for the cattle who were once slaughtered here for their beef and leather.
Around the table were all ten members of Horizon Norfolk. I recorded their reactions in my diary when I got home that night:
Sandy Cobb – avoided eye contact; Rory Blench – stared at ground; Pete Grear – slow hand clap; Simon Cottingley-Booth – can’t remember; Tim Blair – ate biscuit; Hal Topham – ate biscuit; Len Dingle – ate biscuit; Bob Dingle – drew finger across throat in ‘you’re dead’ gesture; Pat Stonk – ate biscuit.
As for O’Coyle, he was spitting feathers. With his sausage-roll-and-burger hands balled up into meat-and-pastry fists, he fixed me with an Irish glare (I forgot to say he’s Irish).
It had been a bruising encounter, metaphorically and literally (Bob Dingle pinched me on the arm as I left). But with a DVD of Places tucked under my arm, I had a calling card to get me back on the telly.
* * *
44 In those days CarpetChief was riding high, although more recently things have been tougher. Designed in the 1980s, their logo featured the friendly face of a Native American chief saying, ‘HOW can we help you?’ Quite clever, really. But these days we live in an era when people are realising they have a problem with things they didn’t have a problem with before. And though Norwich is slower to be buffeted by these changing tides than most, buffeted they eventually were, and the logo – featuring the affectionately named Big Chief Carpet Man – was quietly retired. Today he’s been replaced by a talking rug. But it’s just not as good.
45 Miss you, Seldom!
46 Or as it was called until recent legislation came in, ‘chicken soup’.
47 Literally, it turned out, in the case of three of them, who had lost the run of their BMIs and wore hairpieces.
48 As the presenter of the programme, saying, ‘And action!’ wasn’t my job. And, in fact, I didn’t say it. I’ve just put it here to provide a bit of impetus to the description of the filming process.
FISHERMAN’S FRIENDS
February 2022
‘What are we organising, again?’
‘The turning of the first sod.’
‘Ooh, I like the sound of that.’
The official start of any construction project is the ceremony of ‘groundbreaking’. Also known as the turning of the first sod, it’s an event with a simple formula. Gather some dignitaries, lay on some canapés, and encourage a smattering of applause as the first spade enters the ground. And it was as my assistant and I discussed this, me in the shower, her outside the bathroom door, that she had put two and two together and – as so often – made about sixty.
Her assumption was that the term ‘sod’ was a truncation of ‘sodomite’. Hence when she’d heard me talking about organising an event to ‘turn’ a sodomite, she’d assumed it was a reference to the gay-conversion therapies with which she was so fascinated.
Quite why she thinks I’d be organising an event to make gay men straight is anybody’s guess, but it has put a spring in her step and I know better than to mess with that. I send her off to the cash & carry to buy a job lot of hot dogs and a nice big shovel.
In the end, a combination of heavy rain on the morning of the event and not getting any replies to my invites means it’s called off. And while I’m disappointed not to mark the start of renovations with a little fanfare, I am pleased to be able to give a bit back by donating the two hundred unused hot dog sausages to a local women’s refuge.49
No, official ceremonies are all well and good, but today is about the start of the build. This is the first day of the rest of my life. And while I also said that on the day I decided to buy the lighthouse, then again on the day the sale went through, I still feel it has a certain amount of validity in this context too.
With one hour until the builders are due to arrive, and with my assistant gamely attempting to dismantle a gazebo in the driving rain, I sit in my car with a flask of hot chocolate and look past the flailing homophobe to the lighthouse beyond. I put on ‘Fields of Barley’ by Sting because it’s one of the best songs ever written, certainly by Sting, and as the swelling violins of the Geordie crooner’s crop-focused hit fills my Vectra, I enjoy the calm before the storm. In a matter of hours, workmen will be busying themselves here, setting up scaffolds, installing support beams, and talking at a volume that is inexplicable even when you factor in the sound of hammers and drills.
As the rain finally eases, I wander over to the L-house. I run my hand down a crumbling brick wall then wipe it on my trouser leg because it’s covered in some sort of slimy green … I want to say sea shit?
God, I adore this building. Humans can have surgery to reverse the ravages of time.50 Yet ultimately it is as futile as the efforts of King Cunt trying to hold back the tide. Unless you go for a chin tuck or some gum sculpting, which are both totally normal, cosmetic procedures do little other than foghorn your vanity and age to the world. No, you cannot restore a person to youth. But what you can restore to youth is a lighthouse. I feel an all-consuming – or certainly 75 to 80 per cent consuming – urge to hug the thing, and nip round to the sea-side of the shaft to do so. If she had a hand, I swear I’d shake it. A cheek, stroke it. Hair, also stroke it. I suddenly feel a connection with this structure almost as strong as the one I enjoyed with my now-dead dog Seldom.51
Opening the front door by employing a traditional four-stage technique – put key in lock, turn key, turn handle, push door – I step inside. The best interior designers can paint pictures with their imaginations, seeing not a ruined building but the swanky home it could one day become. I can’t do this, however, because my mind’s eye is not very good, generally only allowing me to conjure up vague shapes and blobs, so to me it looks rubbish. Paint flakes off walls. Doors hang off hinges. It’s the very definition of a ‘doer-upper’, although I hesitate to use that term because people who do are dicks.
Yet what I have seen are the plans of my architect. Luton Greaves is one of the only architects in the UK specialising in lighthouse restoration. Whether that’s because he has a genuine passion for them or because he isn’t clever enough to do proper buildings, I’ve never quite found out. What I will say is that he’s genial company and competitively priced. And if he does perhaps have a whiff of BO about him,52 then I like to think I do my bit by sensitively passing that message on via coded deodorant mentions: ‘Are you SURE about the cantilevered staircase?’; ‘What LYNX these two aspects of the build?’; ‘Are we certain this guy is the RIGHT GUARD to join our security team?’; ‘If we hire him will he need to get permission from his MUM?’
His designs will be implemented by – boop, boop! – this lot, the builders, who are just pulling up in their Ford Transit. I don’t look round to check but I know it’s a Ford Transit because I know what the horns of different vehicles sound like. And while some feel this is little more than a party trick, it’s not. Imagine a hit and run incident where an elderly lady is fatally injured and the driver flees the scene. There are neither witnesses nor CCTV footage. With the victim’s wailing family demanding action, the police are stumped. But what if the incident had happened just outside my house? And what if the driver had inadvertently tooted his horn as he’d swerved to avoid the shopping-bag-laden pensioner? And what if I’d been in the bath at the time, and the battery on my iPad had just gone so I wasn’t watching an episode of Columbo and could therefore hear that horn? I’d immediately be able to identify the model, relay it to the police, narrowing their search and leading to the arrest and imprisonment of the driver and justice for the family of Granny Barbara. But yeah, if you still think it’s just a party trick, cool.
