Alan Partridge: Nomad

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There are still some funny bits, and it wasn't awful, but maybe it is getting near time for both Alan, and the character of Alan, to enjoy a well-deserved retirement. He is also quite nasty now, while he was always somewhat petty and selfish, he was never particularly consciously sadistic, and at many points here, he is simply loathsome.

The above table explains why Heathrow is always so chockablock full of A380’s and 777’s and A350’s and other such heavy-duty-no-messing-about big boys (much more ground shakingly interesting for plane spotting). Moreover, the constant references to the publisher as a way of highlighting the underlying satirical purpose are tedious, and would anyway have been deleted by an editor. But then again, it seems people from further afield find Partridge funny anyway, so maybe I’m just spewing drivel… again. While we do get some more insight into other characters, the main "plot" is a bit simple and moves at a slow pace.Also, he seems to have a ridiculous amount of money to spend for a local radio DJ whose real career ended about 20 years ago. The running joke of Alan running into celebrities was a bit irritating too, is it really likely to happen randomly so often, and what was the purpose of making minor celebrities most of us have forgotten into such grotesques? I've somehow missed his previous book, but what really came through for me more here than on TV are the way the character's grounded in multiple layers of deceit - obviously there are the things he knows but refuses to admit to the reader, but then beneath those are the things he genuinely doesn't see, despite their being incredibly obvious to everyone else (though oddly, for me this was least successful in the chapter giving his version of events in the Alpha Papa film, where we've actually seen what went down - it felt like over-egging the pudding somehow, when the rest of the book is so good at making the actual events so clear just by implication).

A merciless piss-take of every bullshit 'personal journey' every celeb ever undertook, as Alan undertakes the Footsteps Of My Father TM walk to come to terms with the memory of his late father, and definitely not because he's under the mistaken belief he might get a new TV series out of it (because he's perfectly happy working on North Norfolk Digital's mid-morning slot, OK? Sometimes, I find myself filled with a sad pity for him, but when that happens it’s never long before he reminds me that he’s a bellend to his core, and I soon start laughing guilt-free once more.Sadly, the show battled against poor scheduling, having been put up against News at Ten, then in its heyday. The fact that Alan always had an underlying current of mental illness served to give him pathos, and even some degree of sympathy, but now he's so erratic it seems doubtful he would be able to work or look after himself at all. Early on in the book Partridge admits to padding the word count with meaningless filler, and it's depressing to realise that it's not merely a gag but the literal truth. Its elegant perimeter road, its state-of-the-art monorail system, its kerosene-stuffed aeroplanes soaring overhead like aluminium eagles.