The Secret Diary Of A Runner Aged 23 3/4

Dickhead

2010-10-15T10:47:00.002+01:00

Downfall

2008-10-03T20:13:00.014+01:00

“Alaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan they’ve gone completely crazy in Edit 17 you have to do something”

Fiona came running down the stairs into reception shouting at me for help, tears running down her face like she had just stared straight into the heart of darkness. Something had gone seriously tits up in that edit suite, something really dark had happened up there.

“Peter Fincham's arriving in half a hour for a viewing in there, and Dixon and Toby seem to have gone completely fucking mad, do something Alan, please.”

What was she on about? What the fuck were these two clowns playing at now? I'd just about had enough of the Dixon and Toby show.

I slowly walked up the stairs, there was a eerie feeling emanating from the second floor that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up like electricity. I could hear murmuring in the distance; a inane barely legible babble that turned my stomach. Everything was moving in slow motion, and as I turned the corner the horror of what had happened came directly into focus.

Toby was sat crossed legged in the hallway wearing nothing but a torn American Apparel T-shirt, a makeshift Rambo headband ripped from its side and pulled taught around his head. His eyes rolled and dribble glistened from the corner of his mouth. A fecal smell filled the air, as Toby then applied a thick brown streak of his own effluence across his cheeks. He looked like the lead in a scat movie remake of Apocalypse Now. Toby pulled a zippo from his pocket and lit it, rocking back and forth staring at the flame, his mumbling chokes forming the words, "the horror the horror….."

I stepped past him towards the edit suite, and the sound of hardcore porn filled the corridor. I pushed the door of E-17 open and was even more shocked. On the monitor, a loop played constantly from the latest episode of Ambulance Chasers in preparation for Peter Finchams viewing. Where there should have been shots of injury lawyers chasing claims, there was now Bang Brothers porn clips spliced randomly into the action.

I heard a noise and my eyes turned to the right. My jaw literally dropped to the floor. In the middle of the room, Dixon was stark bollock naked, on his knees, his face down, licking the carpet. He stopped and turned to look up at me in wonder, his eyes burning madness and as wide as dustbin lids.

“Dr. Gonzo, come here, come down here and taste it….it tastes of…. it tastes of….. jupiter juice.”

Toby and Dixon seemed to be in a very dark place indeed. They had entered there own galaxy, in a nightmare of their own darkest pop culture references. Like they said at Woodstock, you got to watch out for that brown acid.

The door burst open, and in charged Sergei the security guard. “Stand back Alan my friend. I will sort this out.” He grabbed Dixon by the neck, causing him to cry out in shock; "No!! My jupiter juice!!" Sergei charged out the room with him, grabbing Toby by the scruff of the neck as he moved, Dixon stretching out in awe to touch Toby's shit streamed cheeks. The screams and hoots waned as they were marched down the stairs and thrown out onto the cold hard pavements of Soho.

Then Stephen, the main boss, stormed into the edit suite.

“Fincham's here in fifteen minutes what the fuck is happening? Alan whats been going on?”

"Um I…I think Dixon and Toby might have been taking lots of drugs lately and went a bit too far. They’ve had a meltdown."

The boss stared at the monitor, as a particularly hardcore clip played from Dixon's porn collection.

“What the fuck is that! If a commissioner sees this we're totally fucked!!"

“I think Dixon might have been using the edit suite to make compilations of his pornographic film collection"

“Fuck! Have we got anybody who can fix this before Fincham arives???" Stephen knew there was no time, but I had an idea.

"I've been Dixon and Toby’s runner for the last few weeks so I know the programme they’ve been cutting pretty well; I might be able to fix it, if you give me the chance."

Stephen stared at me and thought it over, time was of the essence here but would he take a chance on me. He smiled and said “Give it a go kid.”

I jumped on the Final Cut and quickly switched it back to the original cut minus Dixon's porn collection. Ten minutes later and the project was restored. The suite was ready for the viewing.

Stephen was amazed. “Fuck Finchams here - Alan you’ve gone and saved the day, I wont forget this. You've done a bloody good job! I think its time you moved up the ranks here. "

And with that it was all over.

Now I know what some off you might be thinking. Why on earth would Dixon and Toby take a strong dose of psychedelic drugs at work a few hours before such an important appointment?

So Miss Marple,was foul play involved? Did anyone bare a grudge against these two men?

Perhaps someone got hold of some extra strong LSD that a work mate was offloading, and maybe he or she really hated Dixon and Toby for all the shit they had given them and decided to get his their own back. Perhaps a handful of Wall.E’s were added to that pot of Earl Grey that went up to Edit 17 a few hours before. Maybe while Dixon and Toby were outside having a Marlborough light, that someone reconnected their edit to Dixon's 'special harddrive' of pornography, to make it look like he had been editing porno clips instead of the tv programme he was meant to be working on. Then that someone, may have just sat back and watched the shit hit the fan, before saving the day.

You could think that but you would be wrong of course….......well mostly.

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

2008-09-30T16:27:00.016+01:00

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

2008-09-29T16:00:00.009+01:00

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

2008-09-22T15:51:00.016+01:00

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

2008-09-20T16:09:00.012+01:00

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....

2008-09-11T15:26:00.011+01:00

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.

An Apology

2008-08-20T22:57:00.011+01:00

I recently posted a story about BBC producer Tarquin Proud. I would like to apologise to anyone who actually thought he drowned while taking a wild swim and checking his Blackberry. Tarquin is alive and well, and has even decided to stop any false web rumours by starting his own blog. Hopefully he wont get his thousand pound-a-minute media lawyer to take every penny of my fully stretched overdraft away from me if I issue this apology. As a lowly paid runner, I might have to work off the legal costs by making him organic earl greys for the rest of my life. So I hereby issue this heartfelt apology to Tarquin’s family, friends and the production team of Chasing Dreams for any inconvenience or offense caused.

E-17

2008-08-13T09:12:00.006+01:00

"Oi Oi! Almans in the house! Get us some fucking coffee will you! You know how we like it - me and Tobes are well strung out! And clean this shit up will you, we've had no runner for six hours over the night, the service here is fucking terrible!! I'm going to complain to Fiona, suggest you work the same hours as us Alman! Put-put-put-put-put...."

Dixon is making my life a fucking hell. Every morning I come in and get the same shit. I thought I was beyond this.

".....put your hands up!"

I dream of flipping the script. Making his life hell, but I can't lose another job can I? Maybe if I work hard I can get moved on to another part of the building, like the machine room or something. Theres this well fit girl down there; she can teach me how to stripe tapes and I can make her tea. It'll be well good. But instead I'm stuck working 17 hour shifts to facilitate Dixons edit binge, scoring chaz and sushi, washed down with the latest beer fad, while Dixon prats about on the internet and dictates to his trusty sidekick how to edit the London way.

"Its a fucking baptism of fire this Tobes, no other fuckers going to give you this opportunity - you stick with me you and you'll go far, maybe even get your own song innit! Don't be like that loser Alman! The running man! He's well Schwarzenegger! Put 'em up! Oh alright Alan, didn't see you there - HA HA HA HA HA!!!! Hows Stella Girl!!!! Probably still recovering from my rough assembly!!! Put-put-put-put....."

I can't take this. One week into the edit of a whole series and the fucker hasn't stopped talking since the first second I laid eyes on his camouflage.

".....your hands up! Only pulling your leg Alan!! Get us a fucking Latte though!! What do you want Tobes? "

Not only do I have to play on this cunts every whim, but the stella girl thing and his comments about Rudyard just add insult to injury. Dixon is my mortal enemy. I will get my revenge. But the question is, how? I can't do anything, I can't. I can barely afford to eat let alone be on the dole. I can't give in not yet. But I can take Dixon out of the equation. Slowly.

"Oi Alman can you get a grande double shot iced mocha-chino, with soya milk for Tobes? Don't bring it back cold though!! Ha ha ha ha!"

"No problem guys!"

Just watch me.

Ape Shall Kill Ape

2008-07-30T08:48:00.022+01:00

Regular readers of the blog will have no doubt encountered my updates on the trials and tribulations of life as a runner in the heart of Soho. These updates have been thin on the ground lately, mainly because I've been in the 'honeymoon period' that comes with a fresh start: new job, new girlfriend etc. life’s been well not too bad really. I’ve just got my head down and worked and ignored the bullshit that goes with it, just smiled and kept the coffee coming, but today that all changed.

The head runner Fiona (more on her in the future), calls me on the runner team mobile (yeah man, this place is so big I need a team mobile, which means I can't even take a shit in peace) and says;

“Alan we've got a new editor coming in today. Apparently he’s the next big thing; all the productions are clamoring to work with him and he’s booked up further in advance than the Ivy! Make sure you look after him properly, we want to impress him in case he can swing productions to bring work our way. Oh, and he’s bringing his assistant along as well if he’s learning from the best he obviously must be good - we must make them feel at home here, give them the VIP treatment. Ive been really impressed with your hard work lately so I think you’re the man for the job.They'll be in Edit 17."

So I go up to E-17 and get the suite ready. Its about 9am, I go downstairs to take the mornings deliveries and prepare the breakfast platter for the new edit (when they really want to impress someone they always get the danish pastries out). Thats when I heard the sound, like an air raid siren bleating through the night.

"Put your hands up!"

Where have I heard that before? I broke into a cold sweat, the nightmarish memories hitting me like a bad acid flashback.

"Put your hands up for Dixon! He loves this facility!!"

Shit. Shit. Shit. Cuntface fucking Dixon.

I hadn't seen Dixon since that fateful day at the last place. I hoped our paths would never again cross, especially after what he had said about Rudyard. But this was only the tip of the iceberg. I walked into reception and there he was, strutting around like a peacock with camouflage feathers.

"Oi oi!! Its only the Alman! Hows it fucking sequencing! So you my runner then! At least someone knows how I like my coffee!"

I was lost for words; a smile spread across my face faker than a Miliband endorsement.

"Well well well Alman your gonna be looking after me and my assistant then. I think you’ve met before!"

And then from behind Dixon appears Toby. "Alman your a runner here, that's well nang"

Trust fucking fund Toby, sporting the latest neon coloured wayfarers, designer goatee and the couture camouflage bathing ape t-shirt. They look like twins. I feel sick.

"Alright Alman! Sort us out some chaz will you, we're going on a edit binge!"

And so it begins.

Let battle commence.....

BBC Producer Dies While Conducting 'Wild Swim'

2008-07-12T00:46:00.028+01:00

I don’t think this story has reached the national papers and just thought I would like to pass on my condolences to anyone who knew Tarquin Proud, series producer of among others 'Chasing Rainbows' and 'Lunchtime Doctor'.

BBC Producer drowns while conducting ‘Wild Swim’.

A BBC producer was dragged to his death in a Devon river while indulging in the latest town and country pursuit of the creative middle classes. Tarquin Proud, 41, was dragged under by strong currents while swimming and attempting to check his Blackberry mobile device in an undisclosed North Devon river. As a keen observer of trends, he was said by colleagues to have been desperate to undertake in this increasingly popular pastime.

A 'Wild Swim' involves taking a innocuous dip in a secluded country river, and has lately gained popularity with the release of a book of the same title, by author Daniel Smart. Articles in 'The Guardian' and 'The Telegraph', have caused a distinct increase in the activity in recent months, with participants distinctly unaware of the dangers of strong river currents and aggressive river fish such as pike. Swimmers are also susceptible to Leptospirosis (commonly known as weil's disease), which can be contracted in river water from rats urine, and results in death in 10% of cases.

Mr. Proud's wife, speaking to the paper from their £625,000 Stoke Newington town house, moved swiftly to warn fellow swimmers of the dangers of wild swimming and urged city dwellers to holiday in safe coast guarded Cornish beach areas such as St.Ives.

Source: North Devon Bugle

Cocogrim

2008-07-10T22:51:00.011+01:00

Regular readers of the blog will remember the posts back in the day, called 'Nu Cunts On The Block' and 'Grimshaw'. I predicted the latter would explode on to your screens like a dirty kay bomb; I wasn't wrong as the cunt was all over the Glastonbury coverage and has got his own show on Radio 1 - fortunately my ears have yet to be poisoned by this as I'm more of a BBC6 man, but I'm sure its as shit as the curly fringed fuckwit.

What I didn't expect to see was the other two all over the telly 'mang'. Thats right, the cococunt twits are starting to get people to believe their own hype and have gained employment from our wonderful television stations. They so have their finger on the pulse of Britain's youth don't they! The moomim-a-like has taken up Sarpongs mantle on T4, and the purveyor of 1990s Spike Lee stylisms has secured herself a prime self-promoting slot on BBC Three's new show 'Class of 2008'.

Apparently this show is introducing Londons latest bright young things to the world - as if they hadn't caused us enough pain with Kate fucking Nash - and it won't be long before the most nausiating one has their own late night chat show with James Corden on the sofa.

What I really want to know is, wheres the rest of the country?? Give some of the bright young things outside of the M25 a leg up for once Auntie.

P.S Notice how I failed to mention Lily Allen once there? Heres why.

1 More Thing I hate About Glastonbury.........

2008-07-05T11:27:00.005+01:00

How everyone wears their security wristband for months afterward, just so everyone knows 'They were there'.

Its not cool, you just look filthy.

Cunts.

10 Things I hate about Glastonbury

2008-06-27T18:02:00.013+01:00

1. Mud and piss and shit and rain and the people in the above picture (shit four already just mud then)

2. People who have gone there solely because it’s the place to go and get your picture taken for a facebook profile.

3. The way it tries to hang on to hippy non conformist credentials when a few years ago purchasing a ticket became some sort of Orwellian big brother nightmare, I mean putting photo id on tickets, do you want the microchip implant as well, fuck off please.

4. BBC, the Guardian etc hooting off constantly about it being the best music festival in the world from the comfort of the media lounge.

5. The fact that there is indeed a great array of music on offer but that your unlikely to get to see much of it,because the place is so big stages are in different postcodes. Unless your happy with the diet of piss weak flavor of the month indie bands that play the Pyramid and Other stages most the time. The Hoosiers, why do they exist again?

6. 177,500 people. Just because some of them might like the same music as me it does not in anyway mean i will like them, just because someone likes the same colour as me it does not mean ill like them either. 177,500 people is a fuck lot of people and a good ninety nine percent of them will probably irritate me.

7. Speaking of which, at several points of the weekend a pervy BBC cameraman will zoom in on a girl in a strap top, straw cowboy hat, big sunglasses and wellies still looking hot despite the traces of mud and vomit over her. First the cameraman will tighten up his focus by zooming into the girls breasts but that bits not shown. What the audience will see is the girl on a blokes shoulders realizing she is on the big video screen and also being broadcast to the whole nation, after being caught like a rabbit in the headlights she will then seize the chance to show how much fun she is having, though not go as far as the classic slutty rock chick and bare her breasts. People always get over excited at festivals as though they really want everyone else to know their having the ‘time of their life’. Nothing you see here is ever going to be as good as these people think it is.

