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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan

245 statements
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan	comment	I, Partridge — or, to give the full title, I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan — is a chronicle of the life of broadcasting legend Alan Partridge, as written by the man himselfnote with Rob Gibbons, Neil Gibbons, Armando Iannucci and Steve Coogan and released in 2011.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })The autobiography accurately, humbly and honestly chronicles Partridge's glorious career from humble and difficult Norfolk beginnings surrounded by bullying schoolmates whose torments he is now completely over and towards whom he holds no grudges whatsoever and monstrously Abusive Parents whose cruelty he is not simply exaggerating or outright making up in order to make his childhood seem more edgy and interesting. From this, he charts an early career as a reporter in local radio which led to the heights of to an ill-fated career at The BBC as a radio and television sports commentator and chat show host, which came to a premature end mainly thanks to the spite and jealousy of people who just didn't get him or his amazing abilities (and only a little bit due to the fact that his show was rubbish, he accidentally shot a guest dead live on air and then punched his boss during the follow-up Christmas special). Partridge then soberly reflects on his divorce from his unfaithful wife and his descent into Toblerone addiction, before ending with his triumphant return to his local radio roots where he is completely happy and content, with absolutely no desire to get back on television whatsoever...Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })Okay, okay, seriously now, it's a parody of nakedly self-serving and egotistical entertainment autobiographies, based on the popular British comedy character Alan Partridge. Written by his creators (including Armando Iannucci and Steve Coogan, the actor who portrays him), the book tells Partridge's life and backstory from his perspective, fleshing out the character's backstory and acting as a Perspective Flip on significant moments from Partridge's various appearances on radio and television shows such as The Day Today, Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge and I'm Alan Partridge. The book thus makes heavy use of the Unreliable Narrator, as the dedicated viewer (or even not-so-dedicated viewer, really) of these shows will notice that there are many significant differences between them versus how Partridge retroactively presents himself when looking back on them.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_3'); })The book received a follow-up, Nomad, in 2016. Once again a parody of celebrity-related literature — this time celebrity travelogues, specifically ones which hinge on some kind of narrative gimmick — this time it involves Alan, after discovering a box of his father's old belongings in his attic, deciding to recreate a journey his father once took from Norwich to the nuclear power planet at Dungeness in Kent for a job interview. This, naturally, leads to all kinds of chaos for Alan, a chance for him to reflect in a rather self-serving fashion on his past, and the (very remote) possibility of a television spin-off that he doesn't care about being made in the slightest.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_13646b1b	type	My Friends... and Zoidberg
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_13646b1b	comment	My Friends... and Zoidberg: Alan brings up the siege from Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa a few times and mentions how relieved he was that no one got seriously hurt, each time adding, usually in a footnote, "except for Michael, who died." In fairness, Michael wasn't killed as a result of the siege so much as his own Senseless Sacrifice jumping off a pier, and they Never Found the Body anyway.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_1869b4b1	type	Unreliable Narrator
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_1869b4b1	comment	Unreliable Narrator: Once again, Alan proves a less-than-trustworthy source on the subject of his life and past, including things we saw for ourselves. A standout case is when he talks about the siege from Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa and claims that Simon knocked himself out with the fire extinguisher (which was of course Alan's doing in the movie). There are also entirely valid questions to be asked about how much of Alan's walking journey actually occurred in the way he tells it.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_1e7487cd	type	Breaking the Fourth Wall
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_1e7487cd	comment	Breaking the Fourth Wall: Some of the photos in the insert have captions supplied by the photo agency they were purchased from, so that, for one example, a photo of Alan "addressing a room of teenagers at an event promoting careers in the Norfolk media" is labeled as Steve Coogan appearing in-character at the Brit Awards. At least Alan's performance with Elton John at the British Comedy Awards has an in-universe explanation.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_1fc3d0a8	type	Captain Obvious Aesop
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_1fc3d0a8	comment	Captain Obvious Aesop: An in-universe example, played for laughs; Alan opens the book by explaining to the reader at length why walking is useful, as if there's anyone out there arguing otherwise.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_29e6dc40	type	HypocriticalHumour
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_29e6dc40	comment	Hypocritical Humour: A significant part of the book: One chapter focusses on the time he shot Forbes McAllister dead live on air during an interview. At the beginning, he asserts that he has to take full and complete responsibility for what happened and how he can't just dismiss it. Every single word of the chapter from that point on is him either pointing out reasons why it's not his fault or reasons why it was on the whole probably a good thing that Forbes McAllister died. Alan also tends to reverse his opinions back and forth throughout the novel, sometimes within the same chapter or even within a few paragraphs of each other. In particular, his opinion on the BBC and whether or not he'd like to work there tends to fluctuate depending on whether or not he's dealing with a section of his life where the BBC has bruised his ego in some way (usually by quite rightfully denying him television work).
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_2b14367f	type	Bring My Brown Pants
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_2b14367f	comment	Bring My Brown Pants: In his reflections on the radio station hostage situation, Alan gets some revenge on the other men who were present (who all apparently managed to profitise the event much more successfully) by claiming that they spend the bulk of the crisis voiding themselves loudly and disgustingly. As in, according to Alan they literally spent hours just shitting their pants.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_3b4185fb	type	Stalker without a Crush
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_3b4185fb	comment	Stalker Without a Crush: Despite his repeated insistence that he's completely over the torment he got from his childhood bullies and has "forgotten all about it", Partridge seems to know a remarkable amount about where they live (one of the photos in the book is of a semi-detached house "much like the one my childhood nemesis Steven McCombe lives in", and he mentions a confrontation with the wife of one of them after 'coincidentally' stopping outside their house), what they do for a living, who they're married to, and even in some cases their ability to drive.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_3c0a4666	type	Noodle Incident
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_3c0a4666	comment	Noodle Incident: A half-page description of Alan's visit to a Scientology compound is mostly redacted aside from a handful of bizarrely chosen words, including "needless to say" and "last laugh."
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_3cb1d38d	type	Bad Boss
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_3cb1d38d	comment	Bad Boss: Although he tries to cast himself as (and seems to genuinely believe himself to be) a Benevolent Boss, even if you've never seen the TV show it's quite clear that Alan is an inept, stingy, bullying and thoughtless boss to his assistant. His employees at his production company don't appear to have come off any better either.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_3cb6468e	type	Bad Liar
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_3cb6468e	comment	Bad Liar: Although the book works better if you've seen Partridge's previous appearances (in Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge and I'm Alan Partridge especially), even if you haven't it's still immediately clear that Partridge is shamelessly and feebly trying to make himself look better than he in fact was.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_3eee0728	type	Captain Obvious
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_3eee0728	comment	Captain Obvious: Alan is constantly spelling out blindingly obvious points, facts, and lessons to his reader in a way that makes him seem both condescending and stupid.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_40bb59d0	type	Blatant Lies
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_40bb59d0	comment	Blatant Lies: Once again, Alan does not appear to be a trustworthy account of his experiences. In one chapter, he has a conversation with a homeless man who, despite apparently not being very familiar with television to the extent of having never heard of the The One Show, suddenly becomes an expert on behind-the-scenes production (including terminology such as "proof-of-concept") when discussing whether Alan's experiences are worth making into a television show. The chapters focusing on Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa also tend to present a rather skewed and nakedly dishonest version of what the reader almost certainly has already seen.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_415b3315	type	Stylistic Suck
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_415b3315	comment	Stylistic Suck: Alan constantly loses his train of thought, switches between tenses and writing styles, explains what he's doing to the reader as he's doing it, latches on to trivial and insignificant details while completely ignoring the main point of what he's supposed to be talking about, introduces irrelevant tangents solely to boost up his word count, interrupts his narrative because he's remembered something he should have mentioned earlier, and so forth. His editors don't seem to have been that great either, since he's left in large notes for them to check something which have been ignored and left in.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_42148628	type	Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_42148628	comment	Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: An in-universe example. Alan is constantly reading way too much into not just what people say, but how they say it, the way they shake hands, nod their heads, and so forth. In many cases, it's clearly a desperate attempt to latch on to even the smallest sign, no matter how tenuous, that the person he's talking to likes him, thinks he's the best thing ever, wants to make a television show with him in it, and so forth. Also often overlaps with Comically Missing the Point, since in hyper-focussing on these quasi-imagined clues regarding the person's positive attitudes towards him he's usually overlooking or ignoring far more obvious clues indicating that their real feelings towards him are anything but positive.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_47fea76b	type	Butt-Monkey
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_47fea76b	comment	Butt-Monkey: Alan's assistant Lynn. Apparently, I'm Alan Partridge actually downplays just what a huge bell-end he is towards her. To add insult to injury, he doesn't even refer to her by name throughout the entire book (although she is given a cursory mention in the acknowledgements). It gets even worse in Nomad, wherein Alan ends up going out of his way not to have to name her, including when he's quoting himself using her name when talking to her.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_4f84cdef	type	Smug Snake
