I, Partridge (32 page)

No, Forward Solutions™ was a potentially lucrative, potential helpful, potentially global life-improvement programme that, having helped me, could potentially help other people. I whipped it into the shape of a 60-minute presentation and, alongside my radio work, it became a source of real professional fulfilment that made me
feel
good (pride) and
look
good (image).

So what was Forward Solutions™? Perhaps it’s easier to tell you what Forward Solutions™ wasn’t.

1. It
wasn’t
some attempt to boost my profile and secure lucrative television work. No, no. My TV days were dead to me and I was fine with that. Did I miss having my own parking space at Television Centre? Not really. Do I even remember that my face on the cover of the
Radio Times
once led to a 2% leap in circulation? Can’t say I do. Did I used to enjoy the make-up girls referring to me as ‘Mr Partridge’ but calling Nicholas Witchell ‘Nick’? Perhaps a little.

But, just to reiterate, Forward Solutions™ was not and is not some presentation that could just be repackaged into a 12-part series of lifestyle makeover shows for BBC 1.

2. It
wasn’t
some kind of clever-clogs psychobabble. The opposite! What was unique about my system was that it took science and plucked the good bits out and dismissed the rubbish. Science can really bog things down with blah-blah about research, tests, statistics, facts and psychology. I didn’t want to be bogged down. I wanted to be bogged up.

3. It
wasn’t
just another self-help programme. Of course, there were a lot of people who were trying to do what I was doing. It was a very crowded marketplace.
²³⁸
Stuart Blender was just launching his Mind Muscle™ technique. David Els was generating plenty of attention for his Ladder of Legends™. And of course Solomon Baptiste’s Rise Like a Phoenix™ programme was the big show in town.

But I had a considerable advantage in that, unlike the three I’ve just mentioned, Forward Solutions™ wasn’t shit. I really was offering the best coaching around. Yes, Blender raises the interesting point that the hero is deep within us and all he needs is soul food. And yes, Els does offer a moving discourse about hope being a buddy who doesn’t mind what time you call. And there’s a certain entertainment value in watching Baptiste whoop and holler like he’s got chillies in his unders. But could they compete with Forward Solutions™? No.

4. It
wasn’t
all about personal happiness. It had real business benefits too. From day one, hour one, minute one, second one, I wanted to create something that was touching yet business-like: a presentation that would make you laugh and make you cry or (if better) make you stop laughing and make you stop crying.

5. It
wasn’t
just spoken passages culled directly from
Bouncing Back
. Although some bits did double up. It had taken a great deal of thought and consideration and thinking. Nothing was rushed – and boy, did that pay off. It was a presentation I developed very gradually in my bathroom mirror. What started out as me slapping my own face and saying ‘You have to get through this’ went on to become what
Winning Management
magazine describes as ‘nothing less than the advertised hour’.

But there were still doubters – still are! In Britain, people are very wary of seeking help for problems that occur around the head, brain or mind.

Why? If your car breaks down, you call the AA. If your
mind
breaks down, I’d say, call the AP.
²³⁹
Actually, unlike the AA, AP doesn’t discriminate against middle-aged men. Try phoning the AA when you’re not a pregnant disabled single mother and see how much they value your call. You’ll be there all night.

Last time my fan belt went, I was in the middle of Norfolk at 2am and I had to flag down a
woman’s
car and demand that she make the phone call for me. She was really scared. But then so was I.
²⁴⁰
Why would a single woman be any more prone than a single man? Single men can be just as vulnerable to a crazed homosexual pest
²⁴¹
or – and this is less likely – a very strong woman.

So now that it’s clear what it wasn’t – and I was certainly clear on that – I felt it was high time I shared Forward Solutions™ with the world.

Fast forward three months and a thrusting go-getter by the name of Alan Partridge is in the staff room of Richer Sounds in Norwich, wrapping up a well-honed presentation to a sales team that would outnumber the fingers on both hands of a fully able man.

