Kiss my face, Alan's back

Fosters may be terrible watery slop masquerading as lager, but we should still stop and raise a glass of other available beverage to its makers in thanks for a couple of things.

For one thing, they’ve given us a range of slightly amusing adverts of the years (I’m sure everyone remembers “he who drinks Australian, thinks Australian”, not to mention the awesome 80s Paul Hogan ones), and they’re currently sponsoring comedy on Channel 4, which is very nice of them. On top of that, they’ve brought Alan Partridge back, and he’s more painfully awkward than ever before.

Granted it’s on the smallest small screen of all, the internets, but I think we can be flexible on the semantics of “television” and I’m in charge so what I say goes.
Every Friday we’re treated to another let’s say 'podcast' from Alan’s show Mid Morning Matters, broadcast from funky new digital channel North Norfolk Digital. Everyone’s favourite sportscasting chat show hosting local DJ is in excruciatingly fine form; from long segments of dead air while he tries to remember what he had for lunch, through casual racism, ending at bullish over-compensation, "I could cycle 10 miles in 30 minutes… I could cycle 30 miles in 10 minutes." It’s only three episodes into the series, but it’s already choc full of hilarious quotes: "Keep your clubs away from his young, it's Seal."

This time Alan has a sort of sidekick, in the form of Sidekick Simon, who briefly appears now and then to be "wacky" and engage in bum squeakingly uncomfortable banter with Partridge. Simon’s played by Tim Key, who’s natural timing for awkward humour works perfectly with Steve Coogan’s own. It’s clear from their vignettes that Partridge sees a lot of himself in Simon, and that Simon is just a bit baffled by this bulldozer of tactlessness. Did you know 20 second pauses are funny? They are.

Written, as usual, by Steve Coogan and Armando Iannucci, "Mid Morning Matters" is a perfect vehicle for Partridge. In his own words: