I, Partridge - We Need To Talk About Alan Quiz

Answer: Anthony Eden

"'Looks like Anthony Eden's about to be named Prime Minister,' mutters a nurse as she strolls past the door. 'And Chelsea are about to win the First Division title!' replies an orderly, almost certainly not educated enough to follow politics."

Alan often ascribes dialogue or inner thoughts to others.

Answer: Free university accommodation

Of course, Alan achieves this by living with his parents, though he tries to play this off as much cooler than it perhaps was:

"I was quite the man about town in Norwich, striving confidently through the dreaming spires and hallowed halls of East Anglia Polytechnic. Enigmatically, I decided to stay not in the woodworm infested squalor of university halls, but to commute in from my home. My parents' home. Of course, it meant that I was something of a mystery man on campus, for while my fellow students lived in each other's pockets and played out their debauched lifestyles for all to see, I was far less well known. I'd be glimpsed at the back of lecture halls, ghosting through the student union with a glass of cider, or shushing idiots in the library, and then I'd be gone."

Answer: Most patients died during his time broadcasting

"In my time at the hospital I was broadcasting live over the deaths of some 800 patients. It's a record that stands to this day. Industry awards and repeated praise from TV Quick magazine are all very well but it gives me immense pride to think that the last voice these 800 plus people heard may have been mine, as I read the traffic and travel or introduced a clip from my favourite Goon Show LP."

Alan spends 94 months at St Lukes before a visiting station producer overhears him and offers him a job.

Answer: "Nothing much. Just thinking to myself that you lot have probably got Tea AIDS."

Alan had been pondering the problems inherent in a communal sugar bowl, thinking that knowledge of beverages could become "his thing." "Putting a damp spoon back in the bowl is the tea-drinking equivalent of sharing a needle. And I did not want to end up with the tea-drinking equivalent of AIDS." Of course, everyone else in the room is confused, and Alan remembers his "thing" is sports expertise, the "thing" he was hired for.

Answer: Sally Gunnell

Neither Alan or Sally are aware that sake is alcoholic. "What a laugh as we staggered along the streets like silly idiots! I dared her to hop all the way back to the hotel - she did! She dared me to pick up a bin and smash it through the window of a nearby shop - I didn't."

Answer: Nando's

Alan's smug, long-winded explanation of how he and Glen efficiently navigate Nando's ordering system and subsequent anecdote of when he visited without Glen in tow is one of my favourite passages from the book.

Answer: Carol spending evenings at water-colouring, birdwatching and ballroom dancing lessons, spends three consecutive weekends on team-building exercises

The fact that she's spending most nights at the gym in order to be first on the cross-fit the next morning doesn't siit right with Alan, so he borrows Bill Oddie's binoculars after a quick tutorial on "how to remain still for long periods of time and go completely undetected in undergrowth and shrubbery."

Answer: Swallow

"Swallow" is less of a character and more a list of idiosyncrasies. "He is also a keen cook, gardener and birder. He has no middle fingers on one hand, so he can't swear but is permanently doing the heavy metal sign."
"He has the largest collection of samurai swords in Europe, but no-one knows where he got them from."
"He's aware that a disproportionately high amount of crime is committed by the unemployed and asylum seekers, so why not stop them and shake them down?"

Answer: Skirmish

"'You have two phosphorous bombs. A confiscated IED. Two fin-stabilised mortars and a German MG3 machine gun with full magazine. The target is a missile silo. What are you opting to play with?'
'Phosphorous bomb, please.'
'I can tell you that the silo is adjacent to a hospital. Play or re-arm?'
'Play.'
'He's gone for play, which means this is a high risk question. Your topic is American Sitcoms. Get this wrong and you wipe out the hospital and are back down to £100. Get it right and the dishwasher is yours.'"

Us Brits do love ourselves a complex game show! Alan recommends buying the 208 episode box-set.

Answer: Jumping on a bouncy castle

"People have tried to talk me out of it of course; some concerned that the jumping will compromise sound quality, others believing, wrongly, that the castle is only for the use of under tens."
Of course, it all goes terribly wrong for Alan, who can't help making things worse for himself.