Via Fredrik Sterner

In the past seven months since I moved back to California I think I have spent more time injured than not (most injuries not even skate-related). I’m not sure if watching Cardiel—in all his ragged glory—makes me feel inspired, or depressed.

Radio Norwich: Up with the Partridge.
Alan: You’re joining me, Alan Partridge, and Peter Baxendale Thomas of the Norfolk Farmer’s Union. Now, yesterday I, sort of, trod in a rather large farmer’s pat when I made some comments about intensive farming. Where did I go wrong?
Peter: Well I think your comments were ill founded. They were deeply ignorant, they showed a complete lack of understanding of modern agricultural methods, and simply served to highlight the sort of intense stupidity that farmers encounter from armchair pundits who forget to think before they open their mouths. But with a full and frank apology that you’re about to give us this morning I’m sure you can dig yourself out of this rather ugly hole.
Alan: Yeah. Erm, sorry. Er, do you have any requests, anybody you want to say hello to, or…?
Peter: Look, I’m just trying to say that when you make ignorant comments like you did the other day, you serve simply to alarm the public and inflame the farmers, which is exactly what you’ve done. Why don’t you just apologise and make it nice and simple—
Alan: Thought that’d fool you. You could talk the hind-legs off a donkey. But your donkeys are probably born without hind legs because of all the chemicals you put in their… chips.
Peter: Alan, I don’t have donkeys. And even if I did I wouldn’t feed them chips. This is exactly the sort of rubbish you came up with the other day when you talked about putting a spine in a bap.
Alan: I admit that was a mistake. I shouldn’t have said bap.
Peter: Well, good. Well, that’s a start.
Alan: Well, no, I should have said baguette. Because a spinal column would fit in a baguette.
Peter: Listen, you’ve upset half the farmers in this community. You seem to alienate everybody you come across, including, I gather, your wife, which is why you end up living like some bloody tramp in a lay-by.
Alan: It’s a travel tavern.
Peter: I don’t care what you call your sordid little grief-hole. It makes no difference to me. The fact is that an awful lot of my colleagues are—
Alan: Are farmyard animals, yes.
Peter: You’re talking about my friends, here.
Alan: I’ve probably got more friends than you’ve got cows.
Peter: This is ridiculous.
Alan: How many cows have you got?
Peter: I’ve got a hundred cattle.
Alan: Yeah, I’ve got a hundred and four friends.
Peter: I don’t see what this is going to gain you. Why don’t you just issue a frank and full retraction of what you said, and you’ll get yourself out of a lot of silly bother.
Alan: Yeah, you are a big posh sod with plums in your mouth.
Peter: I don’t think it’s got anything to do with class—
Alan: And the plums have mutated and they’ve got beaks.
Peter: Beaks?
Alan: Yes, beaks.
Peter: Have you got any more of this, or do you want to stop at quacking plums?
Alan: No, no. You make pigs smoke.
Peter: I want to know where you think you earned the right to go swanning off on these ludicrous flights of—
Alan: Ah, swans. You feed beefburgers to swans.
Peter: Do I?
Alan: Yes, you do.
Peter: All right, well, perhaps you can tell me what’s wrong with feeding beefburgers to swans?
Alan: What?
Peter: Well if you fill a swan’s stomach up with beefburgers it’s full of fat and it’ll float better. That’s why we do it.
Alan: Really?
Peter: No, you complete cretin. I’m just contributing to this total farce. What else are you going to accuse me of?
Alan: I’ll tell you what. You farmers, you don’t like outsiders, do you? You like to stick to your own.
Peter: What do you mean by that?
Alan: I’ve seen the big-eared boys on farms.
Peter: Oh, for goodness’ sake.
Alan: If you see a lovely field with a family having a picnic, and there’s a nice pond in it, you fill in the pond with concrete, you plough the family into the field, you blow up the tree, and use the leaves to make a dress for your wife who’s also your brother.
Peter: Look, have I got anything else to say here or shall I go?
Alan: Well, listen, I’ll tell you what the point is. You have big sheds, but nobody’s allowed in, and inside these big sheds are twenty-foot high chickens. Because of all the chemicals you put in them.
Alan: And these chickens are scared. They don’t know why they’re so big. They go “oh why am I so massive?” And they’re looking down on all the other little chickens, and they think they’re in an aeroplane because all the other chickens are so small… do you deny that? No. His silence, I think, speaks volumes.
Alan: And… and basically, do you agree that everything I’ve said thus far is completely correct?
Lynn: Yes.
Lynn: Yes.
Alan: And do you also run over badgers in your tractor, for fun?
Lynn: Yes.
Alan: Thank you, Peter Baxendale Thomas. This is T’Pau.

Steve Coogan to reprise Alan Partridge role in new online series [YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS.]

A ghost crab eats oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill, shown glowing yellow-orange under ultraviolet light, at Gulf Islands National Seashore near Pensacola, Florida.

Glowing Oil Could Aid Gulf Spill Cleanup (National Geographic)

From the Guardian’s World Cup 2010 guide