In late 1997 I was ball-deep in a project that looked set to revolutionise the business travel market. A local man (don’t recall his name, think it was either Jim or Tom, so I’ll call him Jom) had come to me with the idea of ripping out the back seats of tens of thousands of company cars. If this had just been mindless vandalism against cars I would have laid him out there and then. Seriously, I’d have knocked his teeth out. But it wasn’t, it was much more than that. It was an ingenious way to save businesses millions of pounds (or billions of pence) a year.
Why spend all that dosh paying for travelling employees to stay in expensive motorway hotels when you could just replace their back seats with beds?151
But it got better. The discarded back seats could be repurposed as cut-price sofas for low-income families. You were helping the poor and creating a secondary revenue stream (revenue river more like!). I was so blown away by Jom’s pitch I don’t think I ate a single grape.
Right there and then I wrote him a cheque for £300. I would have gone higher, much higher. I would have pumped that man so full of seed capital it would have been coming out of his bum (up to a ceiling of £999), but I couldn’t because it was the end of the month and I still had a few standing orders to come out.
There was just one hurdle to overcome: the rather delicate subject of (say it quietly) waste disposal. There was no question that travelling employees could park up in a service station and get a genuinely great night’s sleep in the comfort of their own cars, but how to deal with a call of nature in the middle of the night?
Now I knew for a fact that truck drivers just climbed down and did it on the tarmac. In the morning the cleaners would find neat little piles of it next to where the lorries had been. I was once lucky enough to have dinner with the general manager of Newport Pagnell Services (M1). I couldn’t believe how unfazed he was by it. I think his exact words were ‘that’s just the way they are’.
I’m reliably informed that lorry driver clean-up costs are budgeted for by every service station in the UK. Apparently it gets its own line in the business plan. They’d rather it didn’t happen but what can you do? If you try to stamp it out, they just go elsewhere. Don’t believe me? Ask Bob Grainger up at Keele (M6). He learnt the hard way. You avoid them depositing their previous meal on-site but you also miss out on them buying their next. Apply a simple cost-benefit analysis: the margin on a service station breakfast is £5.95; clean-up costs are a pound a dump. If they boycott your services, you’re looking at a total net loss of £4.95. Ergo, let them go.
The problem for Jom and me was that service stations turned a blind eye for people with HGV licences but that’s where they drew the line. At a crisis meeting in early November, we battled to find a solution. The closest we came was the idea of installing caravan portaloos in the boot. We wanted to see if we could hook the flush up with the car’s exhaust so that the human waste took the same exit as the CO2, but deep down I think we both knew it wasn’t going to happen. I demanded my £300 back that very afternoon. When it transpired that he didn’t have the money because he’d spent it on mattresses, I took the mattresses instead, 15 in all. I’ve still got them actually. They’re in a lock-up in Beccles. But you know what? That’s business. If you can’t stand the heat, don’t cook.
146 On a clear day, and provided I’d got rid of any smudges on my binoculars, I could even see the M11.
147 It’s just occurred to me that in the previous chapter, when I said I spent the night with Glen Ponder, I should make clear I meant I went to sleep at his flat. I did not have sexual relations with him. Thought I’d cut in now and mention it while it’s occurred to me. Believe me, there was no physical contact and the light remained as on as my clothes, save for my socks which I always remove to let my toes breathe because I have an intermittent athlete’s foot. So, as I say, no funny business at all. The only time I’ve touched a man as I slept was on an Outward Bound course to Snowdonia when I hugged a man in a sleeping bag, but that was only for warmth. Richard doesn’t have a gay bone in his body and is as manly as they come. He now runs a nightclub in Brighton called Beef.
148 She’d been raised on a diet of powdered egg, so any real egg – even battery – seemed to her an unnecessary eggstravagence (my word).
149 Press play on Track 28.
150 I shared that thought with TV comedian Alan Carr and told him he could have it for free. He laughed. The guy’s a breath of fresh air. Some people unkindly say the deaths of Inman, Harty and Grayson have put talented entertainers like Carr back into some kind of closet. I hope not. I’ve long lobbied the BBC for the reintroduction of a primetime TV homosexual.