8 Flags (look at me,look at me)

9. Drugs. They are a part of any festival, they can add to the enjoyment and perception of a weekend in a field. They can also make you think your whole head is about to cave in. At Glastonbury the professionals come out to play, no weekend warriors here, these cunts have a different type of Special K for breakfast. Why bother spending all that money to subject your body to three days of torture, they play music at Guantanamo bay as well.

10. Jo Whiley

Am I the only one?

2008-04-20T21:55:00.007+01:00

So I'm sat here watching the Bafta's. Mainly agreeable (bar the fact that Boy A didn't win best single drama, a utter travesty for quite possibly the best piece of television in the last ten years) apart from one glaring piece of turd.

Gavin.

And

Fucking

Stacey.

Am I the only person on this island who finds this programme the most nauseating, self indulgent, prime time cuntwash that has ever graced the screens? Maybe. The fat bloke who loves himself (Gavins mate in said toss) who also doubles as the writer, walked away with some best comedy performance. He beat Mitchell (nominated for Peep Show, quite possibly the best sitcom ever, bar Partridge) and Merchant. After watching his performance on Something for the weekend a few weeks back (a I'm so great bastian of cuntishness pastiche with a layer of I'm famous name dropping), followed up by a disgusting display of unmitigated flirtatious puke on Lily Allens couch (like she'd ever, and the thought of even the possibility makes me want to peel my skin from its bones anyway) made the guy (I don't even care to learn his name) Alan's public enemy number one.

But to my surprise, his award speech was unbelievably humble and grateful, dedicating the award to his co-writer, Saxondales wife. My previous view felt harsh, and my guilt ran deep. I was preparing my apology.

But then said bloke stepped up to accept another award with the rest of the gang, Bryden and all.

Return of the cunt.

Please tell me I'm not the only person who feels this? Is Gavin and Stacey really the genius that we are led to believe? Am I just being harsh, led by my obvious disdain for BBC3 or because every time the news comes on they only mention the fact that G&S won two awards, in turn winding me up? Or just because the writer bloke annoys me and seems to be everywhere at the moment? I don't mind Gavin, he seems like a nice guy. But the other blokes just gets on my nerves! I feel like my judgement is stained. Please tell me, under this intense pressure from the great bastions of our television society saying this series is great, that my vision is somewhat clouded? No it is not. Gavin and fucking Stacey is rubbish. And so is Cranford (The 'I'd rather have a period' school of drama).

Bring back Spaced!

Mother Knows Best

2008-04-17T17:24:00.007+01:00

I've been here a week and I think I'm pretty well positioned to start passing judgment on the people I encounter conducting my duties. Being a bigger facility theres a greater array of weird and wonderful folk, but none more stranger then James, the editor who resides in edit 9.

James is an awkward fuck. He's a slim chap, with a kind of 1990s style floppy hair do that fans of Pop Will Eat Itself used to wear. He wears a tatty brown corduroy suit and bright patterned shirts made from organic cotton. No matter what the weather, a old pair of Birkenstocks that look like hes owned them since he stopped growing adorn his feet. If James was any more eco he would actually be a six foot tall Hessian sack labeled "I am not a plastic bag". If James was any more middle class he would be a semi-detached house in Islington.

His messy English gent style is complimented with the latest Blackberry and Macbook Pro, and an immense need for every single technological advancement in his suite, like hes about to guide the next space launch home from the confides of his edit. Fortunately he also insists on configuring all the settings himself (he has an array of USB drives permanently hanging around his neck containing his personal settings for every piece of software ever created), which makes my job slightly easier. I say slightly because theres more to come.

James likes to mate. How do I know this? Well the man has six children, and hes been insisting on bringing in at least three every day the past week due to the late easter holiday break. Another poor runner has to spend the day offering free childcare for his demanding brood; "Tabatha needs a break, you don't mind do you?".

Just like dog owners, people with children think the whole world loves their spawn as much as they do. Personally I'm with the late Bill Hicks on this one: "Childbirth is no more a miracle then eating food and a turd coming out of your ass."

Media kids in general - Tarquin, Rowan and Sasha etc, all seem (according to their parents) to be special little geniuses. One day they might all grow up and rule the world from behind their TV specs, but to me they generally just seem posh and wet. They could expect years of torment from bullies at school, apart from the fact they're probably sent to special little media kids ones where the alpha males are the kids with the latest iphone, instead of the ones who can do something half decent with a football. Media kids are wrapped in layers of cotton wool and protected from the real world, god knows what would happen if they went to a inner city comprehensive, it would be like dropping the famous five into the Bronx.

This is honestly just the tip of the iceberg though. James is currently indulging his love of children with his current edit job, a upcoming cookery series for new mothers called "New Mum in the Kitchen". The production company have already sold the format to a U.S. network retitled "New Mom in the Kitchen". Do you see what they did there? So just what TV needs, a 6x30 of organic whole food recipes for puking, crying newborns, and tips for their post-natally depressed mother's on how to lose that baby flab. James likes to consider himself a method editor and to get himself in the 'zone' he has been demanding that his cappuccinos be made with his 'special milk' which he brings in every morning in a old thermos flask.

Intrigued as to what was so 'special' about his milk, I couldn't help but ask, thinking he'd reply with "We keep goats at home and Tab's gets me fresh milk from them every morning". I couldn't be further from the truth. Tabs indeed does supply the milk fresh, but it doesn't come from goats.

Having six children means that Tabs has had to have a certain amount of milk on tap for years now; and even though its been a while since she popped the last one out, the family (James included) has developed a distinctive taste for her own special blend of Cravendale. This has seen her invest in a breast pump to keep her brood full up on all manner of lactational treats, from breast milkshakes and hot chocolates for the younger ones, to lattes and cappuccinos for James. She has set up a 'no teat' rule on his request; he's insistent that to have the children sucking on her breasts now that they are slightly older would be socially unacceptable. Drinking her milk in a cappuccino seems absolutely fine in his book though!

So thats what I've been doing in the mornings lately, making cappuccinos from Tabs' breastmilk. James seems to love it so much, that he pretty much uses up all his supplies by lunchtime. But fortunately for him, theres a coffee shop round the corner that offers the same service. I am not kidding. So if anyone out there ever fancies it, you too can get yourself a lovely tasty breast milk cappuccino.

You have to wonder whose supplying it though.

Answers on a postcard.........

A Fresh Start; The Office

2008-04-09T09:52:00.004+01:00

I cautiously knocked on the MD's door trying to judge the ratta-tap-tap somewhere between self assured and not too cocky. It was only my second day and I wanted to tread very carefully. My last encounter with the upper echelons of media power still smarted; I wanted to get this right. The MD had requested my presence in his office and it was an encounter I wanted to go as smoothly as possible this early in my employment.

A deep voice commanded through the door.

"Enter."

I opened the door.

"Ah Alan - our new runner, take a seat."

I already knew a lot about Stephen, the boss. The facility grapevine had fed me some gossip and the tragic story of recent events pretty much as soon as I was through the door on my first day.

Stephen had recently come out of the other side of a a particularly bitter divorce, with his wife pretty much taking the denim shirt of his back and giving only fleeting monthly meetings with his children for the foreseeable future. It was only by employing the talents of a divorce lawyer so expensive and talented (he would have even made Heather Mills shit it), that he kept hold of the facilities house from the clutches of his ex-wife. Stephen apparently didn't really have a leg to stand on in most of the proceedings (absolutely no pun intended relating to the previous paragraph!); there would have been many evenings when he could have gotten away with receiving a blow job from a Soho rent boy in his office, but alas for Stephen the night of the company Christmas party his wife had organised was not one of them.

Although caught trousers down, Stephen had aparently been devastated by the breakup. Thrown out of the family home, he spent two months sleeping in his office watching his wedding video on a loop and listening to Coldplay and Dido albums. Now he seemed to be getting himself back on track, and has bought himself a bachelor pad in Vauxhall.

He sat the other side of the desk and stared at me as though examining the like of which he had not encountered before. Stephen was cut from a different cloth than the posing prick who owned the last place I worked. He seemed a bit more old school; clad in the fifty-somethings uniform of head to toe denim, widely know as 'The Clarkson' in fashion circles. Eventually with a theaatrical flourish he began.

"I've already heard good things about you Alan. Keep it up and you could go far here. There are only two things you really need to remember...... one there are no glass ceilings here.... and two...... I like my coffee black, strong and no sugar, none of these poncey frappa-latte things."

And with that he wished me luck and motioned me out of his office. Not bad I think, I got out of that one alive. Must remember how he likes his coffee though. Strong and black, that's easy enough...........

As according to the office rumour, its how he likes his men as well!

Sugar Daddy

2008-04-06T21:01:00.004+01:00

Another year, another series of The Apprentice. Now, you probably think I'm about to give the show both barrels - well your wrong.

The Apprentice is the most entertaining show on television. Why? I'll tell you.

First we have Sugar himself, the king of sarcasm. With great lines such as "You need to stick to that sale like shit to a blanket" I can quite easily forgive the fact that he looks like a angry hedgehog. Sugar is pure entertainment; he knows how to play the game and to keep the most annoying contestants in as long as possible. They're the ones the public want to watch, they get the ratings and Sugar gets more cash - the mans a genius! I actually remember watching the original American version of The Apprentice with Donald Trump (I've never understood why one of the richest men in the world can't afford a decent hairpiece) and while entertaining, Sugar blows that shit right out of the water.

But its not just Sugar that makes the show - its the contestants. The girls spend all their time arguing, and the boys wooping and hi-fiving each other. They're generally all quite posh (with the addition of a few token 'geezers' and self-made ghetto kids), and are as thick as pig shit, having spent the majority of their privileged lives banging on about how great they are at 'sales' and forgetting to learn any common sense. I wouldn't be surprised if they had motivational words tattooed on to the inside of their eyelids so they can can focus on winning even with their eyes closed. In any normal situation I would run a mile, but by giving these idiots simple tasks to do which their combination of egos ultimately always fucks up makes for utterly riveting television.

This series has already set a benchmark in a stupidity, which is a considerable achievement at such an early stage in proceedings. The teams (which I would personally call 'testorone' and 'estrogen') were set the task of running a launderette. The boys were managed by Raef, who was constantly edited laughing like a crazed megalomaniac, and also featured Vicky Pollards brother (he's done a food hygiene course apparently). The monumentally frog stupid girls team, managed by Jenny (who looks like a female version of footballer Darren Anderton), tried to charge their clients £4.99 to wash a pillowcase, and also lost a mass of their clients clothes. This was discovered AFTER they had begged these people for tips, a sequence which hasn't caused me to cringe so much since watching Borat. These 'business' decisions were met with absolute derision by Sugar, and the girls reacted by arguing like mad and pointing the finger at each other, with the upper crust Lucinda feeling the force of the rest of the team. Suffice to say the boys won. Thankfully Sir Alan fired the boring one and we can look forward to many more weeks of bungling and backstabbing.

I'm yet to make judgment on the rest of the contestants, but my first impressions tell me that the ex-army guy is going to win it, but I'm not really that fussed to be honest. The most important thing is that at last, theres finally some television that I can sit down and watch.

Thanks Sugar!

A Taste Of Paradise

2008-04-03T11:00:00.008+01:00

Regular readers will remember I came across a particular nasty development gurus ideas book a few months back. I completely forgot about this until having a clearout at the other day (well I have got time on my hands the moment), so heres the best of the rest...........

Tate and Kyle (30x30, ITV1)

Jeremy Kyle takes guests from his early morning chat show to the Tate Britain, to see if art can solve their problems.

Wheres Wallace? (1 x 120, More4)

Danny Wallace has another drunken bet with Celebrity house mate Dave Gorman, and challenges him to be able to spot him in mass crowds at the worlds pilgrimages. Think Way of St. James, the Hajj, Vatican city Rome, Lourdes France, Santiago de Compostela Spain, and Fatima Portuga. More4 are all over this.

Bounty Hunters (15x60 + 1xCeleb Special)

On a scale not seen since the heady days of Challenge Anneka, Treasure Hunt and the Interceptor, the mass UK wide gameshow format returns to ITV. Two teams of intrepid Bounty Hunters are given a list of dangerous criminals to hunt down, capture and deliver to the authorities to claim an array of amazing prizes. High adrenaline, high octane, dangerous, daring and breathtaking; the UK will be glued to their seats as the whole nation goes Bounty Hunting. This is going to be huge!!!! Presented by Duane 'Dog' Chapman and teams guided and trained by his wife and sons.

Pete and Diddy (6x30 BBC3 or E4)

Pete Doherty and P-Diddy join forces to create a hip-hop indie fusion hit and the cameras are there every step of the way.

May Days (6x30 BBC2)

James May sets off on a personal mission to compete in the most bizarre ancient British customs know to man, from cheese rolling and bog snorkelling, to tar barrelling. If May's not interested then Fogles definately your man.

Wife Shock (Ch5 1x60)

When wives go mad it can sometime end with some of the most horrific ramifications. John Wayne Bobbit had his penis severed by his wife Lorena (a popular revenge act for Thai Ladies as well), Kerrang! DJ Tim Shaws wife sold his Lotus Esprit on Ebay and Jane got her revenge by hiring out a advertising board. This is just the tip of the iceberg - hell surely hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Friends of Fogle (BBC1 30x30)

New flagship Saturday morning chatshow hosted by the ever loveable Ben Fogle. Every week Ben will be joined by the nicest celebrity guests, who join him for a cup of tea and a piece of cake. There will be music, animals, DIY tips - Ben will even be cooking! This has the potential to be huge - think Blue Peter for adults. Everyone loves Fogle don't they? Ross won't be happy but fuck him, hes got enough money. Fogle is the future!

The Runner Strikes Back

2008-03-30T02:01:00.006+01:00

So I had a job interview last week - I bet your all wandering how I got on. Its in Soho and I got there with plenty of time to spare. Made sure I got my classic runners garb on - got to make sure they think you can fit in, always good to make a good impression and first impressions always last. The interview flew by; I seemed to get on well with them and fielded there questions like a pro, but you can never tell what they really think of you. They toured me round the facility and introduced me to the other runners; this was going more than well! But they still left it hanging saying they were interviewing all day and would get back to me within the week.

So fast forward to today. The phone rang.

I only got it!

Its a bigger facility but very similar to the last. I start on Monday. Really looking forward to a fresh start and meeting new people. I can finally draw a line under Rudyardgate and get on with my life, and try and get my career back on track. But the best thing? No more fucking Dixon!!!

Things are on the up again.

A New Hope

2008-03-27T11:01:00.006Z

I've got a job interview today!

Wish me luck..........

"Alan, can i have minute.........."

2008-03-19T16:39:00.005Z

"..........of course, in fact you can have two." I answered to the facilities manager's question.

There was a sense of foreboding in the air; my outburst last week had hung heavy round my neck like a particularly overweight albatross. In fact I was amazed it hadn't been a instant dismissal, it can only have been the madness and anger in my eyes that had stopped them sacking me on the spot. Perhaps they were now afraid of me, worried that i might really snap and do a Soho version of Columbine. The thought had crossed my mind a few times while playing Call of Duty 4 on my X Box at three in the morning, but I had concluded that a murder spree was a bad career move. In the last few days I had become a social pariah, no one talked to me. I hadn't even been asked to make any cups of tea since Rudyardgate.

