Alan Partridge: Nomad

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Its elegant perimeter road, its state-of-the-art monorail system, its kerosene-stuffed aeroplanes soaring overhead like aluminium eagles. He wants to discuss his relationship with his father and how that helped him to become the man he is today.

The sneering aspect towards the countryside is a bit tiresome too, mostly relying on ancient stereotypes about inbreeding and the absurd premise that Alan would be unaware that Norwich has now become one of the most liberal/left areas in England. If you haven't kept up with Partridge since he disappeared from TV screens in 2002, you might have assumed that the occasional book release or the inevitable film were just lazy cash-ins. As I’ve said, Nomad is a great book but I can’t help suspecting that they struggled to find material to fill it. First off, if you’re not a fan of Alan Partridge - and amazingly some people aren’t - then you won’t enjoy this book.I’m positive that I’d have heard Alan’s voice in my head had I read the book but Coogan has such an understanding of this character that it feels like a book that needs to be listened to. Not much more I can say than 'Pure Genius' If you know Alan Partridge, watched his TV programes, read his books or seen any of his DVD's, you will eat this up very quickly.

The character's voice is 100% accurate, and I'm happy to report that a book made me laugh out loud - often - for the first time in many years. Alan Partridge, under-appreciated TV chat maestro and King of East Anglian daytime radio, embarks upon a trek from Norwich to Dungeness in the footsteps of his late father, determined to solve the mystery of how he failed to get a job with British Nuclear Fuels. 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. Ok, it's not deathless literature, but I can't imagine that anyone who has enjoyed Partridge in his other media incarnations wouldn't get a big kick out of this.I listened to the audiobook version and enjoyed many a hearty laugh, a lot of chuckles and numerous smiles. I do jest, but, in fairness, authors keep winning Booker Prizes, Pulitzer Prizes, and Nobel Prizes for making effective use of the unreliable narrator technique, so I think someone should tell these prize committees that there’s no narrator more unreliable than good old Alan Partridge. The first book worked well since it was a satire of the bitter memoirs of a washed up celebrity, but the central idea here is much to flimsy to base an entire book upon. But analysis seems pointless – better to just skim through some of my updates and remind yourself what all the fuss is about. I don't normally listen to many of them because I often find myself drifting off in my own thoughts and missing large chunks; so it's not really suitable for a lot of the statistic and information heavy texts I tend to read a lot of.

This makes sense given how Alan himself comes up with the idea for the book within the book but unfortunately no level of meta meaning can compensate for a weak text. Alan had a lot to live up to, as his autobiography was (and still is) excellent, and I listen to it religiously (not literally--that would be ridiculous). Anyway, my point is simply that Heathrow is just a much more exciting piece of kit than Gatwick and Alan needs to get this simple fact through his head and stop spreading his malign anti-Heathrow propaganda. It should be keenly noted by all readers that the top five global routes as ranked according to passenger-kilometres are all out of LHR.There aren't many comic actors who have grown into their characters the way Steve Coogan has grown into Alan Partridge. 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. Alan is going to honour his dead father, even though he didn't like him, by walking from Norfolk down to Dungeness. Unfortunately, Alan gets far too distracted with the various celebrities that he meets along the way. While there were a few in the first book, the chronology and geography are noticeably messy here, and there's a lot of gaffes that simply wouldn't have been made by the character.