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_4f84cdef	comment	Smug Snake: Alan.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_547196be	type	Broad Strokes
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_547196be	comment	Broad Strokes: The book treats On The Hour and The Day Today with this; it's established that Alan worked as a sports reporter for these shows, and some of the other main characters are mentioned, but the more surreal and absurdist elements of both shows are downplayed as they look increasingly out of place in the more naturalistic (if still comedic and absurd) world that Alan has gradually come to inhabit.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_6b35bdff	type	Serious Business
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_6b35bdff	comment	Serious Business: Alan treats and tries to depict his over-indulgence on Toblerones following the total collapse of his career as if it were a gritty heroin addiction rather than the minor eating disorder it so clearly was. Schoolboy Alan definitely took the business of being a Scout far too seriously, describing 'rank insubordination' and shouting "I AM YOUR PATROL LEADER!" over and over at a troublemaker.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_82b4f38e	type	Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_82b4f38e	comment	Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: The book manages the achievement of making Alan seem worse than he does on TV at times (which is really saying something). His every desperate attempt to convince the reader that he's a likeable and sympathetic guy will usually just further convince them of how utterly loathsome and repellent he truly is.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_8a9eb844	type	Perspective Flip
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_8a9eb844	comment	Perspective Flip: The book retells several key points from Alan's life from his point of view. They are accordingly distorted.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_8b68d9a7	type	Stalker with a Crush
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_8b68d9a7	comment	Stalker with a Crush: At one point Partridge mentions that after his divorce he spent a lot of time eating his lunch outside the gym where his wife had an affair with her fitness instructor. He apparently failed to notice anything creepy about this.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_913b9a12	type	Defictionalisation
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_913b9a12	comment	Defictionalisation: It closely resembles Alan's autobiography 'Bouncing Back' which appeared prominently in Series 2 but was never produced in real life. Most likely, it was released due to fan demand for the defictionalisation of Bouncing Back. There's a nod to this in the book, with a footnote that suggests that Alan at one point tried to self-plagiarise large slabs from Bouncing Back to avoid having to write new material.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_973d220f	type	Never My Fault
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_973d220f	comment	Never My Fault: As with the previous book there's bucketloads of Alan trying to shift responsibility for his own failures and disasters onto others. One notable example comes when after his final disastrous meeting with Harvey Kennedy has made it abundantly clear that "Footsteps of My Fathers" will end up nowhere near a television screen, he's sulking in a cafe reflecting on how he's needlessly gone out of his way on a 120 mile diversion around central London "based on reassurances that were not fulfilled". Needless to say, these 'reassurances' didn't exist anywhere outside of Alan's own self-deluded skull.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_9afd34de	type	Slow Clap
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_9afd34de	comment	Slow Clap: In Alan's retelling, his final meeting with Tony Hayers in which he is informed that he's not getting a second series of his chat show ends with him delivering a withering put-down to Tony (or at least what Alan considers to be a withering put-down) and exiting the BBC restaurant to thunderous applause of this nature from everyone around him "like in a really good movie". In reality it ended with him throwing a tantrum, assaulting Tony with a block of cheese he'd impaled on a fork and running out screeching "I'VE GOT CHEESE!", while everyone around him watched in bemusement.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_a54534a0	type	Parental Neglect
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_a54534a0	comment	Parental Neglect: Although Alan tries to spin his relationship with his parents as one of dramatic abuse, reading between the lines suggests that it was actually closer to a vaguely benevolent sense of general indifference towards him.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_ae136edf	type	Plagiarism in Fiction
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_ae136edf	comment	Plagiarism in Fiction: At one point, Alan copies huge chunks of the Wikipedia article on frequency modulation. He also appears to have tried self-plagiarism by shoving in large sections of his book Bouncing Back from I'm Alan Partridge when discussing his Toblerone addiction.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_b01abe4f	type	Catchphrase
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_b01abe4f	comment	Catchphrase: Alan discusses the origins (such as they are) of his chat-show bellow "Ah-HAAAA!", while simultaneously not-so-convincingly claiming that it hasn't become an albatross around his neck and that he's perfectly okay with people yelling it at him to try and get a rise out of him. He also ends many a gloating anecdote which ends with him on top after a confrontation with someone else with "Needless to say, I had the last laugh."