And yet some people have accused me of intolerance or homophobia, a word that didn’t exist before 1980 – if you’d have used the term before then, people would have thought you were referring to a science fiction disease. Uh-huh. Not me. Although call me old-fashioned, but in my day public toilets were for pissing and shitting.
It seems that now that it’s not a criminal offence, it’s fine for TV homosexuals to be ‘active’. Is that a good thing? I’ll remain above the fray. That’s for you, the reader, to decide.
Although if pushed, I’d say if the ‘activity’ remains in a private dwelling or hotel, is genuinely consensual and the age disparity is under a decade, let them broadcast.
151 I suggested the name ‘Motel’ as it was half motor car, half hotel but Jom wasn’t keen.
Chapter 19
Me V Hayers
I’D FELT SO AT home in BBC TV Centre I resented not being able to come and go as I pleased. Watching the building from a parked car for an hour every Tuesday filled me with a profound sense of sadness and anger, which I could quell only by reminding myself that a second series was still highly likely to be ordered.152
This was just a few short months after the slightly mitigated success of Knowing Me Knowing Yule. I was well aware that I’d upset Tony Hayers in a personal capacity by punching him in the face with a raw turkey – not kosher, I suspect – but was confident that he’d be grown-up enough not to let it cloud his professional judgment.
As far as I’m concerned, I’d honoured my side of the bargain. Fact was/is, I’d been contracted to provide 6 x 28-minute shows, plus a 58-minute special – and I had delivered them.
I missed being in and around the Death Star, as Jeremy Clarkson calls BBC TV Centre. But as a friend of Grandstand back-up presenter Steve Rider, I could pitch up in reception whenever I liked and he’d come down and sign me in. Having accessed the building, I could stalk the corridors and have a coffee in the BBC café whenever I pleased. I was determined not to be forgotten, and reasoned that one way to stay right in people’s consciousness and appear important was to perform laps of the building’s circular corridors while pretending to be on the phone.
After a while, Steve called.
‘Alan. I suggest you stop hanging around the place because people might find it disconcerting,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘I’m only thinking of your career. You know what they say – “Never feed a hungry dog”.’
‘No, I think it’s “Dogs aren’t just for Christmas”.’ I thought for a moment. ‘You don’t have dogs do you, Steve?’
Steve may not have been too hot on well-known phrases and sayings, but he was blessed with the kind of genuinely great wisdom you only find in men with side-parted hair. In short, he was right. He was always right. After the break-up of my marriage, similarly, he advised me not to eat my lunchtime sandwiches every day in the car park of Carol’s gym. I knew deep down I shouldn’t be sat there, but sometimes you need to hear it in the silky tone of Steve Rider for the penny to drop.
I thanked him – ‘Thanks, Steve’ – and hung up.153
On his counsel, I kept away from TV Centre and kept a low profile for a couple more months. I had plenty to be getting on with: restructuring Peartree Productions so that the printer was nearer my desk and the researchers sat facing into the room; keeping myse
lf in good shape; rewatching every second of KMKY to identify areas for improvement (weren’t that many); and finding a new place to eat my lunchtime sandwiches. I was also winning plaudits for my successful return to radio with Up With the Partridge on Radio Norwich. But I was of course waiting for the call from Hayers that said: ‘Alan, we’re on.’
I’d recently moved into the Travel Tavern and was enjoying the quite excellent facilities there. Anyone who’s stayed in one of the 22 properties in the Travel Tavern franchise will know that those guys ‘get’ what the weary businessman wants. He wants to recharge his batteries without the namby-pamby fussing of so-called luxury hotels – concierges, extra pillows, free slippers, room service after 10pm. Believe me, my batteries were as charged as a Pentagram Infinity 2600 mAh rechargeable cell battery. Still the best batteries money can buy.
