Part of the Weekend Never Dies: The Weekend - Part Deux

Five fucking hours. Five fucking hours of motorway stretching up to Manchester, listening to Dixon and his mates while all I was thinking about was standing Nadia up. I had called to tell her I couldn’t make it, but she just didn't get it.

"Alan you are fucking pussy. I thought you were good, strong man but you are weak. Papa was wrong about you - I have no time for men who have, how you say - no testicle. Why don't you go buy Dixon some new boots so he can walk over you some more! I will go for drink with someone else, someone confident."

Gutted. Not only has Dixon ruined my work life, he's now ruined any chance of me ever having any luck with the ladies. Twice. Why does this shit always happen to me? I'm such a pussy. The car consumed the road as my mind pranged with all manner of hatred towards the biggest coward on the planet. Me.

Finally, after hours of traffic we arrive in Manchester. They were staying at the Lowry; at least it looked like a decent place. Then Dixon dropped a even bigger cunt bomb.

“Oi oi boys! Team Dixon has landed!!! Lets get our fucking coke on! Hold on Alman, where you going? Your not staying here shag, not at the price of these rooms no chance! We got you a doss down at a the youth hostel! Be back here at eleven tomorrow to pick us up”.

So while Dixon and friends were pissing and snorting it up on the town enjoying their boutique hotel, I was in a shitty YMCA being kept awake by a drunk Australian backpacker couple fucking in the corner of the dorm. I tried to call Nadia to explain, but got no response. Just an accidental answer, and the loud sounds of electro music. God knows where or who she was with, all I know is that I'd blown my chance and it was all Dixon’s fault.

I had to ferry them around the next day. First to the match - they didn't have a ticket for me and I had to drive around for two hours while waiting to pick them up. Chelsea won 2-0. Quite possibly the worse possible result for me. Cue a hours worth of Chelsea songs in the drive back to Manchester, then a chauffeur driven tour of the best the city has to offer that lasted until 6 in the morning.

Three hours sleep before we began back to London, as they wanted me to wait outside the hotel from 9 am in case they decided to leave early. We didn't leave until mid-day. Then I had to spend the entire journey listening to them go on about how many drugs they had taken and the back street strip bar they went to. Dixon squawking and shoving his camera phone under my nose, a grainy video depicting a polish striper doing unmentionable things with a root vegetable. Him and his mates laughing and shouting like some baying pack of hyenas.

This was the worst day of my life. No scratch that. The worst WEEKEND of my life.

When we get back to London, Dixon makes me drop everyone off then get the tube home from his house. Then just when I think it couldn't get any worse, my phone chimes. Its a text message:

From: Toby
28-09-08 18:37

Oi Alman! Guess who went Russian Friday night?
That Nadja bird couldn't resist the power of my remix.
Thanks for fucking up - you got my balls dipped!
Put your fucking hands up!! LOL

No. No. No no no. Not Toby anyone but Toby. I don't believe this.

This is all Dixon’s fucking fault. All Dixon’s fault. All Dixon’s fault….

The Weekend - Part One

Last Friday afternoon I was especially looking forward to getting the hell out of work. I had a hot date lined up with Nadja, and I couldn't wait. I wanted it to be something special. So about half four I asked Fiona (the head runner), if as it was quiet I might be able to get off a bit earlier.

“Sorry Alan, Dixon’s having his Friday viewing of the latest cut of Ambulance Chasers with his producer. He asked me earlier if I could send you up after - I think he has a job for you - you'll have to wait I’m afraid”

My heart sank immediately. This week I'd had just about enough of his twatting voice and prima-donna demands - god knows what he needed me to do for him now. I just wanted to get out of this place and enjoy the possibilities of romance. Dixon's viewing ended a hour later - and a call on my radio summoned me to his room.

As I cautiously entered E-17 Dixon swung round in his chair, taking a swig of his trendy bottle of Cambodian lager and fixing his eyes on me.

“Alan shut the door and take a seat.”

God what now. Is he going to ask me to take over Tobe-a-fundarians duties?

“Listen right. Me and a couple of the lads have got tickets for the Chelsea game up at the Britannia stadium in Stoke tomorrow. Should be a decent game, im sure Lamps can turn over the potters for three points, job done. I’m gonna have a bit of a session in Manchester after while we're up there.”

Great, but why the fuck do I need to know the pricks plans?

“Were going to drive up this evening, and stay in Manchester as its not far from Stoke. Should make it in time to get a few in at the Dry Bar. But me and the lads have a little problem. It being Friday night and all, we want to get some of the old marching powder in us as soon as possible. So this is where you come in Alan.”

Dixon placed his hand on my shoulder and smiled like a crazed Phil Collins.

“I thought you could do me a little favour and drive me and the lads up there and back. You can drive the Beamer; probably going be your only chance to ever get behind the wheel of one of those…. so what you think about that then Alan?”