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_b11ac9f5	type	Abusive Parents
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_b11ac9f5	comment	Abusive Parents: While it's likely that Mr. and Mrs. Partridge were not the best parents if the way their son turned out is anything to go by, Alan is clearly exaggerating just how abusive they were. It's not just because he's cynically trying to tap into the 'misery-lit' market, though.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_b773ec0e	type	DidNotThinkThisThrough
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_b773ec0e	comment	Did Not Think This Through: Alan's walking trip is poorly planned, and tends to resulting in a cascading effect of unfortunate results for himself. For example, he initially buys an expensive large camping backpack for himself because it's the top-range option available, not stopping to consider that it's impractically large and heavy for his purposes and unnecessary given how he's not even camping. He then hits on the idea of sending the backpack ahead to his resting points, only to eventually realise that frequent short-range courier payments make this impractically expensive for his entire journey. He does barely any long-distance walking to train himself. He engages on long and pointless tangential detours without stopping to consider the fact that he's only got a limited amount of time to reach his destination before he has to be back at work. And of course, there's the fact that for some reason (mostly likely so that he can pad out his proposed Travelogue Show) he's decided to make a long walk out of a journey that takes about three hours to make by car when he apparently doesn't even like walking anyway. Even Alan outright admits that he "can't remember why" he felt it necessary to make the project a walk.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_b7bc7d28	type	Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_b7bc7d28	comment	Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Young Alan goes to see his prospective father in law to get permission to marry, but is so engrossed by a brand new Flymo that he forgets to ask.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_c335b9ec	type	Irony
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_c335b9ec	comment	Irony: A meta-example. At the beginning of the chapter dealing with his life after the collapse of his TV show and his marriage, he remarks that not a lot of people know that he once lived in a travel tavern for over six months. Of course, the reader probably knows all about this since they've likely seen it on television.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_c868a42a	type	Freudian Excuse
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_c868a42a	comment	Freudian Excuse: Played with. Alan's status as an Unreliable Narrator means that it's hard to determine precisely how much of his recounting of his unhappy childhood can be taken at face value, but even allowing for his exaggeration and Blatant Lies he does appear to have been rather starved of affection as a child. His relationship with his father appears to have been a bit tense (although the man was probably not as abusive as he makes out) and it seems that he genuinely did both have difficulty making friends and suffered a lot of bullying as a boy. Though the question then becomes how much of this he brought upon himself, as the genuinely unlikeable qualities he possesses as an adult appear to have manifested from a rather early age.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_ca773e1c	type	Wisdom from the Gutter
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_ca773e1c	comment	Wisdom from the Gutter: At a low point, Alan meets Brian, a homeless man who apparently gives him morale support. And then nicks all Alan's stuff once he falls asleep.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_d05cf3f	type	Footnote Fever
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_d05cf3f	comment	Footnote Fever: Alan suffers a very bad case of this.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_d352b919	type	No Sympathy for Grudgeholders
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_d352b919	comment	No Sympathy for Grudgeholders: Invoked. While Alan appears to have genuine reasons to feel bitter towards his childhood bullies, the fact that he apparently continues to borderline-stalk them fifty years on and clearly, despite his denials, obsessively compares his life and theirs rather than just moving on with his life does not reflect particularly well on him.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_d698c3c4	type	Travelogue Show