So there she was, shepherding me into a empty edit suite clutching a brown envelope, containing without doubt my P45. My mind wondered to the scene in Goodfellas when Joe Pesci's character thinks he's gonna get 'made' and instead gets a bullet in the head; what differs is that I had no misapprehension about the subject of this 'meeting'. One thing that unites the lowly runner and the channel exec is that at some point you will probably cop a bullet, get the boot, the sack, shown the door, sling your hook - and it doesn't help if you have called the boss a cunt. So here's how it went down:

"Alan I'm sure you have an idea whats this about."

"Sorry I'm not sure." I answered.

"Last week Alan, your little outburst."

I went silent and let her talk. Don't really see your future here, don't fit in as well as others, not sure what direction you want to take, think you might find a better fit elsewhere.... My eyes glazed over, I nodded and refrained from telling here to go fuck herself.

Sometimes its best to take whats coming to you on the chin, talking only makes it worse. I need to find a new job and any more discrepancies in my reputation will spread round the industry quicker than a fire in a Japanese tea house. This looks like the end.

For now.

Fickle Hearts of Darkness

2008-03-13T23:10:00.007Z

I was briskly walking through Dean Street on the way to work when I noticed a single lily tied to the railings at the side of the road. It was beautiful, almost poignant - a solitary beauty shining through the grit and stress of the city mid-morning. I was suddenly overcome with emotion, but I couldn't put my finger on it; this sight had triggered something deep within me. I wanted to stop and absorb the moment but couldn't as I was running late, so had to quickly move on.

When I got into work, people were gathered round in the lobby talking. Several runners, the facilities manager, Dixon and even the MD. Just my luck - late for work and I have a welcoming committee. Then Erika on reception calls me over and greets me with her dulcet tones (shes a bit thick and has this really dull voice, she stretches out my name so it comes out more like Aaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllaaaaan, its really annoying).

“Alan have you heard the news?”

Great - not even been in the office for five minutes and already I’m going to have to pretend to be interested in Fincham’s latest career move. I replied no, resisting the temptation to admit that I have better things to do than surf Production Base and Broadcast Now all evening.

“That editor up in the Yentob, the old dude - Rod - or whatever he was called, him in the Yentob suite”

“Rudyard… I thought they finished up last night.”

“Yeah they did, but not until early this morning after the executives changes. It was light when he left, and he was on his way home. But he only got as far as Dean Street. Oh Alan its so sad.”

The flower.

Then Toby piped up.

"A Soho courier on his bike smashed into him. He got a bike wheel in one side of his head and the kerb in the other. Well fucked him up. They said he died instantly. The courier didn’t even have a scratch on him.”

It can't be. Rudyard. He can't be dead. I only saw him yesterday. We were going to work together - he was going to give me my big break.

Then Dixon, cuntface Dixon, chips in. “Did you see how he cut? It was like watching someone in slow motion. If he crossed the road the same way no wonder the poor bugger got a bicycle wrapped round him .” Toby (who has recently become Dixons fucking sidekick) sniggered.

No-one else seemed to hear them, but I was in utter disbelief at these cunts - a good mans died and they find it fucking funny? Something exploded within in me like a reactor. I wanted to scream, I wanted to put them in their place. I wanted to say:

“You bunch of self obsessed fickle heartless fucking cunts, all of you. ALL OF FUCKING YOU.”

Then everyone went silent. All eyes were suddenly on me, their faces painted with a look of utter disgust. The MD's jaw dropped like someone had just keyed his Porsche (or stuffed prawns under the lining of his seat). And it was then that I realised.

I realised that I had actually said it out loud this time.

Run Love

2008-03-12T23:01:00.004Z

Been hanging out with Rudyard again today - its his last day before his holiday so hes been showing me loads of tricks and telling me stories while he waits for his viewing and no doubt a late night after a million changes by the executive producer.

We got on to the subject of the king of porn, Paul Raymond passing away last week. Back in the sixties, Rudyard used to edit blue movies in the heart of Soho before getting his break in films. "Good old Raymond, he gave me one of my first jobs. Even though it was on the blueys, it got me that vital experience and I'm eternally grateful to him, god rest his soul." He welled up talking about him, it seemed they were close and he was obviously moved by his death so I quickly changed the subject.

I found out that he was also a edit assistant for David Lean on Doctor Zhivago. "Mr.Lean started as a teaboy himself so he was always very good to me; in fact I've never heard anyone ask for a cup of tea with the politeness of Mr.Lean, he was a absolute gent. Some of the directors and editors of today could learn a lot more than just the art of film making from a great man like him".

We also joked about the other edits in the building "Have you seen those two in the Attenborough at the moment? Theres a short one and a taller chubby one, both wearing those awful spectactles - they look like the two ronnies!" This was a man right after myself! We laughed long and loud. Then all of a sudden he stopped laughing and went all serious. I wandered if I'd said something out of turn, or if my blog had been rumbled. I was shitting myself, I'd never seen Rudyard look like this before. My hands went clammy. Finally after what seemed like an age, he began to talk. "Alan dear boy, I'm getting to old for this business. I need a break, I need to enjoy life - the time has come for me to retire. But I feel like I need someone to replace me, someone who I can pass all the wonderful things I've learned on to who I know will appreciate it. I've been struggling to find someone suitable; everyone I meet talks hot air about grading and vignettes and never about the art of storytelling. But then you walked into my edit and I knew instantly. I'd like that someone to be you Alan."

Milk.

And.

Fucking.

Two!

This is amazing! When he gets back from Tuscany, hes going to give me a job as his assistant and start getting me work cutting as much as possible - that way he can start to enjoy his free time and his vintage wine collection. He's also going to get me a broadcast credit as his assistant for the sequence I cut on the weekend dropped in on the online, he just needs to check with his producer tomorrow before he catches the plane. This is my big break, this is it! No more making tea, running across fucking Soho dropping tapes off, collecting lunches and all the other shit that goes with being a runner! This is a life changing moment. My name up in lights on the BBC for everyone to see. All my dreams are coming true!

Maybe I can update my blog: The Secret Diary of a Broadcast Editor! Don't worry I won't forget my roots, I know where I've come from and I won't ever treat runners the way I've been treated.

I know where to get my own fucking latte! Run love.

On The Edit Bench

2008-03-09T20:40:00.006Z

Often due to overrunning, executive changes or generally just because they can, editors will want to work on the weekend. This of course involves me having to come in and make tea and collect lunches for them, and generally sit around for most of the day doing nothing.

This weekend though was different.

Rudyard wanted to come in as he needs to leave his edit early to take a holiday in Florence. Normally, the editors will just get on with what they have to do - not Rudyard. He appears to have seen the potential in me, as he insisted I sit in on his edit all day today so he could teach me the art of cutting.

It was amazing; one on one tuition from the best editor I've ever met. He showed me the importance of a creative approach to the material while also considering the impact of your choices on the viewer. Where Dixon shows off and throws all manner of worthless plug-ins at a shot and only considers how cool it looks, Rudyard only considers its worth in the programmes overall narrative.

Then something amazing happened - he insisted I cut a sequence! Alan Runner, taken under the wing of the best editor in the business and now cutting a broadcast television show! Today was quite possibly the best day of my life. If I can stay in with Rudyard, who knows what the future may hold for me. Freelance wages, the respect of my peers - maybe even the odd holiday! Things are looking up for me, this has been a very good weekend.

Thankyou Rudyard.

Home

2008-03-07T23:00:00.002Z

As a runner and living on a measly wage, it generally means you have no choice but to house share with as many people as possible. I'm currently sharing with 8 people; a mixed bunch, and we're all crammed into a spooky old Victorian house on the wrong side of the tracks.

The kitchen is the social hub of the place (we don't have a front room as the landlord wants as much rent out of the place as possible, I'll come to her later), so you generally only ever see the other inmates when they cook, otherwise they just hole themselves up in their rooms. First theres Aron, or as I like to call him 'The Man With The Red Face". Aron's a big lad and carries a lot of weight. He works on the underground and his cheeks look like he lives on a permenant diet of game birds - its as red as a smacked ass. He spends the majority of his time talking guff about the internet to me; I really couldn't care less about his avatar in Second Life. With all this time spent in front of the computer, Aron likes to spend as little time as possible cooking. Hes the only person I've ever known to buy pre-sliced mushrooms. His fingers look like chipolata sausages as well, just in case you wandered.

Then we have Kate. Kate has lived in this house since time began, and therefore thinks she has 'squatters rights' and first dibs on all the best cupboards and the most freezer space. She hordes shit in every corner of the house - like Mr.Trebus from life of grime. I've taken to calling her 'Bakery Squirrel', as when shes not alphabetically storing tupperware boxes full of her own faeces, she bakes cakes (a lot of fucking cakes) for her friends at work. I think shes probably got the ice man buried in the garden as well.

Steffan is a city high-flyer from Germany with a penchant for lap dancing. He has a membership at Spearmint Rhino, and Peter Stringfellows personal phone number. The rest of the week he spends his evenings traveling across London to various Salsa classes, as he swears this is the best place to pick up Women; apparently they love the rhythm in his hips. I think its probably because they're all quite ugly and gagging for it, but he doesn't seem to really give a shit.

Every now and again while cooking my cheap pasta meal I bump into Glynn; a crazy welsh lad who seems to be permanently fucked in one sense or another. Hes the kind of person who is able to juggle a impossible intake of drugs and hold down a utterly amazing job - hes my favourite of the bunch. The only part of his personality I can't take is that when we run out of toilet paper he will use what ever is to hand - mainly the Yellow Pages - if we ever need a plumber we're fucked.

There's three more house mates, but I'll come back to them in the future. So that just leaves me with my landlord.

Gabriella looks like a Brazilian prostitute. She struts around in mini skirts and skimpy vests, and is often accompanied by her boyfriend who looks like a club owner from Phoenix nights (he actually wears a sequiened jacket). She aspires to be a actress, and has dreams of going to RADA. I haven't the heart to tell her she'd be about as useful as a chocolate teapot on stage at the National. Fortunately for her, she has her singing to fall back on. She entered the X-Factor last year, and was featured in the show - during the montage of the shittest auditions of the series.

So thats my home life - expensive, cramped and cold but home all the same. At least it gives me a break from the toils of the facility.

And even more blog material!

The Nightwatch Man

2008-03-06T08:36:00.001Z

Because Editors such as Dixon always insist on working late (probably becuase its more fun at work then going back to your Mums house where he still lives), 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. 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 Albert.

While you've got all the people in the building fabricating documentary stories (Fatman Slim is one we've got in at the moment - they just put fat people on a fucking crash diet but they keep sneaking off for fry ups, how interesting), if any of them spent five minutes talking to Albert instead of just loving the sound of their own hot air they could produce some of the best television in years.

Albert used to be a spy. He's killed men with his bare hands and survived in the coldest, remotest Russian wildernesses. Ray Mears hasn't got shit on this dude. He regales stories of espionage, winding tales of escaping the Russian secret police and smuggling East German informants across the border at the height of the Stasi. Apparently hes only working in this post house as part of his re-integration back into society, he's a wanted man and needs the cover provided by working as a humble nightwatch man.

Albert, to put it simply is a legend. For all I know everything that comes out of his mouth could be utter bollocks, but the way he tells his stories, make me feel alive again. Then the phone rings. Fucking Dixon wants some sushi.

"Same time tomorrow Albert?"

The Buddha of Soho

2008-03-04T09:00:00.004Z

There's a edit on at the moment where the director has just returned from a six week shoot in Nepal and Tibet. Of course she wants the world to know what an amazing place it is and how it effected her spritually. "I got there a few weeks early before the shoot started. I felt at home as soon as i landed in Thamel, all the locals there wear North Face - it was like being at a TV conference!" I overheard her tell Dixon. This female director now seems to think she is some sort of buddhist spritualist, its like the Dalai Lama is in the bloody building.

She wears a pashmina, gets runners to leave thier shoes outiside the edit suite when they bring in drinks, and does a little bow of the head and puts her hands together in some sort of psuedo spritual way whenever she finishes a sequence she's happy with. Its a shame she's working on "Kyle Mclachlan: In Search of Snowcats" for Discovery US - not exactly going to change the world with that one! Also, I'm no expert on the ways of buddhism, but I'm guessing this director hasn't quite mastered one of its fundimental principles - not being a cunt to people. At the moment she is sending me all over london in search of Dhal Bhat "Just like you get in a Himilyan tea house." The smell of her now strict vegan diet filtering through into the edit suite come late afternoon nearly had me feeling sorry for Dixon having to sit next to her as well.

Well nearly.

I Am Spartacus

2008-02-28T10:01:00.008Z

I'm starting to feel something might be happening here. As more people read my tortured tales of the shit end of TV perhaps there is some sort of groundswell of support forming. Perhaps together we could make a change!!

I'm thinking off launching national 'fuck off and get your own latte day'. With enough support, maybe every runner in the country could at the same time turn round and say "I'm not paid enough for this shit - you can get your own latte today!". If we all got together and said fuck off what could they do? If every Producer/Director/Exec etc was suddenly forced to see that runners all over the country are underpaid and treated like shit they might be forced to change things (these people have generally never been runners themselves, so do not understand how demeaning it is to be treated the way they treat us!).

We could all revolt - what would they do? Have to stay late doing pointless jobs (watching media copy springs to mind). Do their own fucking digitising! Learn how to make a cup of tea (and not complain its not to your taste because you made it yourself!) Actually get a suntan by leaving the edit suite to collect their own lunch! This could actually be liberating for all involved.

We can change the future. We can make a pledge to stick together, and to never treat people the way we were treated! Runners of the world unite! Lets make the future a better place for all the runners who have yet been born. It could be like the scene in Spartacus when everyone pretends to be him so the Romans can't kill old bum chin Douglas. Minus the homo-erotica of course.

You in?

Put Your Hands Up For Dexter

2008-02-25T21:54:00.008Z

I've given ITV a few knocks recently - not least for being the chaviest of the terrestrial stations (don't get me started on Linda Lusardi on Dancing On Ice with her cowboy routine on Saturday - you should stick to getting your tits out love); but this Wednesday the channel has the potential to rise like a phoenix from the flames.

Dexter (ITV1 Wednesday 10.35PM) is quite simply the best television drama I have ever seen (the internet is a wonderful place), and for ITV1 to sign up this show is surely a masterstroke by their acquisitions department. The show centres on Miami police department blood spatter analyst Dexter Morgan; who in his spare time just happens to be a serial killer. But Dexter doesn't kill anyone; he only kills other serial killers, and somehow this makes his whole character criminally endearing. The production values are top notch; from script to screen the whole show oozes class and the story is utterly captivating.

