I had a moment of profound self-realisation while listening to the most recent series of Alan Partridge’s podcast, From the Oasthouse. In the episode Tinned Meat, Alan reels off supermarket shopping tips, such as arriving just before closing to secure “discounts on meat that’s not on the turn but is a cigarette paper away from gone off”. This is something I’ve been advising friends to do for years, calling it “yellow sticker cruising”. It marked the moment of my final oneness with the sometime North Norfolk Digital radio presenter. I celebrated by sitting down to the none-more-Partridge dinner of a frozen pie and Bisto gravy while watching a 1985 BBC documentary about the brutal training regime of an elite unit of the Royal Marines.
For those unfamiliar with Norwich’s greatest export since Colman’s mustard, Alan Partridge, played by the actor Steve Coogan, first appeared in 1991 as the sports commentator on BBC Radio 4’s satirical current affairs show On the Hour and then on TV in Chris Morris’s The Day Today. Coogan has always been guarded on the inspiration for Partridge, admitting there are similarities to daytime telly stalwart Richard Madeley, but preferring to say he’s a composite. He was given his own chatshow, Knowing Me, Knowing You, in 1994, lost it after shooting a guest live on air, and since then his life and broadcast career have been on the skids. We’ve watched his fortunes fluctuate via further TV series, the 2013 film Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, memoirs (the third, Big Beacon, was published this week) and the three series of From the Oasthouse.