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_d698c3c4	comment	Travelogue Show: The book itself revolves around "Footsteps of My Father", an attempt by Alan to recreate a journey his father once took for a job interview as a walk, with the barely-concealed despite-his-protests longing to have the BBC make it into one of these.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_d8e0e9f7	type	Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_d8e0e9f7	comment	Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Subverted; Alan is clearly not a very good husband to his wife or father to his children (and in particular treats his daughter as something of an afterthought), but his only justification for this is that he was trying to build a television career. Of course, in his mind, that's a perfectly good reason. He also includes a self-written letter purportedly from his wife (or at she at least allegedly agreed to being publishednote she didn't respond when he forwarded it to her, which he interpreted as consent — it's far more likely that she simply didn't bother to read it, didn't feel it worth dignifying with a response, or that she simply never received it) which basically absolves him of blame on this score for these very reasons.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_d9563969	type	Failed Attempt at Drama
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_d9563969	comment	Failed Attempt at Drama: Alan tries to stage his confrontation with his wife over her infidelity as if it were a scene out of a soap opera, but his failed attempt at smashing a wine glass, her general indifference to him and Bill Oddie of all people showing up at an inopportune moment (to collect the binoculars Alan borrowed from him) serve to leech away any dramatic effect he might have been going for.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_e624f0e8	type	Suspiciously Specific Denial
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_e624f0e8	comment	Suspiciously Specific Denial: As with the previous book, there are buckets of this trope. In particular, Alan certainly isn't just doing this walk as a cynical and thinly-veiled attempt to recapture the limelight by spinning it into a six-episode mini-series shown on BBC 1 with an accompanying book deal and merchandising, and he honestly just wishes you'd let it go (despite the fact that he's the only one who ever brings it up). He's also not bothered in the least that high-powered agent Harvey Kennedy won't return his calls on the subject, and only takes a 120 mile diversion off his route to first try to visit his house and then ambush him at Gatwick Airport because it's convenient. And, of course, he's naturally entirely happy with his trip/life in general despite how dismal and disastrous it is. Needless to say, pretty much any time Alan insists that everything's fine, he's having a super time and that he's perfectly happy with the way things are or have turned out, you can assume the exact opposite.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_eb8ec7c8	type	Jerkass
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_eb8ec7c8	comment	Jerkass: Alan.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_f9f2c33	type	Running Gag
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_f9f2c33	comment	Running Gag: Alan spitefully abusing TripAdvisor to attack the owners of the bed-and-breakfasts that he stays in whenever they do anything to annoy him.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_fabef10f	type	Don't Explain the Joke
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_fabef10f	comment	Don't Explain the Joke: Alan will often explain to the reader that he's using a particular technique in order to get a particular reaction, which consequently ruins both.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_fbd285b7	type	Comically Missing the Point
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_fbd285b7	comment	Comically Missing the Point: Alan's whole journey in the novel is made of this. When informed that most Travelogue Shows are built around some kind of historically or personally significant journey for the host, he comes up with a journey to an unsuccessful job interview his dad once made. He decides to turn it into a walk when naturally his dad drove there, meaning that a journey that took only a handful of hours originally ends up taking two weeks. When preparing, he decides to go swimming for exercise instead of walking because he hates walking, and buys a ridiculously and impractically large camping rucksack for a minor walking journey when he's planning on staying in bed-and-breakfasts anyway. And so on.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_fe0330fb	type	Brick Joke
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_fe0330fb	comment	Brick Joke: The beginning of the novel has Alan complaining about how the publishers wouldn't fork out to produce a CD of tracks to listen to during reading. Later in the novel, Alan demonstrates that he appears to have absolutely no understanding of the concept of music royalties. Securing the royalties for all the songs on his track-list would have been prohibitively expensive.
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I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_ff7f34c5	type	Pet the Dog
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan / int_ff7f34c5	comment	Pet the Dog: There are a few — very few — moments which suggest a slightly less dickish side to Alan. As an example, after all the trouble that he and Glen Ponder had in Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge the two have apparently buried the hatchet and become friends, albeit with Alan's usual ineptness when it comes to friendship.
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