I will not spoil any of the plot, and lets just hope ITV1 have also signed up for Season 2 - which somehow even manages to surpass the first in its excellence. Forget Lost, 24 and Prison Break - Dexter is simply the best imported Drama you will see on television this year. It won't be long before everyones talking about it (especially that snake eyed witch on the radio). So don't miss out on the chance to finally see some decent television.

If only I could hire Dexter to dispose of Dixon? I can only dream. He did give me something to smile about today though. He turned up for his edit in a sour mood - he'd wanked the best part of £500 on match tickets yesterday to watch the media club of choice lose the cup to Tottenham. He was acting like he actually cared about the match but the prick can only name about five Chelsea players - I've got a feeling he only went so he could tell everyone "The match? Yeah I was there bruv! Blinding mate. Put your fucking hands up!". But instead he found out that no-one actually cared. They were more concerned with taking the piss out of his shit new semi-mohican haircut. Which he'd even died blue for the game.

What.

A.

Cunt!

An Edit For Old Men

2008-02-22T18:58:00.005Z

“It must be something pretty important if your going to open up the Yentob” Erika on reception told me as she handed me the keys. It was a rare event indeed that the mythical edit 15 was being opened up; this was the most exclusive of suites, pimped to the max with a Italian designer sofa and a original Banksy hanging on the wall. It was shrouded in secrecy with only the very top runners being able to enter and take drinks in; when any of them did they never spoke about it, sworn to silence in fear of their jobs. I always presumed they cut porn in there - the facility wanted the blue pound but kept it quiet.

I found myself in this intriguing position after being accosted by the facilities manger. She had asked "Alan, could I have a word with you in private". By past experience this usually meant a bollocking. My heart sank. I must have been seen nipping into Borders when I was meant to be delivering some tapes - was this it? Was I going to be put out of my misery and be given the boot? I sheepishly walked in.

“Now you’ve been with us for a while now haven’t you”

“Few months isn’t it” I replied, grimacing at the oncoming bullet.

“Well you might have heard we have a edit going into the Yentob, and I thought you would be best to look after it.”

I was shocked.

“It’s a landmark series Alan - confidential stuff. What you see in the Yentob, stays in the Yentob right.”

I nodded.

“Of course, its not like I’m going to go post it on the internet or anything is it!” (I didn’t actually say that, but couldn’t resist adding it later, come on John Grierson got away with much worse!).

So who will be working in the Yentob? It must be someone important. I walked into the kitchen and fucking trustfund Toby was there, stuffing toast into his mouth. “You got the Yentob, good luck, have you seen who’s in there? He looks well Grandad! He wants a coffee taken up with his Sanatogen - re-record not fade away!”

Televisions a bit like the film Logan’s Run - its obsessed with youth and oldies are ‘retired’ early when they stop being able to work the Video timer. As I tentatively entered the suite, the editor turned to look at me.

“Do you like dogs young man? I cant stand the bloody things but its work isn’t it......"

The editor Rudyard was a real old timer, an elder statesman. Piles of classic musical CD's covered the desk and there wasn't a Mac Book in sight. He looked a bit like Ken Russell with big red cheeks - one too many glasses of port with Dr Johnson maybe. He was also by far he nicest editor I had ever met. A real kind gent of a man. He was working on a high profile ‘landmark’ BBC documentary called ‘A year in the life of the Queen’s corgi’s’. It looked about as interesting as a 14 hour digitising shift for Time Team, but there was no denying the quality of the programme. Watching Rudyard work was fantastic; not obsessed with speed like so many editors he cut at his own pace, making each edit work perfectly for the benefit of the films story.

He took me under his wing and let me sit in with him - I think he rather liked the company and telling his stories to someone young. He regaled great anecdotes about cutting on a Steenbeck; “Get it on the edit bench dear boy”, and how he had worked on World in Action. He was as wise as Mother Nature. He wound tales of old Soho and cutting feature films with all the greats; this was the kind of talented person I had dreamed of meeting in the TV industry instead of the charlatans and show offs I regularly had to wait on. IE cuntface Dixon.

I've had a really good day today and things are looking up. If I can spend as much time with Rudyard as I can I might actually learn something useful and poignant about the art of storytelling. And corgis.

The Carwash

2008-02-19T23:29:00.005Z

As a runner you have to listen to peoples crap excuses all day and why they can’t do anything themselves. For instance I’ll get a call on my CB: “Alan – Edit 11 wants a GBK and is to busy to take a lunch break, can we go out and get him one?" (Note they always say we when there’s certainly no fucking we involved its just yours truly). In truth, the words that should have came out of that room were probably something along the lines of: "I'm too fucking lazy to leave this room, send a runner out to get me my lunch so I can feel all high and mighty while I burn what’s left of my already shoddy retinas (hence the black rimmed spectacles) by fixating them on this monitor for the next 48 hours”.

But this sort of things expected. This is what runners are employed to do and you come into the industry expecting to do things like this. You have to do the shit jobs.

But sometimes people really take the piss. People will ask you to do those things that just really cross the line. Travel to Highgate to walk their dog, clean some cunts fish tank out, polish their shoes - go and let their fucking decorators in! This isn’t in the job description! It's aimed at purely degrading the poor runner. Which brings me on to today's events.

Recently my boss purchased a Porshe Carrera for 70 odd grand, an amazing penis substitute of a car. The sort of machine that would make Jeremy Clarkson soil his pants in joy. You would think for that price it would come with its own 24 hour a day pit team like Formula One cars have. No. Wanting to keep his new cock extension constantly clean (but not wanting to spend five pounds on taking it through a car wash), he approached me.

“Hey Alan. You know my new Carrera. Could we perhaps give it a bit of a wash over?”

I thought he was joking because he was definitely taking the piss.

“I've got a big meeting this afternoon and am taking her along. Its really for the good of the company she looks her best”.

What do you say to that? “Fuck off. I didn’t do a media studies degree for three years and get into thousands of pounds in debt to clean your fucking car you complete prick”.

No. You smile, keep your head down and fill a bucket of water. Go downstairs and throw it over the car, conquer the huge desire to key it all the way down the side or pull a Ferris Bueller, and slowly scrub, shammy and apply wax for hours. By the end the cars sparkling, free of the dirt of the city and looking its best. Then you stuff a couple of left over prawns underneath the leather lining of the seat, and fuck off to Oxford street with a big, big smile on your face.

Points Of View

2008-02-18T21:15:00.005Z

18th February 2008

Dear Mr.Controller,

Last week heralded the re-launch of BBC3 (or should I call it 'Three'). You obviously spent millions removing the quite brilliant Aardman idents and replacing them with the pink logo, I have to ask why. Also, to celebrate this monumental occasion you launched the night with ‘Phoo Action’; a translation of a comic strip aired in Face Magazine in 1996, which was created by Gorillaz artist Jamie Hewlett. It sounded good so I tuned in; just what you needed to wrestle those viewers back from Skins!

You obviously thought so to. I imagine you wanking over your own brilliance, as you immediately commissioned the program for a whole series before the pilot went out.

Big mistake.

Phoo Action is quite possibly the worst thing I’ve seen on television for a long time. The production values are utter toss: it’s over lit, there’s no definition to the picture and every shot has a headache of neon splattered across it. The program was edited together like a poor mans Mighty Boosh, and the music so on the cutting edge of cool it’ll be probably be out of fashion by tomorrow. The story line was clunky, (something about a basketball headed mutant murdering the queen?) - and the direction and acting wouldn't have looked out of place in a Carry On film. Hot new ‘talent’ Jaime Winstone was akin to Barbera Windsor faffing about in hot-pants, while another Bruce-Lee-A-Like character was like Sid James at his calamitous best. Also, if I see one more thing referencing that fucking yellow suit from Kill Bill I will honestly slit my wrists. Unfortunately all the finger-on-the-pulse creative’s you employ seem to think this is the epitome of cool from the Far East; how further could they be from the truth. I think my fate is sealed. Not even Apollo Creed as the police officer could stop me. He should have stuck with Rocky.

So I'll just leave you with a word of advice - if you want something to look Japanese import it in from Japan. Check out Samurai Champloo – you could’ve saved a fortune by buying this in. It also benefits from actually being good as well! Plus it has DJ scratchy stuff so the kids will love it yeah! Oh and next time you commission a whole series on the strength of it being appealing to 14 years olds, put it on CBBC – the poor kids haven’t got Grange Hill anymore.

Yours sincerely,

A.Runner
(Age 23 ¾)

PS: I just caught Lily on the Iplayer. That was shit as well.

St.Valentines Day Massacre

2008-02-14T19:00:00.011Z

Regular readers might have picked up I rather like a girl at work nicknamed Stella girl. Her real name is Gemma but everyone calls her Stella Girl because she made the faux pass of buying some cans of Stella Artois instead of expensive Japanese bottled imports when she was sent out to get some beers. While everyone else thinks shes a bit of calamity, I happen to think shes really cute. I don't mind wiping up the slugs trail of coffee that she leaves behind her when shes delivering drinks, or taking the blame when she fucks someones lunch order up. I’m not great with the ladies but I decided I'd go for Valentines; I think she likes me, she laughs at my jokes and sometimes twiddles her hair when we talk (I’ve heard that’s good).

Valentines day started well. I was in the kitchen waiting for her to check in, knowing full well what was waiting for her on the front desk. Toby (another runner) came in, happy as usual as he hasn’t got a care in the fucking world. He just works as a runner while he waits for the trust fund to kick in, and Daddy gives him a fat weekly wedge to top up his measly runners paycheck. Toby stood there in his American Apparel garb looking like a glowsticks vomited over him, and starts making conversation with me even though I tried my best to ignore him in case Gemma showed up. He continued to spew out some shit about his band, six twats and a drum machine, who are apparently playing at Bestival this year. I have no interest in this at all, but then suddenly he says: “Did you see Stella girl got some flowers for Valentines?”.

Of course I know this. I sent them to her. But trying to play it cool I answered: “Really? When did that happen”.

“Just before lunch, she’s well happy”.

Everything was going to plan. “Does she have any idea who sent them?” I asked.

Toby smiled “ This is what’s great right, she thinks Dixon sent them to her but he didn’t”.

"DIXON!? What! Why does she think Dixon, Dixon the editor would have sent them”.

“Because Dixon’s been pumping Stella girl since the Christmas party behind his missus’ back, even did it in the Fincham once - I thought everyone knew that, he was flexing his muscles at the CCTV while banging her. He's posted the tapes on x-tube if you want to watch it. Dixons a legend!”

Dixon….Dixon DIXON FUCKING CUNTFACE!!!

“Dixon’s gonna get his balls proper dipped for the flowers and he didn’t even send them!” (makes dj motions with his hands) "Put your hands up for Dixon!".

I was in complete shock, I felt like I had been kicked in the balls. I stared into his smug trustafarian face as he sniggered away doing Dixons stupid catchphrase, and I actually felt my right hand tense into a fist. If I hit him hard enough, right in the middle of his face, then maybe I could send his nose cartilage right into his brain killing him instantly.

But instead, I went outside and smoked a cigarette. This is just my fucking luck, I finally grow some balls and once again I get shat on by the tosser whos higher up in the industry than me. I went back in the kitchen and the phone rang. It was Dixon after his usual cup of 'Builders'.

Rather than say something I just got on and did it. What a pussy. But little did Dixon know, that teabag that I'd been keeping up my ass crack for the past two weeks (just in case anyone really fucked me off, a trick I learnt from a friend of mine) made him a lovely cup of (organic) tea. He even rang to state the fact. So although I've lost the girl, I may still win the war. This is just the beginning. Put your fucking hands up now Dixon!

The Devil and Jamie Oliver

2008-02-12T18:58:00.009Z

Channel Four have found once again found themselves in hot water with OFCOM, but this time its golden cockney love boy Jamie Oliver pushing them in head first.

In his programme 'Jamie At Home' the naughty little scamp prominently used his own invention 'the flavour shaker' for two whole minutes (describing in detail how to make a dressing using it), and the item featured prominently again in a later broadcast.

Two viewers complained.

He also slit a sheeps throat in 2005 for Channel 4's Jamie's Great Escape, and suffocated baby chicks and electrocuted Chickens for Jamies Fowl Dinners. He is surely Satan personified.

More tremendous journalism from the Daily Mail.

Everybody loves Dixon…..

2008-02-11T13:00:00.004Z

.....but I think he’s a tosser. Every facilities house has one, the cooler than fuck editor. I have to put up with Dixon, a twenty six year old wannabe wide-boy, freelance editor who everybody seems to think is some sort of messiah just because he can cut quickly and bang shit out. Everything with Dixon is a competition; he once cut a whole series of the kids in debt show 'Bankbusters' in a five day coke fueled edit binge to prove he's faster than everyone else; no one seemed to notice it was utter bollocks.

Dixon has every gadget going and has a designer hands free kit permanently attached to his ear. He dresses like he has fallen out of a couture army surplus shop and has T Shirt’s that cost more than my whole wardrobe. He's seen every film before you and has every cool album before anyone else. He supports the media tossers football club of choice, Chelsea, and often says people mistake him for ‘lamps all the time'. He talks pure undiluted mockney bullshit and pretends he was brought up in a Hackney Road gutter (born and bred working class hero apparently), when he’s actually from Surbiton. Watching Dixon edit is like seeing someone truly at one with the machine (his Dad bought him a Avid for his fourteenth birthday when Dixon said he wanted to be a film director), and when he finishes a cut he’s happy with he makes a little movement with his left hand like cutting back and forth on a DJ mixers crossfader while scratching a invisible record with his right fingers. Along with this he vocal scratches the words “Put your hands up for Dixon." Twat. Sadly everybody else seems to find this endearing.

I took him a Starbucks this morning, while he was in the middle of a massive eight hour render due to seventeen layers of unnecessary grade and effects (hes the offline editor for fucks sake!); he looked sad, like someone had finally told him that the designer goatee on his Cary Grant esque chin made his face look like a Brazilian wax. Maybe, just maybe his girlfirend had realised he was a vapid fraud of a person and dumped him. I asked him what the matter was, and he said that his favourite Camden pub The Hawley Arms had burnt down on Saturday night. "I was there from the start man, well before Burrell and Winehouse. I've spent so much money in that place I practically had shares." At least that kept him quiet today. Last time I had to listen to a hour long rendition of his DJ'ing holiday to Ayia Napa a few years back. "Remember the Premiership football roasting scandal yeah? I was holding the camera! Put your fucking hands up!"

Of course if you say anything slightly derogatory about Dixon to co workers they look at you as though you’ve just called their mum a whore, its like he can do no fucking wrong. Whats worse is that every single runner also thinks hes a legend, and never complain when he causes them to work a 60 hour week to cover the building while he arses about drinking expensive lagers and ordering Sushi on the company, in the hope he might show them one of his exclusive keyboard shortcuts. So therefore I have to keep my mouth shut.

In Soho no can hear you scream.

Lily and The Beeb

2008-02-10T19:03:00.004Z

I was planning to lay off Lily Allen after recent documented events, but then I read todays news about the filming of her BBC 3 chatshow 'Lily Allen and Friends'. Hailed as the new saviour of BBC3, Lily has this week been filming the first show to be broadcast during the channels relaunch this coming Tuesday. But it appears to have all gone wrong.

