Out of the Partridge Canon (cont.)

1997 September
Sunday 14

What the heck is happening to me? This has got to be the worst programme idea I've ever had:

Remote Control BattleBots - Teams of robotics hobbyists battle out their homemade toys in an arena. What was I thinking?! Worst still, I now realise I'd made a faux pas in front of Philippa Forrester when I let slip the embryonic idea. She had the gall to go off and snicker at me to her agent! And to think I forgave her for mistakenly taking my drink! I knew it was mine because there was a red lip print on the rim, from the blood of the split-lip I'd caught when Tommy Walsh thumped me. (Another honest mistake; Titchmarsh and I have similar first names. We're easily confused through typical soirée chatter.)

Still, every cloud has a silver lining as Roy Walker once said (on an episode of Catchphrase) and all this robot-brain-storming has inspired me to ask my assistant to investigate who owns the rights to K-9, the robot dog from Doctor Who. (Doctor) Who knows, there may be something in it.

A Day At the Airport - A fly-on-the-wall documentary about the goings-on ... no. Christ this is bad, I could go on ad nauseam about why it'd never be watched. (Maybe if I change the setting to a train station, retitled it Waterloo! Narrated by Alan Partridge and it might just be something that could air on UK Horizons.)

I've had worse ideas. When I was bedridden with fever for three days, I had what I'd thought was an epiphany. My scribblings in the morning had read thus: "What about a competitive cake-baking show?" It causes me to laugh, cringe, then laugh some more. (Then cringe again.) I only didn't mention it before because I was so ashamed. But I appreciate now just how much of a Benylin delirium (or "Benylirium") I was really in. I wasn't me. I can laugh again now (after my prior cringe).

Again, from the proverbial silver cloud rises the phoenix of ... a good TV format idea:

Let Them Sponge Cake - Jennie Bond tours Britain's prisons and young offender institutes, donating inmates homebaked treats. I briefly considered Dawn French and Vanessa Feltz for various reasons, but ruled them out for the glorious expense in excelsis of their mammoth fees. (N.B: It is a bit like the Cooking In Prison idea I already pitched to Tony Hayers. The basic premise is solid. I think if I just present it to him in a fresh light, maybe he won't remember he's heard it. Or that I shunted his face with Stilton.)