‘So you see, it’s not about “self-help” or “self-improvement”.’ (I’m walking slowly up and down as I say this. You can’t take your flippin’
eyes
off me.) ‘What I’m talking about is “self-transformation”.’

Oh,
now
they’re listening.

‘Self-trans-formation. The actions I’ve given to you – to you Daniel, to you Marvin, to you Sam, to you Andrew
²⁴²
– the actions I’ve given to you are nothing less than a Self-Transformation Diagnosis. Now I’ve given STDs to men, women, children in some cases …’

They’re smiling now.

‘Actually I find that it’s most pleasurable to give STDs to kids. The younger the better really. When I go into schools and give STDs to kids, I know that I’m really having an impact on the rest of their lives. And that excites me.’

All of them laugh and, although I only later work out what the joke is and pledge not to acronymise Self-Transformation Diagnosis ever again, it’s a nice upbeat ending to the session.

‘Now go out there and attack the planet!’

Think this was a one-off? Think again. The Richer Sounds presentation was in December 2005. In the preceding seven months alone, I’d presented Forward Solutions to the staff of Clinton Cards in King’s Lynn, to Fords of Norwich, to the entire company at Bulwark IT Security and to the staff at the Norfolk Mead Hotel.

I felt like a new person. Younger, fitter, wiser, louder. I took to wearing the three old reliables: stone-wash baby blue denim jeans, oversized white training shoes and a wearable microphone.

Quick digression for the AV nerds out there. I absolutely insisted on presenting with a Sennheiser 152 G2 Headset microphone. If any of you are in the market for a headset mic – aerobic instructors, business leaders, the people at the market who sell chipped crockery – let me give you a piece of solid gold advice. This is the Piat d’Or of headset mics. Used by the likes of Mr Motivator and – weirdly – Terry Nutkins, the Sennheiser is the official headmic for both product demonstrators at the Ideal Home Exhibition and Gabrielle.

I’m not going to go on about headmics, and bulk out my word count with technical details
²⁴³
– other than to say it’s lightweight but packs a punch. And its supercardioid microphone produces crystal clear sound.

Some of the lesser headmics out there – I’m thinking of your Radnor CL-07s – muffle certain consonants so that an S sounds like an F.
²⁴⁴
I gave a version of this presentation to the children of a local primary school and caused uproar by repeatedly using the phrase ‘You can’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs.’

So avoid the Radnor range. That’s my advice.

I would also advise you to avoid wearing a headmic on one side of your head and a Bluetooth mobile phone headset on the other. Because during the same presentation, Carol called – she was angry that I’d cancelled a long-standing direct debit, suspending her subscription to BBC
Good Food
magazine. And the sound from the call vibrated through my head and was picked up on mic.
²⁴⁵

I had bigger plans for the project than drafty staff rooms, though. My aim was to take the presentation on a tour of the major theatres around the country. Provisional chats were initiated with the Norwich Playhouse, but they said their only free slot was the Christmas season, and they normally fill that with a pantomime. Kein problem, I said! My presentation was loose enough that it could easily have been re-purposed to become a fun family-based show in the best traditions of the UK pantomime. For example, the hero would be on stage and he’d say to the audience, ‘Where
aren’t
my best years?’ And they’d say, ‘Behind you!!’

They never got back to me. No matter!

At least I was showing ambition. All you need to do is aim high. As Jimi Hendrix once said, ‘Excuse me, while I kiss the sky.’ And I echoed that. Of course, Jimi was found dead in his own sick shortly afterwards. He’d probably been listening to Stuart Blender’s CD.

It’s all about belief. I had a chap called Alvin visit me who’d struggled to hold down a job. He was in a hostel and at a low ebb. He believed he would one day learn how to travel forwards and backwards through time.

‘In that case, you will,’ I said. ‘Just hold on to that belief. You can achieve whatever you want to achieve.’

‘Really?’ he said. ‘My psychiatrist says I’m being weird. I’ve been prescribed pills.’ And at that moment he looked so sad – his will crushed by medical science. I told him to lose the pills and follow his dreams.

And as a result of that advice, Alvin came on in leaps and bounds. He was soon dreaming of even greater feats – intergalactic real estate deals, breeding humans with mermaids, an invisibility cloak, flying from one high-rise building to another.

Surprise, surprise, his psychiatrist pleaded with me to stop. ‘It’s irresponsible,’ he said during one particularly shirty phone call. ‘He can’t travel through time.’

‘Oh? Why?’ I said. ‘Because
you
say he can’t? Because
society
has decided he can’t?’

Defeated, he mumbled something about the laws of physics prohibiting it and hung up. And it’s that attitude, that ‘prohibit’ word, that idea of ‘can’t’ that I was trying to break down. You
can’t
travel through time. You
can’t
have a second series. You
can’t
have time off your show to do a self-help tour. Bullcrap, all of it.

I decided not to devote too much of my time to Forward Solutions™, instead choosing to concentrate on my radio show. I quietly laid the programme to rest. I’d helped enough for one lifetime …

And Alvin? Hmmm. I had a funny feeling, he’d be aaaa-okay.

233
For those on a limited budget. The least I could do.

234
Press play on Track 40.

235
Of course, he didn’t always get it right. Turning water into wine at a wedding isn’t just showing off, it’s irresponsible. As a miracle, it just doesn’t work on any level. Impressing people who are already drunk, by magicking up more wine to get them pissed – how is that holy? That’s what I’d ask the Pope if I met him. By the way, I’m not knocking God. He’s a powerful man. Think about the recent earthquakes and tsunamis – he really does knock Al-Qaeda for six when it comes to killing the most number of people. For that alone, he deserves a quiet respect. That’s why I never blaspheme.

236
God, I’d
love
to live in Chipping Norton. Brooks, Cameron, Clarkson, a Murdoch, quaffing champers and laughing our heads off at everyone else. Brilliant.

237
I
really
hadn’t wanted to do this, because I only had socks on. My assistant had taken my shoes to clean.

238
To help you understand what I mean, imagine a place where you’d have a market, then imagine it’s very busy, or crowded.

239
Alan Partridge.

240
See, that’s another example of Forward Solutions™. I was stranded, bereft of hope (thanks to the lack of professionalism of Swaffham Vauxhalls). Did I spend three hours sitting on the kerb crying about it? No. A quivering lip gave way to strong, decisive action. I sought help by standing in the highway wielding a jack. There was no way she was driving past. No way.

241
I can hear all the PC brigade: ‘Oh no, homosexuals never attack anyone, they just prance around Hampstead Heath picking flowers!’ Get real – Dennis Nilsen, Jeff Dahmer, Boy George.

242
I’d
remembered their names
and kept using them again and again. It’s a devastating technique, later stolen by Nick Clegg.

243
The publishers specifically asked me not to.

244
And vife verfa! LOL.

245
Thankfully the poor sound quality of the Radnor mic meant that all the audience could hear was her calling me a ‘petty little suckwit’. Which is meaningless.

Chapter 32
North Norfolk Digital
246

FREQUENCY MODULATION? WE’VE ALL
heard of it. We all admire it. We all respect it. But what exactly is it?

You’re the flippin’ radio expert, Partridge! You tell us!

Well, off the top of my head: In telecommunications and signal processing, frequency modulation (FM) conveys information over a carrier wave by varying its instantaneous frequency.

And I think I’m right in saying: This is in contrast with amplitude modulation, in which the amplitude of the carrier is varied while its frequency remains constant.

Yes, it seems to me that: In analog applications, the difference between the instantaneous and the base frequency of the carrier is directly proportional to the instantaneous value of the input signal amplitude. Digital data can be sent by shifting the carrier’s frequency among a set of discrete values, a technique known as frequency-shift keying.