What a complete and utter cunt. That’s what I wanted to say.

“Sorry Dixon I can’t - I've got a hot date tonight with Na....”

“Alan I don’t think you quite understand what I’m asking you. Now I’ve been good to you here, and since I’ve started I’ve not mentioned to anyone about your little incident at the last place. You know the one, that old bloke snuffed it and I think if I remember rightly you spazzed out and called everyone a cunt or something. Now quite rightly that should have brought your running days to a end for good. But I like you Alan, so I thought I would keep it quiet for you. Nows your chance to say thank you.”

Fucking hell, how was I going to get out of this…

“You got to look at the bigger picture really Alan. Do you want to keep your job or not? I’m the star editor round here and your just the one who makes me coffee and wipes my ass. So if I want you out your out. I can do it in a second. Then where do you go? Straight back to Mummy. And if thats not enough to convince you, there’s also about 80 gig of hardcore porn on one of the hardrives up here in E17 which I might have to tell everyone is down to you getting your hands dirty while your digitizing for me in the evenings. Don't fuck with me Alan. I'm in charge round here and I'm giving you a break - don't turn this chance down. So what’s it going to be sunshine….?”

Nadja

Monday morning in E-17 and already the weekend can’t arrive soon enough as I bring Dixon and Toby their first pompous designer beverages of the week.

“Hey Alman Ive got a little job for you”

Once having been a fellow runner, Toby took great pleasure in being able to order me around as it polished his ego.

“Run down to the tape monkeys and pick up the Digi that D’s asked them to dub over the weekend will you? Oh, and while your there - do us a big favour yeah? There’s this hot new Eurotrash girl started last week, find out what her name is and shit will you….Koika’s back in Japan for a few weeks, so the accounts back open while shes away!!.”

Great, perhaps I could organise some prostitutes to come and fellate you both while you edit I thought. Dixons far too busy staring at his customised 32” HD monitor to thank me for his Vivanno. Then he pipes up.

“Tobe mate, take it easy, old Casanova Alan here might want this bird all to himself. You never know he might get a sympathy fuck if he goes ‘full retard’ on her like he does round here all the time!!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!”

They both laughed in my face, wankers. At least a little trip downstairs will get me away from them for a bit.

The arid claustrophobic cell that passes for the tape duplication room was empty. I started looking for Dixon’s tape, then felt a soft hand on my shoulder.

“Are you Alan…the runner?”

I turned round to see the five foot nine splendour that was Nadja. Half Suicide Girl, half Bond beauty she’s the kind of girl I chase after all the time apart from the fact she’s real and not someone’s pimped up second life avatar.

"Um yes.. I’m Alan are you new here?”

“I’m Nadja. My father is Sergei the security guard. I now have job here as I used to work for Leningrad Televisikion. I’ve heard a lot about you from pappa…you are actually better looking than he described you.”

“Yeah..um I bet he, er thinks I look a right geek”

“No my father told me you are a good , strong, handsome man… I think you are in fact a good strong.... very handsome man”

Hmmmm was she to use the technical term ‘ripping the piss’ out of me I wondered. Girls generally treat me with disdain or have no feelings about me at all, sort of like a pop tart, not disliked but certainly not liked much either.

“Um I got sent down to pick up a Digi for Dixon? Hes in Edit 17.”

“Dixon, he’s the one who dress like a soldier, right?”

I prepared myself for the worst. Here we go, now i'll have to listen to yet another girl go on for ages about how cool and sexy that prick is. She was just buttering me up to try and get some info about the strutting cock of the building. How does Dixon do it with the ladies? I nodded and replied with a fake smile. “Yes that’s Dixon”

“Ahh. He is Alan, what we say in Russian...bivneetca”

“Sorry Nadja my Russian really isn’t as good as it should be”

“Alan I think it translate to English as ….show off asshole’”

I think I’m in love, this girls beautiful, funny, intelligent and she thinks Dixons a tosser. If only I could grow a pair of balls and ask her out!

I laughed, she laughed. We had a moment........then I then lost my cool so moved things along.

“So is the tape done, I’ll take it up.”

“Oh yes, here it is.

As she gave me the tape our hands touched and we looked into each others eyes, time seemed to freeze. Those beautiful green eyes of hers were staring right at me. I’m going to do it, I thought. I’m going to ask her out, my mouth opened but no words came out, it was just dry. I couldn’t get the words out. I’m fucking useless at this. Then something amazing happened.

“Alan, are you free Friday evening after work, perhaps we could go out, just you and me we could have drink, if you don't have girlfriend?”

“YES.YES.YES!! No I mean, I don’t have a girlfriend and yes I would really like that, Friday night, we could go for a drink."


Fuck me.


