Alan Partridge's car gets a ticket in Manchester
Alan Partridge fans flooded a Manchester book shop to catch a quick chat with their idol this morning.
Staff had to stop the queue of avid Partridge-ites at 500 people, after queues around the Waterstones Deansgate store snaked into two long queues that filled the first floor.
Fans flew in from right across the UK and Ireland to see him at the official launch of his new travel diaries, Alan Patridge: Nomad - one of only three signing events he is doing around the country.
From the minute the Deansgate store opened, Partridge enthusiasts poured in and by an hour before Alan - played by Middleton born actor and comedian Steve Coogan - was due to arrive, maximum capacity has been reached.
Alan only officially had time to sign copies of Nomad, for 300 fans. But an extra 200 were permitted to queue just in case their radio DJ hero found some extra minutes to meet them.
Thirty-year-old Sean Clark (pictured below in a demin jacket), from Bournemouth, was the lucky 300th punter to join the line.
As fans young and old came to a desk to meet him, Alan chatted with them about the pedestrianisation of Norwich city centre, their impending weddings, and whether he thought this book might end up pulped like Bouncing Back - the biography in his classic I'm Alan Partridge TV series.
Ahead of his signing session, we were able to sneak up into Alan's dressing room with local Harpurhey councillors Pat Karney and Joanne Green to welcome the Mid Morning Matters host to Manchester.
Dressed in a red wine coloured jacket, sky blue shirt, stripy yellow tie, and brown loafers, Alan looked every inch the sharp dresser he fancied himself to be.
He even had his famous car parked outside, the obscene graffiti changed to "cook pass Babtridge" and M14 also sprayed on the side. But its celebrity status wasn't enough to spare it a parking ticket!
And he must have been relieved to see the crowds lining up to purchase his book, though - even though, as one fan teased him, Waterstones was already selling it at £4 off the recommended cover price.
Oh dear... Well, it still looks like this one isn't destined to be pulped and reconstituted as a trestle table any time soon.
The third by Partridge (and again co-written with Rob and Neil Gibbons, the team behind his autobiography I, Partridge and the Mid-Morning Matters series), it is his 'journey journal' recounting Alan’s attempt to follow in the 40-year-old footsteps of his father and recreate a deeply personal trip around the British Isles.