An article in todays Mail On Sunday has revealed that Lily's endearing personality caused a large proportion of her audience (amassed from her army of cyberfriends on the once popular social networking site Myspace) to walk out of filming, citing the programme as "limp" and "horrible". I for one am not surprised. The BBC has a distinct habit of thinking its so unbelievably on the fucking pulse, that by sticking a popular social networking celebrity onto the television as well as on the website its been wanking off about for so long that it can create a popular viewing experience that ticks all the boxes of its future programming mandate. They must have spent so much time coming up with this mind-blowingly shit concept, that unfortunately they've forgotten to give their cooler than fuck popstar any training in the art of presenting; I'd hardly call a guest stint on The Friday Night Project suitable cause to give anyone a entire series.

While popular among fourteen year olds, BBC3s target audience of twenty something Trev's and Trevette's will be harder to win over by Miss Allen. Her attempts to address this fact included screening videos of Animals having sex - a decision that was met with much retort from guest Cuba Gooding Junior. What reaction did she expect? He's hardly David fucking Attenborough. The crowd were also not impressed, but were forced to clap their hands in false appreciation by the desperate production staff. As if this wasn't enough, she also went off on a tangent during a interview with Peep Show's David Mitchell, complaining that people write horrible things about her on online forums - which Mitchell pointed out was the very target audience that the BBC has aimed the program at. Good work Lily!

Why would anyone want to watch this fucking toss? This is typical of BBC3; choose a presenter for your flagship programme that has a reputation of being positively repulsive on most of her previous television appearances (I remember a particularly 'loveable' outing on Never Mind The Buzzcocks), completely based on her popularity as a mockney warbler. Lily certainly doesn't have the pulling power or personality of previous celebrity singers turned TV hosts such as Johnny Cash or the voice of the valleys Mr Tom Jones, so the omens certainly aren't good. The ineptitude of the producers has to come in to question. They should have got Fogle at least he's a lot more likable.

I for one can't wait to witness this car crash this coming Tuesday, especially as Lily already thinks the whole world is against her. Surely come the critical onslaught on Wednesday this view should be further confirmed. I really don't think that replacing the channels idents and giving a mediocre pop artist their own chat show can really cover up the underlying sewage of BBC3. You can't polish a turd. But every cloud has a silver lining, and with any luck it will also signal the end for the shittest channel on British Television. And if Lily can achieve this single handedly, we should all add her to our friends list.

Fact Of The Week: Lily Allen is the daughter of actor Keith Allen. Just in case you didn't know that already. Kieth Allen played a drug dealer in Trainspotting and the personification of tooth decay in a mouthwash commercial

Mrs.Robinson

2008-02-05T20:00:00.004Z

Last week a new edit started bringing with it big problems. I was in Edit 4 (the Fincham suite) replenishing the stationary and fruit bowls when she burst through the door. The ice maiden cometh, one seriously obnoxious series producer had arrived in my world. She radiated power; I've never seen my boss brown nose any client this bad, which meant she must be trouble. Usually, he'd get me to do the dirty work.

Having carved a highly successful career producing what can only be described as televisual turds, this woman has all the personal phone numbers of every top exec in town. It seems her pursuit of success has sadly drained all positive human qualities from her. No one is safe from her venomous tongue, and she instantly appointed me as her personal slave. Meekly I walk into the edit to deliver her skinny Latte (10 am on the dot or heads will roll), and I never escape without a raft of personal requests for mein feuhrer. Nothing is asked, its demanded and it’s more important than anything else in the world right now. Time after time teaching her how to play the cut on the Avid when the editor is on lunch (just hit the fucking space bar!) or spending hours to no avail to get the wireless connection to work on her Macbook. Rarely does she crack a smile - until she finds an excuse to look at my ass. She seems to have developed a strange fascination with this part of my body that usually gets little to no female interest. Perhaps I should be flattered apart from the fact she makes me feel sick and scares the shit out of me.

Could I use this to my advantage? If I sleep with this woman will it further my career? Maybe. Could it be like Mrs Robinson in the Graduate? But what would the consequences entail? I could end up being her gimp, receiving 'booty calls' at untold hours. Plus I'd probably have to sign a release form to ensure her confidentiality. She’s also started staying behind late and is requesting me to 'stay and help her' this Friday. I really don't know what to do, this could go wrong either way.

So how do I give her the brush off? The girls are used to the male directors lusting over them - its disgusting and bordering sexual harassment, but why does it seem more acceptable when the boots on the other foot (and extremely funny to the entire facilities team?). Whatever I do I'm the laughing stock of the facility. Maybe I should stand up to this woman, pull up my low slung Carhaarts and say "Sorry but I've got 12 hours digitising to get through I'll have to send someone else to help you."

Or I could just wait till Monday. When a new runner begins. Normally in TV you have to worry about anyone who is younger, better looking and will work for less money than you do, but I might be able to use him to my advantage. When the booty call comes in from the Fincham suite, I'll know just who to send up.

Guerilla Warfare

2008-02-05T08:40:00.003Z

Channel 4 are currently interviewing for their head of documentary role at the channel. The remit for applicants is "Making programmes that are as innovative, diverse and provocative as they are popular".

This 'phrase' certainly sums up the state of documentaries on Channel 4. Current boss Angus Macqueen left to return to filmmaking after becoming frustrated at the early promise not materialising of high-quality films returning to the schedule. The factual output on Channel 4 is designed to shock and disgust - good for ratings amongst the caveman population ("Ug biggest scrotum in the world, must watch that"), bad for documentary viewers of a more discerning position. I've watched one single factual programme on Channel 4 this past year (Nick Broomfields 'Ghosts'), and even that was dramatised.

Filmmakers need to go back to their roots. Forget the formats - The Supernannys, The Secret Millionaires - lets get back to making the tremondous one off documentaries we're capable of producing. Drop the Celebrities, drop the guff and get out there with a camera and film what happens naturally in the world. We live on a very interesting planet, you don't need to force things to happen! It needn't be contrived, it needn't be controlled. Guerilla filmmakers of the future let the cameras roll, and finally the revolution will be televised.

The Beauty Pageant

2008-02-04T08:16:00.004Z

Apparently, ITV productions are sending a group of key executives to Los Angeles this March to hold what they are calling a 'beauty parade' of it shows for US Networks. Chief executive of Granada America Paul Buccieri is quoted as saying "I want to bring excitement in the UK to the US".

I think he may have a problem. For those of us who have watched ITV for the past few years, we are all aware what a massive pile of shit it is. Its schedule is drum tight with awful programmes, from GMTV in the morning (like watching a feature length version of OK magazine) through to acts of pure nonsense like the Japanese game show that is 'I'm a celebrity' in the evening. In televisions class system ITV is right at the bottom, sat on Jeremy Kyle's sofa in her Kappa tracksuit and hoop earrings with a giant jewel encrusted clown necklace on, complaining about how she doesn't know who the fathers of her kids 2,3 and 4 are.

The saddest part of this story is that ITV productions might actually be successful in their quest. America is still suffering from the writers strike, so much so that it has started re-making formats from television past. Shows such as American Gladiators have made a return to the screen with Hulk Hogan as host. Whats even worse news is its been successful, and Sky One are set to re-make the show here as well. So unfortunately for the yanks a ready made show may be too good to turn down at this barren time, no matter how bad it is - they may end having to sit through an Amercanised version of 'The Danan Busters' what I would relly like to see is a remake of one of ITV's few decent programmes and see Corrie go state side, imagine the Rover's turned into a branch of Hooters .

Family Affairs

2008-02-02T12:46:00.003Z

The recent news story of how the, now ex, Tory MP Derek Conway gave his son a rather unique student grant of £40,000 from his staff budget, has got me thinking about family business's. Of course there’s nothing wrong with wanting to have your children or other relatives work with you, unless as in Conway’s sleazy case the family are paid out of taxpayers money and don’t actually do the job. Though when the bosses son or daughter turns up at work their never going to be thought of as just another employee. Everyone views them as a obvious extension of the boss, a bit like Mini Me in the Austin Powers films.

TV is an incredibly nepotistic business, a great deal of people have got their ‘in’ because of Mum and Dad, Uncle Monty etc. Its quite understandable that having built a business up that you would like your offspring to inherit it, and not showing paternal favoritism to your employees you get your son or daughter to start at the bottom. Sadly this practice is just another bag of shit for me to hold. Because come every school holiday I get a little helper in the form of the boss’s son, lets call him Tarquin.

One day Tarquin will have his own facilities empire but right now he is learning it 'from the shop floor up'. Understandably Tarquin couldn’t jump in a edit suite and start cutting and he hasn’t got blonde hair and breasts so he couldn’t sit on reception (though the bosses daughter has, but I better not go there) so that leaves him with the lowly task of shadowing a runner all week, and I get a surly 16 year old to ‘help’ me out. But Tarqs really wishes he could be back home in Islington, staying in bed all day, smoking spliffs and playing his XBox 360 between wanks, so getting him to make a couple of cups of tea for Edit 5 (the Goodwin suite) is like asking him for help with emergency brain surgery.

So I have to be really careful what I say with a spy in the midst, I have to explain everything and don’t really get any help at all, and I have to put up with hearing ‘you know what I mean blud’ all the time. Funny I once looked forward to school holidays with such joy, now I fucking hate them!

More dispatches from the front line of development....

2008-01-31T21:28:00.004Z

More from the pages of our development guru's ideas book. Apart from one that I've made up, answers on a postcard and the first correct answer wins a 'milk and two fucking sugars!' T Shirt.

Pete Doherty In Afghanistan

Pete’s been a bad boy splashed over the pages of the tabloids with his battle against heroin. In this groundbreaking documentary he will explore the origins of the drug he knows so well, tracing it back to the poppy fields of Afghanistan. Here he will meet British troops fighting the Taliban, members of local law enforcement, drug lords and the farmers who grow the simple crop that has ended up in his arm so many times in the past. Controversial yes, emotive certainly, Bafta I should bloody think so! (If Doherty is still too stoned, Brand will do).

Amy Winehouse and Friends

Live from Camden’s infamous Hawley Arms public house Amy Winehouse chats with an audience and guests completely made up of people she has met while fucked off her tits. Each week a band or singer will perform a uniquely ironic cover version. First up 19 year old sensation Adele (she’s 19 by the way) with a version of Amy’s song Rehab. Jo Whiley will be on hand at all times in case an emergency dose of sycophancy is needed.

Come Dine with Vine

Jeremy Vine invites celebrities and listeners of his popular Radio 2 lunchtime moanfest, round to his home (actually a Nigella style studio). Jeremy and guests will put the world to rights over a light bite to eat.

Greenbelt

The Coast team move inland and expore the most affluent middle class areas of the UK. Bill Oddie joins the team to do a live bird watch from the end of a stockbrokers drive.

Jamies Milk Shake Up

After the successful chicken season, Jamie turns his hand to exposing the truth about dairy products and the treatment of Cows in the farming industry. Expect bleeding udders and shocking facts about the pasteurisation processes involved in the creation of smart price cheddar.

Noel's Arks 6 x 60 Sky One

Documentary following Noel Edmunds in his quest to refurbish decommissioned prison ships for low income families to live in. Think Noel could be just right to be the proles Kevin McCloud. (Kevin might just go for it himself and could pitch to C4)

Coca Popped

Alex James inadvertently destroys all the Coca plants in Columbia with a bacteria contained in a box of goat cheeses, innocently given to the President as a present during his recent trip to the country with Panorama.

Ben Fogel’s Wet Dreams

Adventure addict Ben is always looking for a new challenge, and having done the Atlantic with Cracknel what’s next? The pacific in a pedlo that’s what! But here’s the twist - no athlete companion this time round, but a member of the public chosen by Ben from a group of complete amateurs. Once chosen he will only have a week to get them fully prepared to join his attempt at aquatic glory.

Jeremy Beadle 1948-2008

2008-01-30T20:26:00.004Z

Yesterday saw the death of 80s television legend Jeremy Beadle. In the modern age you rarely get a presenter with the enthusiasm and heart of Beadle. His production 'You've Been Framed', which is still running to this day, pioneered the user generated clip for entertainment, which must have inadvertently planted the seed for internet sensation You Tube.

The highpoint of his television career came in the late 80s, when with Barrymore and Cilla Black he pretty much ruled ITV Saturday evenings. In this period Saturday evening entertainment was unconcerned with adding to Simon Cowell’s bank balance; all you needed was a big studio audience and a comedy presenter who appealed to young and old. Where are presenters and shows like 'Beadles About' now? Ant and Dec are unfortunately the closest you'll get. Back in the eighties before the digital fragmentation of TV Beadle was getting viewing figures up to the 18 million mark.

Back in this hazy land of Beta SP, humour wasn’t found in the sharp but nasty put downs of some venomous pumped up cartoon of a man on desperate popstar wannabes, but instead in 'caught on camera' home video clips and candid camera set ups conceived by Beadle. He had the nation laughing. The simple slapstick humour was as funny as anything the silent great had conceived; the infectious laughter his programme created was hard to ignore however lowbrow the concept. Noels Crinkley Bottom didn't come close - and Beadle didn't have to rely on a man in a giant pink fat suit to get the laughs. Also heavily involved in Charity, he was awarded with a MBE in 2001 for these services.

My thoughts go out to his family, but Beadles spirit will surely live on. RIP.

The North Face of the BEEB

2008-01-29T16:30:00.004Z

Nice to see the Jeremy Vine listener’s favourite newspaper and voice of middle England, The Daily Mail finding inspiration in my blog posts. Possibly after reading my post on the media types love affair with North Face jackets back in December, the Daily Mail has launched an investigation into why so much front of camera talent seem to be decked out in the brands gear. BBC reporters are often leaving the corporations branded jackets at home in favour of North Face protection. Why are BBC reporters all wearing The North Face anoraks? Probably because it keeps them warm and dry when it’s pissing down and freezing outside waiting to provide a often unnecessary bit of on the spot ‘live’ reporting for the tedium that is rolling news. Still no excuse to wear them in the edit suite though. Love the way the Mail calls them anoraks, will have to use that one at work, 'shall i hang up your anorak for you sir'. Milk and two fucking sugars! Turn up the wireless.

White City

2008-01-28T23:53:00.004Z

I’m going to go out on a bit of a limb here and say some people who work in television have first hand knowledge of cocaine. Usage levels might not be as endemic as say the fashion or music industries, but everyone knows a story of a researcher who has had to score for the ‘talent’ and the toilet cubicles of any media watering hole are always as busy as a Delhi train station. Personally I don’t touch the stuff. To paraphrase Robin Williams ‘Cocaine is God's way of saying you're making too much money’ and I’m skint!

