I, Partridge Read Online Free PDF

(plus 12 on Valerie Singleton’s for which I have apologised . She’s above him in my contacts list.) There’s probably a third example too. But the point is, the inane taunts from my school days had given me strength and perspective.
    An addendum: in 1994, I was named TV Quick ’s Man of the Moment. At the same time, McCombe contracted glandular fever. Needless to say, McCombe, I had the last laugh. And I’m still having it.

Chapter 3
East Anglia Polytechnic
     
    ‘O-O-O-OPEN IT,’ STUTTERED MY mother, nervously.
    ‘Y-y-y-yes, open it,’ said Dad, frightened.
    ‘Cool it, cats,’ I breezed. (This was the 70s.)
    In my hand was a golden envelope 30 containing the most important pieces of paper I’d ever clutched: my A-level results.
    Rectangular in shape and with my full name typed across it in ink, it looked important because it was of real import(ance). The foldable flap hugged the back of the sheath tightly, bound together in a solemn, gummy embrace. Unable to slip my nail beneath its coagulated clasp, I nodded to myself. I was going to have to tear the paper along the top fold. I did so and then reached inside to extract the papery contents.
    ‘W-w-w-w-what does it s-s-s-say?’ my parents whispered in absolute unison.
    I opened it as gingerly as a rookie bomb disposal operative would open a fat letter bomb in a crèche. In a funny sort of way, the contents were just as explosive as a powdered acetone peroxide. They spelt the difference between me attending tertiary education and being consigned to the heap marked ‘Don’t have A-levels’, and that was a mound of slag I did not want to be on.
    Like the bomb disposal man 31 mentioned above, I swallowed hard and began to remove the letter within the ’lope. A single bead of sweat sprinted down my face, skirting round my temple and pausing at the jaw before throwing itself to its death.
    I pulled the paper out further, until I could make out the letters it bore, letters that had been formed into words by a kindly typist. I gulped again and looked at my parents, before emitting a sigh.
    ‘Bad news,’ I muttered. ‘Your son has failed … at failing his exams!!!’
    They were confused momentarily by the clever double negative, so I added: ‘I passed!’ (The it’s-bad-news-ha-no-actually-it’s-good-news technique is one I’ve always enjoyed. It was really pioneered by David Coleman on Question of Sport when he’d tonally suggest Bill Beaumont had got an answer wrong … only to reveal at the end of the sentence that he’d got it right! The judges on ITV’s X Factor 32 use a similar technique to reveal that a singer has made it to ‘boot camp’.)
    My parents were elated. Mum patted me and Dad joined me in one of the first high-fives that Norwich had seen.
    ‘I passed!’ I kept saying. ‘I passed them both!’ 33
    The exact grading isn’t important. Suffice to say, I was the proud owner of two shiny A-levels and nobody could take them away from me. 34
    1974 was a crazy, hazy time for Alan Partridge. The Sixties had come to East Anglia and it was a time of free thinking, free love and in my case free university accommodation.
    I was quite the man about Norwich, 35 striding confidently through the dreaming spires and hallowed halls of East Anglia Polytechnic – whose alumni included news woman Selina Scott and meteorology whizz Penny Tranter – and soaking up all the knowledge that this seat of learning had to offer.
    The free accommodation? Well, enigmatically, I had decided to stay not in the woodworm-infested squalor of university halls, but to commute in from my home (my parents’ home). Although misinterpreted by some of my peers as reluctance to cut the apron strings and live independently, the decision to reside at home was a canny marshalling of my resources. It enabled me to avoid the scruffiness of my shaggy-haired, sandal-wearing colleagues. By using my ‘rent money’ wisely, I was never less than beautifully shod.
    Of course, it