I used to think I was an atheist now I believe in Christ, Allah, Buddha, Vishnu and everyone else staring down at us, I love them all. I love them all, and today it seems………….



……..they love me as well.

The Night Watchman

Because editors such as Dixon always insist on working late the facility employs a night security guard. Of course this doesn't get me off the hook, I've still got to sit around and wait till all the poncey fuckers decide to turn it in for the night, just in case they need to call their 'bell boy' for anything. If Dixon cut out all the time he spends looking at porn and pissing about with his latest imported Japanese toy and I’m sure he could nail it in the nine to five instead. More and more each day it begins to feel I'm working in a hotel, but the great thing is I can go and play cards and listen to the ever amazing stories of Sergei the security guard.

Currently editing in the building we have, ‘2 Fat 2 Fly’ (a heavily obese eight year old trying to loose enough weight to fit into a airline seat and fly to the US for revolutionary gastro reconditioning) and School Jumpers (a Etonian schoolboy trades places with a boy from a shanty town classroom in South Africa). While their fabricating documentary stories of freak shows and social engineering if any of them spent five minutes talking to the night watchman they might realize there are real life stories out there much more interesting than the latest celeb fronted ‘journey’.

Sergei is keeping his head down in London. He looks like the bloke in Eastern Promises and has the tattoos to prove it. Don’t get him talking about his scars or you’ll be in for a blow by blow description of how the Stassi officer came off much worse. He's killed men with his bare hands and survived in the coldest, remotest Russian wildernesses. From behind his hip flask of cheap vodka he will tell tales of escaping the Russian secret police and smuggling East German double agents across the border at the height of the cold war. Apparently he’s only working in this post house to lie low in London with his daughter. He's a wanted man and needs the cover provided by working as a humble nightwatch man. He seems to have taken a shine to me as I like listening to his stories.

“That Putin is a pig, he is dog, I spit on him. Until he is gone I cannot return to my motherland. I keep my head low…. I say little… I look after my daughter. Nadja she is very beautiful. Her hair is like a Altai cornfield at sunset, her eyes like the full moon glistening over the Caucasus. The smile she gives her father makes every day so very happy for me. Alan I think you are good man, I would very much like you to meet my daughter, maybe you marry and I be even prouder father.”

I really like Sergei. For all I know everything that comes out of his mouth could be utter bollocks, but his stories, sure pass the hours. And he's refreshingly normall compared to the prima donnas in the edit suites. Then the phone rings. Fucking Dixon wants some sushi.

Sergei grabs my arm “be very careful with the sushi around here, Alan. A friend of mine fell very ill after eating it. FSB is everywhere.”

With any luck i'll take Dixon a nuclear Maki roll.

8.00 am Tuesday morning....

I'm sat in E-17 doing a playout before Dixon arrives. Then all of a sudden;
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!
My ears pulsate and I spring from my seat, the shrill piercing pain of the klaxon ringing in my brain.

"Oi oi! Alman!! Back from the Bestival, haven't slept since Thursday it was well brutal!"

Christ not again. Toby has been going on all summer about how fucked he’s got at the latest music festival he has attended. What a bellend. He’s been to so many this summer, he has a collection of wristbands where his lower right arm used to be. Of course he doesn't take them off - he wants the world to be able to identify how so on the fucking cusp of everything he is wherever he goes.

“Me and Koika ended up doing loads of K backstage with the Boosh and that bloke from the Iceland adverts. That Fielding's well nutbag! Oh check this yeah, Koika knows a girl who works at the hair salon that Rob Da Bank goes to and arranged for us to meet up with him - we gave him a six twats and a drum machine track, and he got us to do an secret gig in the hidden disco - I reckon we’ll be giving it well main stage next year!"

Toby really is the worst kind of person - he barely tries in life and everything just falls in his lap.

"What the fuck you think of that! I'm having my own festival next year as well on my parents estate while their in Tuscany. Our drummers mates with Alfie Allen so we can have all that crowd down, and you know just hire in some yurts and a fuck off big sound system, all my peeps down for the weekend with lots of drugs, real mad decent like.”

This guy is amazing - I'm surprised he gets away with wearing such tight jeans with that silver spoon protruding from his anus.

"I'm so fucking mashed still Alman!! Couldn't even take all my drugs - I've got some acid left over that I bought off this morris dancer; they've got Wall:E on them, you want some? Apparently they're well strong!"

I politely decline.

"Ha ha ha, stupid question really your too fucking box aren't you Alman!!!"

Too square?

"Go on then you twisted my arm, can I have them on tick?"

"Course Al, you can have them mate - probably can't afford them on your wages anyway!! Get on them Wall.e’s"

He gives me the trips and continues to hoot off about his new video.

“Gonna get well viral with this, our new tracks gonna blow the shit out of you”



With Toby’s latest monstrosity burnt on to my retinas I make a run for it before Dixon arrives.