So in TV you will find just the same tossers who spout off about the cause de jour, when all they care about is the ratings. Those who love to bang on about organic, eco etc. (all good causes), and those that would always read the caring sharing Guardian (a fine paper but the media rag of choice), are often just the types to leave any morals at home if someone offers a cheeky line in the toilets. After all, coke is the perfect drug to let inflated egos actually believe their own shit. Do you really need a celebrity famous for being the most irritating and least talented member of Blur to tell you that what your sticking up your snout is the result of a production system steeped in blood?

Well that’s what we got in Monday’s edition of Panorama: Cocaine - Alex James in Colombia (Mon 28 Jan, 8:30 pm). So finally a program makes the connection and for all the potential irritation Alex James came over rather well. He admits at the start of the programme that in the nineties he spunked a million quid on champagne and coke, I was half expecting a noughties remake of the Omnibus about the KLF watching a million pounds go up in smoke, instead James is in repentant mood. For Panorama he accepts a invitation from the Columbian government to visit the country and see the effects of the cocaine trade up close, well closer than his previous experiences on the end of it at least. Then we follow the Ross Kemp on Gangs format of meeting the law enforcement, then shady meetings with the ‘bad guys’ while the presenter quite rightly shits himself at the possible danger of getting shot.

Alex James in a Columbian Coca Field

Alex James to be fair did really seem to commit to the material, visibly moved by stories of bloodshed and was very much out of his comfort zone. Often fear showed on his face probably wishing he was back in the safe confines of the Groucho Club or on the farm we see him frolicking about on at the start of the programme.

Although not quite examining his past ‘chained to the mirror and the razor blade’, the programme works well for having a presenter whos been on the business end of a rolled up note. After hearing the evidence of the brutality undermining the cocaine biz the director asks James ‘your quite anti coke now aren’t you’ - he seemed genuinely moved by the experience in Columbia, reassuring the traditional BBC audience we were dealing with a repented sinner. So will it hit home? Next time after a dinner party when the lines come out someone might make a stand and say “what about the poor Columbian farmers and the gang bloodshed, do you know how it’s made? I really don’t think it’s organic. Didn't you see Panorama? God we've been talking about it more than the bloody chickens. Alex James wouldn't approve." Maybe they will - but how will all the echelons of the entertainment industry continue to have their cake and snort it? Well what they really need is someone to start marketing fairtrade cocaine. Or do what the governments of the world should have done years ago, legalise and control it and lose all the crime, death and heartache that goes with the illegal trade of drugs to Europe. Then maybe they'd sell it in Fresh and Wild.

The Dinner Party

2008-01-27T18:33:00.004Z

Ok so I’m at this metaphorical dinner party (it has to be metaphorical as I would never actually go to a dinner party), and we are just finishing off the foie gras and swigging back the Palmina Alisos. Conversations linger over house prices and whether we might even vote Tory at the next election. But this isn't your average dinner party - the other guests are made up of television channels and they are a pretty awful lot.

Now ITV hasn’t been invited because she’s basically a bit common and couldn’t really cut it with the others round the table. BBC Two failed to receive his invite, apparently he’s rather boring and a bit stuck in his ways these days unless he’s talking about Newsnight or the program with the nasty entrepreneurs. Channel Four is hooting off as bloody usual, lecturing us all about bloody chickens and laughing at anyone less affluent than himself. From the way he keeps going off to the toilet I have my suspicions he might be a drug addict. He seems very cool, very worthy and very irritating. Five seems quite nice, but at the back of everyone’s minds we all remember a few years back when she didn’t know better and would get plastered and get her tits out at the end of every night, poor girl.

Sadly I’m next to the BEEB. BBC One seems to be in the midst of a mid life crisis and doesn’t have a interesting word to say about anything but is absolutely desperate to please everyone. He won’t stop banging on about his young nephew, Three, that he’s brought along to the party. All Three does is tut at anything said by anyone over twenty five and stairs nonchalantly out of the window, texting all the time. Thank god for the other member of the party. BBC Four. Intelligent, stylish but not too cool, and doesn’t talk to me like I’m a fucking child. I can even forgive him for putting Spiceworld on the other day. Step forward the only channel worth consistently watching on British Television.

In George A. Romero’s seminal zombie classic 'Dawn of the Dead', some of the survivors talk about a island where others have gathered to escape the zombie hordes. BBC Four is the televisual equivalent of this island. Unlike other channels that are obsessed with youth, with celebrity and with reality shows that portray nothing absolutely akin to reality, BBC Four still clings to some sort of Reithian ideals. It still tries to produce intelligent television that does not pander to stupidity so I can only presume its time must be numbered. Tune in while you can, and hail the last Bastian of this once great broadcast industry.

Despair

2008-01-21T08:03:00.004Z

I'd like to wake up on a Monday morning and feel optimistic for the week ahead. That this week would be cunt free, and I'd maybe get to sit in on an edit of a programme for a few hours that actually contained some thought provoking content. No. I arrive at work and pick up the latest addition of Broadcast (weekly industry magazine) and my week is greeted with these cataclysmic piles of shit:

Commissions in this weeks broadcast (18th Jan):

Reality series 'Murder Most Famous' is the latest twist on the celebrity talent show - six famous faces (yet to be confirmed) will be assigned murder detection challenges including dog tracking, resisting a violent attack and an autospy. They will then have to use what they learn to inspire their own crime fiction novel.

So let me get this right - they're going to get some celebritites to write a best fucking seller? Can't they just put them in a mansion and get them to kill each other then the winner can write about that? At least that way we'd have at least five less fucking celebrities to worry about. This is 'eye gouge' television - so bad that you'd rather gouge your eyes out then put them through the pain of watching another badly lit, soft focused cheap digital video nightmare.

'Doctor in The House' BBC3: will perform 'live' autopsies' on hedonistic youngsters and confront them with what they are doing to themsleves. (The autopsy is of course virtual though I wouldn't be suprised in this day and age if they did actually chop someone open live on television).

BBC3 is fast becoming the biggest producer of shit television the world has ever seen. Not content with destroying my soul with seven series of 2 Cunts of Lager and a Packet of Twats, they have frankly cornered the market in shittly named, shit reality documentarys. In fact to use the term documentary is an insult to the format which has produced some of the greatest programmes I can remember. Shock tactics are so fucking passe! Kids take drugs! Get over it!

'Glamour Girls' BBC3: Aims to lift the lid on the modelling world to discover just how glamorous it is.

*Yawn*

Supersize v Superskinny Ch4: A fat and a thin woman change diets. Suprisingly the thin woman puts weight on and the fat woman loses weight. Now theres a fucking suprise.

I never want to see this.

So as you can probably guess this month I'll mainly be downloading television from America to avoid sitting through one nano second of this tripe. Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles has been recieving rave reviews in the states (even if the lead has been criticised by feminists for not being muscely enough!?) so I will be sitting back and watching the first two episodes. I suggest you join me.

FACT OF THE WEEK.

Ben Fogles career high is 'presenting crufts'.

No Fate But What We Make

2008-01-15T18:00:00.004Z

Went for a rare pint after work yesterday evening at the pub next door to the office. Being a media watering hole you have to keep your complaining about wankers from work (and the industry at large) to a low level while sipping your five pound bottle of beer. It's normally not too difficult because most people’s voices will be largely inaudible due to at least one strutting cock of a media show-off hooting off at a volume similar to a landing 747 about his latest project. Step forward this evenings perpetrator, a development producer not content with letting everyone in earshot know how he was getting paid a obscene amount by a large indie because commissioners simply view him as 'a friend..... and the fact my ideas just kick ass'. Do they just....

Well what a shame he managed to leave his ideas book behind when he left the pub. I'll send it on to him of course, just when I can find an address for 'twat of the world'. But for now I bring to you the inane ideas he had jotted down in this notebook. Sadly these are all to likely to end up on our corrupted TV screens instead of anything that's useful to life on earth. Plus the cunt will probably be a commissioner one day.

Whats on the slate....

Cooking with Cannibals

There are few taboos left in society but eating human flesh is certainly one of them. In this ground breaking but also light hearted series, a top (but affordable) TV chef (maybe Ainsley, his agents interested) travels into the depths of the Amazon rainforest to visit the few remaining tribes in the world with a taste for eating people.

The Horse through History (BBC 1, around the countryfile slot 6x30)

Ben Fogle takes the viewer on a gentle journey explaining man's relationship with the horse throughout history. From Troy to Ascot.

The Biggest Balls in the World (Bodyshock C4 or Extrodinary People Five)

Madiq Alhemed has the largest scrotum on record in the world weighing over 15lb's which has left him incapacitated. We will follow his journey to the world's top speacialist hospital in Saudi Arabia where he will undergo a groundbreaking operation to minimise his scrotum.

The 1980’s House

Can you imagine living without the Internet, your mobile phone or X Factor? Well once people did and it was called the 1980’s . The 1980’s House will challenge a 21st Century family to live like they might have 25 years ago. To add to the authenticity during the series the family's mother will go on strike and the father lose his job.

Steve McFadden's Street Gangs (30 x 60) Bravo

In this highly original and daring series, TV hardman Steve McFadden (Phil Mitchell in Eastenders) visits Los Angeles to spend half an hour with members of the Crips and the Bloods street gangs.
If he survives this encounter, he will go on to meet members of other notorious crews around the world. Following the exact same format each week, conducting an interview with a gang member at a secret location and coming to little in the way of a interesting conclusion about his experience. Steve will be given full military training so he will be able to lock and load a firearm on camera at any opportunity. Full access has been granted to all of the most dangerous gangs in the world.

Three Men On A Boat: Heart Of Darkness

Griff Rhys-Jones, Rory McGrath and Dara O'Brien follow on from their successful BBC 2 series by traveling down the Nung River from Vietnam to Cambodia retracing the journey featured in the film Apocalypse Now.

Blue Peter

Documentary following Peter Andre making a pornographic film (would Jordan agree to Peter doing this? could we get her involved?).

Ring Of Fire 10x60 (ITV1)

A crack team of celebrity daredevils join a world famous motorcycle stuntman (Evel Knieval has unfortunately passed away so we'll have to go with someone else), and undergo 6 weeks of rigourous training before attempting to jump their metal steed through the deadly 'ring of fire'. Fran Cosgrove interested, as is Jack Ryder (great name for it!) and Tara Palmer Tomkinson. Ewan and Charlie budget allowing. Jonny Cash for the theme music. Presented by Jack Osbourne.

Dancing With Dogs (15 x 60 plus 14 x 30 results shows, BBC1)

Following on from the success of Strictly Come Dancing and The One and Only, 14 Celebrities and their dogs join Graham Norton and his Labradoodle Bailey in a weekly knockout format to find the Dancing With Dogs Champion. Members of the Top Lodge Trio are confirmed to offer our celebrities expert guidance in the art of Dog Dancing, and top canine freestyler Richard Curtis (not the Notting Hill chap) as judge alongside seasoned celebrity dog dancer Esther Ranson. Sharon Osbourne is extremely interested in contesting if she can get her pets through quarantine.

Thats your lot for now. Keep your eyes peeled for more titbits from the holy grail in coming weeks........... milk and two fucking sugars!

Maybe it went something like this….

2008-01-09T21:54:00.004Z

INT. OFFICES OF FEARNLEY PRODUCTIONS: DAYTIME

A development meeting is in full throw. Creative's sit around in a semi circle brainstorming ideas, as their chief a top TV foodie/down shifter paces up and down.

FEARNLEY

“Right team I need a campaign and it needs to be a bloody good one”

DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHER 1

“A campaign? … I thought you turned down Tesco boss”

FEARNLEY

“I'm not doing bloody adverts, I don’t want to be known as a cut price Oliver”

DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHER 2

“What do you mean a campaign then boss”

FEARNLY

“You know like the bloody school dinners… bang on about turkey twizzlers, give chav kids rocket and balsamic and suddenly your a national hero. He gets to have tea with the prime minister and Channel Four will commission him doing whatever he wants for years to come.”

DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHER 1

“I think your pretty safe with Channel Four boss, your the channels number two food guy ”

DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHER 2
(cough)

“Gordon”

DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHER 1

“Well, a solid third boss”

FEARNLY

“look guys I know just as well as anyone at Horseferry Road that the public are not going to want to watch me spatchcock badgers forever. We only got three hours out of my last series. I need something big, something landmark, a real campaigning series, something that will galvanize the nation”

DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHER 2

“You could sort out aeroplane food boss, that’s well shit”

FEARNLY

“Come on guys we need the chav factor here, poor people go on aeroplanes maybe only once or twice a year, sometimes never. We need something bigger, something that will make people like us feel smug about people like them. I watched one of the school dinners programs and it made me think, thank god I send my children to school with a packed lunch.”

DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHER 1

“How about chicken’s boss, everyone likes chicken don’t they. Rich and poor we all eat chicken, but the stuff Iceland sells to the working class is probably genetically modified in Romania ”

DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHER 2

“Yeah and its like well cruel the way their treated”

FEARNLY

“Briliant”

DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHER 1

“Do you think you could cry on camera over the chickens being killed boss?”

FEARNLY

“For a 5x60 I’ll do a lot more than bloody cry”

The Man Not in Black

2007-12-27T10:44:00.004Z

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.

Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

The late, great Johny Cash sung these words in his song the Man in Black. Little did he know the dark shade would become deriguer for the media tosser. Black shirt, black mac book,black iphone, black car, black spectacles, black north face jacket - Henry Ford would certainly approve.

Which brings me on to my first day back at work this year. Christmas time is a time for relaxing and spending time with family. Get out of the city, breathe in the fresh country air, crack open a bottle of Merlot and put your feet up and watch Noels Christmas Presents. The last thing you do over Christmas is think about work or check your work email. Surely!?

Well apparently you do. Everyone else had. Because when I turned up to work today every fucker was dressed in black. Had someone died? No they had all read this little beauty.

Sent: 25th Dec 07
To: Staff list

Attention all staff, the first day back at the office we will be having a photo shoot for the website upgrade. The new website will feature extra staff profiles as well as some jolly stylish photos of the building, it's going to be pretty special. It's going to make Jealousy's website look rubbish compared to ours! To show XXXXXXX as the progressive cutting edge facilities house that we all know it is, we are requesting all staff to wear black for the photoshoot.

Apparently the cool new thing to do for your facilities website is have photos of all staff members looking like contestants in the Apprentice, complete with a fresh Top Gear grade, dressed in black and with a look of 'I'm positively cooler than everyone else in the world'. This was in the email I should have read, sent over Christmas. But I wasn't dressed in Black. Unbeknown to me and from not have reading this urgent mailout, I was dressed in my fresh Christmas day outfit of Carhartt. Feeling like Delboy and Rodney in the Batman and Robin episode of 'Only Fools and Horses', I meekly asked the recieptionist if some echolon of the Television industry had died and everyone was wearing black out of respect. But my hell was only beginning.

Do you remember those beautiful days at Primary School? Life was fun, playing around making sandcastles and looking forward to running around the sports hall in your freshly pressed gym kit and plimsoles. Then the horror when you realise you've left your kit at home, and the teacher reaches into the cupboard to get you the dreaded 'spare kit'. You become the laughing stock of the class for the day, everyone says you smell of wee. Its horrible.