It was quality hospitality from top to bottom, and yes, I liked being there, but as the weeks wore on I became concerned about the radio silence from the BBC. I’d been fobbed off with the excuse that they needed to conclude the inquiry into the death of Forbes McAllister before they could talk about recommissioning me. But even after it was completed – I was effectively absolved, bar the petty conclusion that I was guilty of ‘unlicensed use of a firearm’ – the recommissioning process felt like it lacked momentum. That’s not to say they weren’t keen; I’m sure they can’t all have been that thick. But they were dragging their heels in the way that only a groaning bureaucracy populated by Oxbridge graduates can.
Hayers in particular seemed to have forgotten what his job was. I knew what it was: it was to say ‘yes’ to quality TV shows. But he was too busy twiddling his thumbs, or getting someone else to twiddle them for him!
Let me tell you something. For a man who works five days a week in the BBC, Hayers was incredibly hard to get hold of. If he wasn’t at the chiropodist or at his daughter’s graduation, he was on holiday in the Gambia or in a broken lift. I mean, he was never ever at his desk.
I knew that scaling back my schedule of cold-calling might look like I’d lost some of my hunger and I didn’t want to give that impression at all, so I kept trying. At the same time, I didn’t want to sound like a broken record because I’m not. So I displayed my creative side in my correspondence. I’d send him a teddy with a note saying ‘Alan can BEARly wait to get started on series 2’, or a honey-roast ham with the message, ‘When can we MEAT?’
I was on the verge of stopping because this approach was costing me a fortune and I was running out of puns. But then the call came. ‘Tony wants to meet.’
I was a bit disappointed by this, because I didn’t see the need for a meeting. Why wouldn’t he just bike over contracts for the next series? I thought that was a bit off actually (still do) but, ever the professional, I just said: ‘Fine.’
‘He’s booked a table in the BBC restaurant, Friday at 1.’
I knew for a fact this establishment served ‘modern European’ whereas I’d hoped we could meet at a TGI Friday because I wanted something with chips. So I politely declined, but then reconsidered and called back very quickly to accept.
Victory at last. I phoned down to hotel reception and told them I’d be moving out at the end of the week and then asked my assistant to find me a house that befitted a primetime TV personality. She found one.154
I then phoned arrogant breakfast DJ Dave Clifton and laughed into the receiver for ages. It was important that I wasn’t triumphalist about being recommissioned but equally it was essential that I got one over on Dave Clifton. This felt like a happy medium.
Two days later I was buying a five-bedroomed house to live in. I didn’t expect Carol to come back to me but, knowing that she was living in a four-bedroomed residence, it was out of the question that I would live somewhere inferior when I was to be one of the faces of BBC television for the next decade.
As I was inspecting the facilities, the BBC called. Unable to wait until Friday, they brought the meeting forward. I had one hour to deodorise and get to TV Centre. Tough call. Ingeniously, I ended up doubling up on the two tasks by getting my assistant to hold the wheel on the A140 while I reached into my shirt and swabbed my pits generously with a roll-on.
I felt, looked and smelt fresh and was in high spirits, electing to forego a conversation role-play in favour of a singalong to The Very Very Best of Tears for Fears. (Their album was actually called The Very Best of Tears for Fears but I didn’t like ‘The Way You Are’ or ‘Woman in Chains’ and had taped it on to a C90 minus these two tracks, then renamed it to create a compilation that really was the crème de la cream of their output.)
Hayers came down to the restaurant door as I was deep in conversation with Steve Rider (I’d called Steve on the way and asked him to meet me there and engage me in ‘high-level chat’ to impress Hayers.)155
‘… and I’ll get Barry Sheene to bloomin’ well explain himself when I next interview him,’ I concluded as Hayers approached. In my peripheral vision, I could see he was as impressed as anyone would be by my casual mention of a former motorcycle world champ who was by now half-metal.
We sat down and Hayers began to make small talk.
‘My Lunn Poly brochure arrived this morning so I’ve just been looking at holidays,’ he started.
I could tell something was wrong – he was nervous, shifty. I ordered food and wine for us both – a nice German wine, some Italian food and UK water – as he tried to manufacture some chit-chat. This is so BBC, I thought. (Try meeting someone in the BBC and taking the lift with them – I guarantee they’ll make some comment about the lift being slow or full. They are inane.)
‘Portugal is supposed to be nice,’ he stuttered.
