Alan Partridge is an incompetent and tactless television and radio presenter. He is socially inept, often offending his guests, and has an inflated sense of importance and celebrity. According to the "Telegraph", Partridge is "utterly convinced of his own superiority, and bewildered by the world's inability to recognise it". Marber described him as part of a British tradition of "sad little man" characters such as Captain Mainwaring, Basil Fawlty and David Brent. His need for public attention drives him to deceit, treachery and shameless self-promotion, and sometimes violence; for example, in the "Knowing Me, Knowing Yule" Christmas special, he assaults a BBC boss and a paralysed man.