They had spare kit at work. A Cowellesque Comme Des Garcons combo of black shirt and trousers that an editor had hanging round spare in a suite. They did look rather nice apart from being three sizes too big and smelling of the piss and sweat of a 48 hour long edit. And if this wasn't punishment enough, I had to stand at the front. My life is over.

Always check your email. I wish Johny Cash had sung a fucking song about that!

A Runners Christmas Carol

2007-12-23T17:52:00.005Z

I might go on a bit about some of the things you have to do as a runner. My hatred for shit TV and the idiots who make it, but I do actually love television. I think it can do great things. Contrary to popular belief I don’t hate everyone, just the idiots. Sometimes special things do happen in this job, and one such event happened recently.

It was the last day before Christmas holiday and I had to work through the night as an edit was desperately trying to get their cut down for TX in the New Year. The director was someone whose work I actually quite respected, so for once I was happy to stay late (not initially knowing they would be pulling a all-nighter). They were editing an observational documentary for Channel Four about a centre for old age drug addicts (its called Bus Pass Baseheads), and the footage was amazingly poignant, and not a celebrity in sight. The voice over will probably end up being done by Russell Brand, but this looked like a real documentary, the sort of thing I dream of working on one day. The director seemed like a really nice chap who was very passionate about his work. He told me he just wanted to get the cut finished and get home to his family for Christmas. He showed me a picture of his two young children (one four the other seven) all big hair and smiles - they looked sweet. He said he had managed to reserve them Nintendo Wii’s and Iphones for Christmas presents but was worried they would be gone by the time he made it to the shop.

It was about four in the morning when I took them in a cappuccino, and he asked if I would like to stay and watch them work. I felt really touched as he had obviously noticed I was interested in the film. It was great, the director and editor even played me a scene of an old lady smoking a crack pipe and asked if I thought it was too strong to go in the cut. I felt part of the industry at last. I felt more then just a glorified waiter. I sat in as they worked through the night. When they finished, the editor and director thanked me for my help - giving me a friendly pat on the back and saying my views were a great help when they hit a brick wall in terms of content. The director reached into his wallet and passed me a crisp twenty-pound note. I refused, but he insisted, saying “we couldn’t have done tonight without you - go on have a few drinks on me”.

So its 8:00 AM and I walk out of the office into a frosty Dickensian street scene. Soho looked quite beautiful, the frost crunched under my feet and a sunrise glimmered in the sky. I heard Fairytale of New York playing in my head. It felt special - it felt like Christmas. I was looking forward to catching the train home and out of London, and having time with my family. I felt like I loved working in TV, it was something special. There really were good people in this industry and I felt that at last, just maybe I could make it.

Then my mobile rang. It was the managing director. Had he phoned me to thank me for working through the night? No. He wants me to go to Harrod’s and pick up presents for his family. The massive cunt.

The Xmas Party

2007-12-20T08:26:00.004Z

It was our Christmas party last night, and a air of merriment swept through the building. I'd packed my finest smart casual media stylings that I borrowed from my considerably more affluent, hi-flying housemate (Ramones t-shirt, pinstripe jacket, g-star jeans and a pair of rare Japanese trainers), and was looking forward to receiving a night on the company as thanks for my hard work over the past year. Plus I had my sites set on the new runner, who had acquired the nickname Stella girl, the only person in the whole building who looked at me with the slightest bit of respect. I had to strike before she realised how unimportant I am.

The day went by fast and I almost forgot I was a runner, laughing and joking with everyone as though as I was considered more important for the first time ever - it felt great. This is why I got into this industry. I was so happy. I imagined waking up the next morning with a mouth drier than a convent, my head pounding like a dirty bomb had been let off next to my frontal lobe, then being instantly cured after rolling over to see Stella girl naked and condom packets littered across the floor from the nights action.

Then the fuckers shit on me.

After running around London all week at the beck and call of the facilities manager you'd think I'd be cut some slack. But the problem with working in this industry is that the people at the bottom always have to suffer. No 'You've worked hard for this company all year, I'll stay and cover for the edit in the Attenborough suite while they work on the executives urgent changes'. It's, 'Someones decided to stay late, we've got a party to get to and you'll have to stay and wait for them to finish - someone has to man the fort and I'm afraid that someone is you'.

And if this wasn't punishment enough, some fuckwit Assistant Producer, who barely knows how to take the lens off a camera (let alone use the white balance) turns up at the door with 16 hours of digitising which 'urgently has to be done for the morning'. Four hours worth was just the camera left running in the bag, strangely the 'self shooting' AP hadn't mastered the art of cinematography with a one day training course and was still having trouble with the difference between OFF and ON buttons on his camera. Muthafucker.

So while they're all off drinking bottles of Dokter Czech and eating canopes (miniature posh versions of commoners food no doubt - think bite size cornish pasties but filled with foie gras), I'm sat on my own watching copiously tedious rushes tapes of 'The Danan Busters', the sypnosis of which I quote: 'Paul Danan leads a intrepid crew of c-list celebrities in a re-enactment of the heroic bomb skipping feats of 617 Squadron in World War II'. With only a mince pie and a bottle of Budvar for company.

Merry Fucking Christmas.

Friend or Fogle

2007-12-19T09:00:00.004Z

I should hate Ben Fogle and everything he stands for, but I can’t. His face looks like a child’s drawing on a fish finger. Now don’t get me wrong, come the revolution he will have to be put up against the wall and shot like every other upper class twit in the country, but this event will bring me no pleasure. You see Fogle seems to bring with him an equal amount of joy to balance his irritation factor. He seems so unremittingly jovial, so Bertie Wooster does Action Man, I just can’t help kind of liking him. You get the idea he could come home from work and walk in on his other half in flagrante with his lifelong best friend and still have a smile on his face muttering “ho hum ill leave you to it for bit then.” He just seems a nice incredibly posh chap who has fallen into his role as the grannies lust focus on daytime TV.

I have a theory that Fogle was actually developed by top-secret government scientists just in case the whole of the royal family and aristocracy were ever wiped out in some freak disaster. With the development of Fogle at least the country would have the epitome of an upper class English chap to fall back on and show the world it was business as usual with a stiff upper lip. Fogle escaped the evil government science bunker where he was created and went on the run like the monkey boy in the tv series Chimera, ending up on a remote Scottish island only to find a full BBC crew there making the early reality TV experiment Castaway.

Castaway was made back in the days when the BBC were still faintly embarrassed at doing anything too commercial, instead of the way they now desperately try to be everyone’s best friend like a lonely child handing out chocolate bars at school to be loved. Castaway was a social experiment instead of a game show to showcase z-list celebrities embarrassing themselves to claw back a little bit more tabloid fame. The social experiment in question was to see if a diverse range of people could live together on a remote Scottish island for a year without killing each other. In the ‘cast’ Fogle shone through by not acting a wanker, being a nice bloke and for femail and homosexual viewers the only thing approaching eye candy on the windswept isle. Like every other TV format since the dawn of time the series made a comeback this year. Failing to rope in a host of BBC friendly celebrity castaways it also made the mistake of using Danny Wallace, a presenter who should only be allowed to make programmes about conspiracies for Sky TV, the series flopped,if only it had had the Fogle factor. After Castaway version 1 Fogle started presenting for various BBC daytime series and slowly but surely made his way into housewives fantasy knickers.

He’s become the go to guy for anything safe and outdoorsy and probably with a low enough budget not to stretch to prime time talent. Often he’s found presenting the kind of TV that’s pumped into retirement homes up and down the country so care nurses don’t have to dish out sedatives. On Ben’s website he gives out some useful advice for anyone stupid enough to want a career in TV. ‘I fell into it serendipitously. My best suggestion is to approach a production company looking for runners and work your way up from there.” So basically if you cant make it the reality route or are dead posh and can be fast tracked at your Uncle Monty’s production company you better learn how to boil a kettle. How true Fogle, how true.

All beers are created equal

2007-12-16T12:42:00.004Z

Now don’t get me wrong - I’m not a complete philistine, I have a decent enough idea of what wine to drink with what dish. I’m not an expert, but certainly know my claret from a beaujolais. Saying this I can’t say I have such a refined palette that I turn my noise up at anything that isn’t to be found in Fortnum’s food hall. Many in the TV industry think they’re some sort of food and drink connoisseur, mistaking having worked on some shit piece cookery programme with having spent a stint in Escoffier’s kitchen. Being a runner you often have to cater for this week’s food fad from the self proclaimed gourmets of the industry to trump the team in the next edit suite.

This arsey attitude to what passes their lips also extends to their alcohol preferences. We had a new runner start last week, and come Friday night she was sent out to stock the suites with lager. Now unbeknown to her was that some beers are more equal than others and as it was on offer at the local off license, she came back with a 24 pack of Stella Artois thinking she’d receive praise for her forward thinking and money saving attitude. How the fuck was she to know that it’s a cardinal sin in the world of media to drink lager from a can (especially wife-beater). Plus the fact that the pretentious palettes of the egos within the facility will only drink beer imported from Thailand this week!

Come summer these cunts also like to crack open the corona, which has to have a slice of lime in the top please (or they refuse to drink it). Little do they know that in hot as fuck Mexico the lime is used to keep the flies out of your beer and sterilise the bottle, not as a fucking accessory to make them look cool. The poor girl was reduced to tears being publicly derided for her choice of beverage, and the general feeling that she was a tasteless prole. Thank god she didn’t get sent out to buy wine having confided with me that she was “a bit of a cava girl’. Imagine the faces of the clients if presented with a bottle of Asti Spumanta at the self congratulating backslapping ego massage of a completed online, complete with a Sicilian lemon grade.

So before you start work in the media, make sure your up to date on what’s hot on the streets Soho this week or you will suffer the same fate as our poor Stella girl.

Runner Aid

2007-12-13T02:59:00.004Z

“I really wanted to go to Fabric the other weekend but had spent all my money and it was only a week after payday! I’m getting minimum wage but my flat costs me £700 a month. I keep having to ask my parents for some cash to get me by”
- anonymous TV Runner

Runner Aid is launching their Christmas appeal and we would like as many people as possible to get involved. This Christmas we want to fulfil the dreams of some of the nations least appreciated and underpaid workers, those that carry out the vital job of being TV runners. Many only receive minimum wage for their hard work while some are not paid at all.

With your help we're aiming to reach a target similar to that of a production budget for the today show on Radio 4. Some production runners have to work in the cold wind, rain and snow without the benefit of North Face clothing. Some Edit runners often have to prepare the most expensive brands of tea and coffee for their edit house clients, yet at home are drinking Tesco value tea bags. One runner we heard about could not even afford to buy a round of drinks when they went out with their mates. These poor impoverished runners are putting their health and finances at risk for a career in the media.

Together we can help them. If you can see it in your heart to donate just one pound a month to this fund we can help make a runners life more bearable. With £200 a month we will be able to help keep a Soho runner in the cutting edge fashion expected of them, while a one off donation of £150 will put a North Face jacket on a camera assistant or help to send a production company runner on holiday to Tuscany. Bit by bit we can help these runners have a similar life to their better paid colleagues and one day when they run their own production companies or facilities houses they might not talk down to their lowly staff and pay them peanuts. Every pound donated will help raise a smile from someone who spends their days taking shit from other people. Please give what you can.

Fear and loathing in the kitchen

2007-12-11T18:38:00.004Z

When you turn up for your first day of a Media Studies degree, full of youthful ambition and dreams of being the British Scorsese, you no doubt get a talk about your possible future in the media. You hear how competitive it is, and all about needing to be multi-skilled. How being confident shooting, editing and getting release forms signed while standing upside down in a street in Baghdad is a good skill set to acquire. Another highly useful skill that you will defiantly need when saying goodbye to academia and entering the real cut and thrust of the media marketplace, is how to make a cup of tea. Milk and two fucking sugars.

After years of studying and honing my technique, I know how to 'give good tea'. It is truly amazing how many people don’t, such as the work experience girl we had in recently who had never made a cup in her life. Having a butler to take care of such duties for her why should she. I’m surprised Jeeves didn’t come to work with her so whatever meaningless task was assigned she could simply pass on to the ‘help’ while she flicks her hair over into a big bouffant and twiddles the tassels on her desert storm scarf. I actually remember some god awful programme on the tv a few years back starring Paul Burrell (one of the major beneficiaries of undeserved fame from reality television, along with celebrity cheat Charles Ingram) teaching thick Australian 'princesses' how to make a cup of tea. Never put the milk in first, or you'll find yourself locked up in the tower of London by the order of her majesty, with your skull pecked by ravens (apparently only 'common' people do this).

Making a lot of tea, you do start to wonder how people can get so anal about the beverage. A friend who works at the offices of a commercials production company says that in their kitchen next to the kettle, with no irony, is a pantone chart showing the exact shade that each powermonger in the company likes their tea. A pantone chart! Now most people don’t like it too weak or strong (light terracotta myself) but a fucking pantone chart for the love of god, do these people maybe take themselves a bit too seriously? Next to one of the darker shades is written BUILDERS, the pretentious tossers term for the working class cuppa. Well a bricky would never drink a a ginseng and essence of cucumber would they! Or demand Molten Brown in the toilets to moisturise their delicate hands after taking a dump! My friend says BUILDERS is rarely ordered and if so always on a confidential basis - the ‘creative’ wanting to keep their working class tea drinking habit secret from other members of staff (and not be labelled 'that pikey in the smoke suite').

Its good advice for the powerful to be polite to their runner, because just as we have all heard stories of someone being obnoxious to restaurant staff and having their food spat on in the kitchen, just the same happens in facilities houses. One lump or two indeed. A runner acquaintance of mine, a rather filthy character who I would not let near any food or drink I was going to consume (think of the kid with the dust cloud that follows him around in Charlie Brown), often boasts of how he has taken to storing tea bags up his arse crack which he pulls out for the more obnoxious members of staff and visiting commissioners. I’m sure the boiling water takes care of the scabies and stuff but still it can’t be very healthy. So a word of warning, watch how demeaning you are next time you order your drinks from some young lackey, or you might get a cup of arse tea that will certainly be a distinct shade of brown. Match that to your fucking Pantone chart.

Eat Shit or Die

2007-12-10T23:27:00.001Z

When I wasn't running halfway across the city to walk some cheeky fuckers dog, I met a old Uni acquaintance for a coffee (I wouldn't consider him a friend, but you got to stay in with these people in case they become a commissioner or something one day). He's not a runner, but a 'production assistant'; or should I say was.....

"I've been working for a so called documentary production company that churned out shit reality television like the world was going to end this Sunday. My first job was to create sales brochures for these 'ground breaking' shows (which was basically 'Supersize Me' in as many guises as they could think of), and churned out these worthless pieces of self fellating toss into the early hours of the morning to try and impress my new employers.

A week later I was done, brochures complete with perspex covers and the company logo daubed everywhere like a swastika, sat neatly on the tiny desk that was my 'workspace'. It was so fucking small that mien fucking fuhrer of a producer called it 'the shinebox'; and never tired of quoting that line from Goodfellas - the fucking cream pie.