‘Cut the sweet shit, twinkle toes,’ I said, like a latter-day Jack Regan. If I smoked I’d have stubbed it out at that moment. Instead, I set down my knife and fork and swallowed my Italian food. It was clear one of us was going to have to take charge and that someone was going to be me. ‘Let’s talk about the next series. I want a yes or no.’
His big face went pale and he averted his eyes. ‘It’s a no,’ he said. Nearby diners who’d been secretly eavesdropping on our summit gasped and stared. I’m fairly sure one let a roast potato fall out of his mouth. ‘Whaaaat?’ they all thought.
I was more sanguine. Don’t get me wrong, it was a hammer blow. But I’d expected it and didn’t really have my heart set on working with Auntie anyway. The BBC is nothing if not risk averse and I was seen as a bit of a maverick. In fact, some of them called me Maverick behind my back I think.
No, I’d foreseen my career would be with other broadcasters anyway, so I really wasn’t arsed.
I felt a bit sorry for Hayers then. Shadowy powers had clearly forced his hand, and he was snivellingly torn between losing a major piece of talent and upsetting his idiotic paymasters.
‘Have you got any other ideas, though?’
I snorted. Did I really want to entrust my portfolio of projects to this shoddy outfit? I don’t think so. But he practically begged me (it was a bit unseemly actually, people were watching) so I went ahead and listed them. Norwich-based crime drama Swallow, Knowing ME Knowing You (a factual show looking at the disease), Inner City Sumo and Monkey Tennis.156 But as I reeled off format after format – each more daring than the last – I could see he was retreating into his cowardly, safety-first shell. All genuinely original ideas, all snubbed.
I did have another ace up my sleeve: Motorway Rambles – a travelogue of me walking the hard shoulders of British highways, with special permission from the British Transport Police – but it had been co-devised by Bill Oddie and he’d made me promise I wouldn’t pitch it if he wasn’t there. Fair enough.
The meeting was over. I had things to be doing that afternoon anyway, so I thanked Hayers, and stood up.
‘But … but … we’ve not even had the cheese course,’ he said.
I looked him square in the face and, without breaking his gaze, I struck the handle of the knife that was resting on the ch
eese board. The wooden edge acted as a pivot, the blade as a springboard, firing a cube of cheese up into the air. I caught it and wrapped it in a napkin, which I slotted into my pocket.
‘While I’m on the subject of cheese,’ I said, as the waiter hovered nearby, ‘it’s an open secret in the BBC that you smell like cheese.’
The waiter caught my eye. ‘Ha! I’ve been dying to say that,’ he thought.
Well, Hayers didn’t know what to say. I didn’t care. I’d had enough and the meeting merely confirmed my long-held desire to continue my career well away from the BBC.
I wasn’t going to let a coward like him pay for the meal, so I took out a hundred-pound note and slotted it down the waiter’s cleavage. And he did have a cleavage.
A noise snapped behind me, like the sound of a piece of flesh hitting a nearby piece of flesh. It was a handclap. It was followed by another from the far corner of the room. Then another. And another. And as I turned to face them, the diners broke into rich applause. It was as if they were saying: ‘So long, Alan. The bigwigs might not appreciate you, but by God, we do.’
Thanks, guys, I thought. It means a bunch. Then I very calmly, very slowly, very proudly walked through the lunchtime diners and away into the night. It felt good.
152 Press play on Track 29.
153 As I say, he’s a good guy. He’d become chummy with me after a falling out with Des Lynam several years before at a Grandstand bonding retreat. Des couldn’t help but correct what he saw as speech defects in fellow sports presenters – he’d picked up on my Norfolk nasality in the early 90s, for example. Unlike me, Steve had reacted badly to being told he had a tendency to pronounce ‘this afternoon’ as ‘the zarfternoon’ – but the fact is, he does and Des was bang right to point it out. Steve’s not spoken to him since – and I’m the beneficiary. I am, Steve admits, his fall-back friend and I am happy with that.
154 Antagonistic talkshow host Trisha now lives there.
155 Thanks again, Steve.
Partridge, Alan Page 14
