There was a sobering moment last night when I discovered I’d reached my Alan Partridge age.
I’ve been re-watching the first I’m Alan Partridge series over the last few nights and realising just how many Partridge-isms I still use tongue-in-cheek today (at least I think it’s tongue-in-cheek — it’s hard to know whether I’m actually meaning them now, or whether others realise it’s Partridge I’m quoting, because I don’t always make the effort to do the voice).
Anyway, Dave Clifton calls him OAP (Old Alan Partridge) and he replies ‘Oi, I’m 43 you cheeky get!’
I don’t mind being 43, but in the same breath I’m not sure I can be the same age as the Alan Partridge character in that series. By extension, that means I’m now older than the Alan Partridge that did the TV chat shows.
It was also revealed in the final episode of the series that the character Tony Hayers — the BBC commissioning editor who died falling off a roof while trying to retrieve the aerial (‘ironic that he worked in TV and yet it was TV that killed him’) — was just 41. His widow in the scene where Alan turns up to the funeral wearing a Castrol GTX bomber jacker looks like someone in her 50s.
Did everyone just look older in the 90s? Or am I just struggling to accept that I look like a 43-year-old man? I’m certainly greyer than Alan Partridge. That hasn’t done me any favours.
It feels slightly unfair that I spent my whole childhood looking younger than I was (so underage drinking never really got off the ground) and then I went grey early. Been shafted at both ends here.
Nothing wrong with growing older, of course. It’s not something I’ve been particularly bothered about as it’s inevitable and happens to all of us at exactly the same rate (unless you’re Paul Rudd).