Donning my north face to climb the everest of the staircase that led to the ivory tower known as the production office to deliver these beauties, I was met with a steely glare that was fixed on a empty space on the desk like Supermans eyes when he burns shit. I dropped my pile of brochures in front of him before being given the traditional 'leave' wave of the hand.

Two weeks went by before I begin to wonder why not one person had thanked me for my hard work. Finally, I got a call from my producer saying the MD wanted to see me. Finally! Some recognition for my talents. But all the cunt wanted me to do was clean his fucking office! And at 9pm at night as well!

It was only when I came back that evening that I spotted my brochures spread out on the coffee table and being on my own it would have been rude not to nose around the bastards personal stuff. With horror I realised that they all had different covers on them – fucking booshank ones made in 5 minutes in microshit word with my fucking producer’s name written across the bottom – the snake had claimed credit for all of my hard work!

I confronted him about this the next day and was simply told “Do not fucking complain to me that you can’t do your job properly! I take credit for the work, that’s the way its always been. You should know that!”

A week later I was sacked by email. So He-Man moral time, "Be prepared to either eat shit or die in this industry". Either that or have a trustfund to start your own production business, like those affluent bastards probably did in the first place".

The Loneliness’ of the Long Distance Runner

2007-12-08T11:05:00.005Z

Not only does it pay a pittance, make my blood boil and give me low self-esteem, but I find this job has ruined my love life. As a single man about town I thought getting into the TV industry - in whatever lowly position - would give me some real clout with the ladies. The killer punch came last (which hopefully will come again tonight ina good way for Rocky Hatton against Mayweather). So I’m quaffing a ridiculously expensive bottled bear in a Shoreditch hell hole and talking to a stick thin coked up blonde hanging on my every word, and she asks me “what do you do?” I could fix her with my twinkling eyes, raise one eyebrow and reply with all the time in the world “oh I just work in television”. Job done, surely it has to be better than saying I’m a DJ (Or I'm DJIN IN LDN THIS FRIDAY). But what actually comes out when talking to girls is “ I’m just a runner” before adding “ just a sad lonely runner really” - at which point the stick thin cokehead blonde normally looks as though she suddenly has a dog shit moustache and quickly moves in the direction of any other male in building.

In an industry more inbred than the Royal Family I have about as much chance of pulling as a member of the Taliban at a New York fire fighters conference. TV people often stick together hoping in the future to mate and give birth to a channel controller or at least a commissioner. Being at the bottom of the pile gives me no chance what so ever. The chances of me shagging my way up the career ladder are minimal. Apart from the time a menopausal divorcee director pinched my arse while I was bent over wiring up a deck in a edit suite. I can imagine I would be halfway through taking heR to heaven and back when she would tap me on the shoulder and ask me for a fucking latte.

Its pretty shit really. All I want to do is meet one of those nice trendy girls from the American Apparel adverts. I’d even wear skinny jeans and a neon t-shirt for any of those girls. Suddenly I would be infinitely cooler than all the other tryhards I come into contact with on a daily basis. That Lovefoxx girl from CSS would be the ultimate. I would then be very cool indeed (CSS are infinantly cool - and they're South American). After making my umpteenth lemon and ginger tea of the day, instead of losing the will to live I could just think “its ok I’m going out with Lovefoxx tonight to have monkfish and noodles at that Vietnamese place on Old Street,……… so fuck you.”

Nu-Cunts On The Block

2007-12-06T21:39:00.004Z

I’m too young to remember old rave but this nu-rave stuff is bollocks. My research shows that rave didn’t happen that long ago anyway - I think it was somewhere way back in the midst of time - shit wait wasn't it was around the early nineties? So its not really old or anything is it. Not like skiffle. Or big band. As there is now nu-rave, does that mean we will now get nu-brit pop, nu-trip hop, nu-reggae? I don’t really see the point. Rave culture in the early nineties happened when the ecstasy culture was at its peak and it was never about fashion, just about the music and the quality drugs that could be scored, getting sweaty and having a good time was all that mattered back then. Now every club you go to is full of coked up assholes or dribbling k-heads. Where once people cracked open a warehouse and had it large, now its 30 quid a ticket in a car park smelling of piss.

The reason I mention I nu-rave is that many of my contemporaries seem to go on about this scene as though Jesus Christ himself has donned a 80’s Nike shell suit, some glow sticks and a neon bum bag, moved to Shoreditch and is playing keyboard for Shit Disco. Every other cunt I talk to is either suddenly a DJ playing ragga mixed with the accapella from Paul McCartneys Frog Song, or has started a band with a fisher price keyboard and an simon says electronic game. It’s all bollocks in my opinion.

In a long list of shit kids peddling this crap the worst offenders must be The Coconut Twins. They play something called ghetto tech, a name that sounds so futuristic to me, I don’t think I'll know what it means until some time around the year 2020. My eyes actually ache from looking at their neon glow and I have to ask where the fuck did it all go wrong? These two might be very nice girls for all I know but the shit they're coming out with must make their parents blush. Their myspace is so like a dispatch from right on the cutting edge of now, it's like staring into the end of the world. Apparently their DJING IN LDN THIS FRIDAY. Being DJ's as well as fashion designers, and ex-editors of nu-rave bible super super. So they have all of societies most useful occupations covered in one. The Coconut Twits dress themselves amidst a style that wouldn't go amiss in Spike Lee's 'Do The Right Thing'. Probably hoping that dressing like the hood will give them some sort of credibility that every other aspect of their existence lacks. To bring 90s American ghetto fashion into the equation, booty dancing, neon shit-patterned clothes and cheap gold surely takes a stylistic genius or far too many drugs. They say things like “Check the dates mang!” and generally go around acting like DJING in Shoreditch and “around the world” is a excuse for looking like the biggest tossers this side of a BBC commissioners Christmas party. At least we can rest easy in the knowlege that by next week, they'll probably be out of fashion.

The Ghost In Uniform

2007-12-06T19:03:00.004Z

Walk past some of the major facilities houses around Soho and you see their runners wearing uniform; obviously not a police or fireman kind of affair - I mean a bloody uniform like they're waiters or something. This is an official uniform, as opposed to the unofficial runners uniform of American Apparel, garish early 90s neon shit, or whatever is the 'fierce' style that the denizen's of Shoreditch are deeming cool for this millisecond.

The runner’s t-shirts often have something hilarious on them like ‘run of the mill’ or ‘only a runner’. Basically this is so some other young jeans, trainers and t-shirt wearing scruffy trend addict (who actually happens to be a grand a minute promo director) doesn’t get asked by anyone to make them a cup of tea. This actually happened once - a knight of the realm British film director demanded a coffee from a young chap only for him to offer the excuse he was in the middle of cutting the latest advert for a famous alcoholic beverage. So uniforms make everything much simpler and regimented, that’s why the Nazis loved them.

Wear the uniform! You are shit and will be told what to do by everyone else for 90 hours a week. You are worthless! You are a runner! So its sort of like the clothing equivalent of the drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket coming round to give you a nice little pep talk.

The North Face of The Moon

2007-12-05T08:46:00.003Z

Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman, Fredrico Fellini, John Luc Goddard and Michael Winner - the director can be an artist responsible more than anyone else in filmmaking for the artistic creation of a film. Auteur theory has taught us to respect these artists and their creations, their beautiful lovingly crafted masterpieces of celluloid, and then there is the TV director. For every Adam Curtis, Molly Dineen or Nick Broomfield there are sadly countless cunts who make worthless reality TV but think their Stanley fucking Kubrick. Sadly I have to deal with directors all to often as they sit slouched in a leather chair in a edit suite on their MacBook (which has to be in black I may add), watching a editor try to save their mess of a television programme while they just sit there shitting it over the impending viewing with their exec. They will be sipping at a cup of cold coffee (they're just too busy to drink it while its hot) and dissapearing every 5 minutes to talk to someone on their Iphone and smoke a Marlborough light. Yet amongst all this mayhem they still find time to get me to wait on them hand and foot and wipe their arse with my own fair hands.

Dressed head to foot in north face and nhs style glasses( if North Face ever want to move into eyewear there is a killing to be made in the media sector) the modern tv director is always ready for action. But why travelling from their home to work they need to wear a jacket designed for trekking through Outer Mongolia I will never know. Or maybe their flash city apartment is located half way up the fucking eiger.

Up Dawsons Creek Without a Paddle

2007-12-03T22:48:00.004Z

The story of the missing canoeist no doubt had production underlings frantically phoning round this afternoon to get that exclusive access for a fast turn around Channel five or Sky docomentary that will be made in a week and is about as informative as a chocolate wrapper.

The guy in question aparently has been missing for five years, and has no memory of said ordeal. If this doesn't make for the best interview, the lack of action will no doubt be made up for by some fabulous shaky cam re-enactment footage featuring a runner in a canoe.

Selective memory loss is a terrible thing and sadly something that effects the TV industry particularly badly, especially production managers and the like who often need someone to blame for the daily production fuck up rather than themselves. The standard question asked when said daily fuck up happens, such as an visa less crew stranded in some African hell hole border crossing, with only a teddy bear called Mohamed to keep them company, is “why wasn’t I told about this sooner” to which the response should often be ‘you were but just chose not to listen as you were too busy whitering on about fresh and fucking wild and spending Christmas in Chamonix”. Always save your emails to back your ass up, always!

Grimshaw

2007-12-02T23:54:00.004Z

BBC Radio 1 appears to have a unique talent for uncovering annoying presenters. First we have Jo Wiley, who while thinking shes gods gift to man also likes to lay claim to discovering every artist on the planet. I noticed her drop this trick in while having the displeasure to watch the BBCs new attempt at being down with the kids, Sound (BBC2 Saturday at 17.15). While discussing the artist Robyn ,Wiley laid claim to 'having always liked her' and some other cantankerous lies to make herself her look good - I think when she was born her asshole and her mouth got mixed up and all the shit comes out the wrong end.

So Sound is the programme that is here to fill the saturday night void of Top of The Pops 2. But top of the pops was dated yeah, kids nowadays are like so cool. Well, Sound tries hard to be cool. So so hard. Its edited at such a frenetic pace that watching it makes you feel like someones taken your eyeballs out and put them in a washing machine full of spanners. It fucking hurts. So you've got the cool camera work, so you need some cool presenters yeah. Step forth Grimshaw, cool personified and proud victim of east londons tsunami of fashion.

So whats Grimshaws look? Lumberjack crossed with a shitter version of Morrisey's haircut from his time in the Smiths. Very dissapointing I'm sure you'll agree but no doubt all the little brats in Universitys across the country will start immitating him. Also being northern, he will no doubt end up being the 'new' Vernon Kay, now that hes settled into middle age entertaining the Pikeys on ITV1 of a Saturday night and saying how 'stonking' everything is all the time. I bet all the execs across the country are dripping at the prospect of this man and who can be the first to tie him up on a golden handjob. Prepare yourself for complete saturation; I point to the trends we've already been through - Kay Hole, Dermot O'Leary, that Bristolian Yeti, Russell Brand, Jimmy Carr, Tony fucking Slattery............................................................

So if you get the chance to switch off sound please do, and save us from a terminator style apocolaypse of a future.

Commissioner Boredom

2007-12-01T00:19:00.003Z

Also tonight, been out for a few drinks down a trendy new bar which has been made to look exactly like the old mans pub it used too be but without the drunken cockney regulars. The captains jackets and no doubt Winehouse and Doherty will soon be a fixture here, and I just wanted to let everyone know that I was a pioneer before old crackhive whitened the shelves in the ladies. I was having a conversation with a friend who works as a runner at the offices of a production company, when this story arrived in the conversation. I really have to give her credit for the use of the phrase 'cuntwash'.

"The commissioner. The walking living god of the TV industry. The person who can make or break a production company. People go on as though these tossers are saving lives, instead of just dolling out slabs of their production budget to their old Oxford chums.

When a commissioner deems your company worthy of a personal visit, all the stops are pulled out. The best organic produce will have been collected. Choco Leibniz spread out, the freshly squeezed pomegranate juice prepared. All waiting for the arrival of the black clad, NHS glasses wearing commissioning cuntwash. If you fuck one of these cunts over, your well and truly screwed; no commissions from their channel until their sacked - and they will be - that’s the only nice thing about those commissioner cunts. Their all sacked at some point. I mean you only have to spunk a few hundred grand away on worthless cutting edges that sit on the shelf for years before your surely kicked out the door.

When they very rarely visit the office, as a runner as you might catch some of the meeting as your bringing the food, pouring the coffee or fellating where applicable around the meeting table. You will hear your boss, the exec who normally strides around the office like he is the fucking son of god, suddenly turn into Jack Lemmon in Glengarry Glen Ross - the washed up old salesman desperately trying to close the deal. As you hear him twitter on about the 'Landmark series that will reinvent the way reality television is interpreted' you look over at the commissioner in all his smug glory. Stroking his chin and drinking black coffee (some have soya milk I may add), looking like a Roman Emperor about to raise or lower his thumb at the end of a blood thirsty gladiatorial clash. With all this power I cant help thinking it must be really easy for them to get laid, but they probably spend most of their spare time wanking off over their own reflection in a full length mirror instead."

How true this is. These fuckers are largely responsible for the state of television today and should take note of when TV was great, when ideas didn't involve repackaging all the inept programmes they've already had into new, even more boring wrappers. Arrange me a marriage? I'll arrange you a cab. And no we won't fucking put it on the bill you cheeky cunt.

Grade Runner

2007-11-30T22:57:00.004Z

Overheard the following bleat today from editor to director while installing a routine piece of kit that said team were too important to do themselves........

"It’s time to put something back into this industry and spread my genius around a bit. I never thought I would say this but I’m getting a bit tired of the big city, there was a time when I couldn’t live without 70 hour coke fuelled edit sessions followed by a three day bender around Soho, waking up with my cock in some sixteen year olds work experience girls mouth and then onto the next project. But now I’m thinking of settling down a bit and getting out of London as my partner has our first child on the way. Maybe after selling up our Stoke Newington town house we can buy a run down farm in Somerset like Hugh's. Tab’s can make organic chutney, I might even take up grouse shooting like my uncle used to. Or perhaps we could move to Cornwall, they love city people down there as we have so much more money than them. I could go surfing every morning before hitting the edit suite.

(pauses while takes sip of purdeys)

I feel a reel sense of duty as even though you can get a Starbucks most places these days the provinces are really lagging behind on decent post-production. Every one knows you cant get a decent grade outside of W1. So all I have to do is move to somewhere outside of London and my skills will blow these bumpkins minds. Set up shop in one of these provincial towns where they just make wildlife programs or daytime TV and my big city skills will clean up. Even better somewhere rural so remote that you cant even find it on sat nav. I'll get tabs to work her Grand Designs magic on a old barn and start a rural facilities house called The Barn or the Farmyard, something like that. Because I’ll be the only one offering a serious London grade outside of Soho all the semi retired execs living out in the sticks will beat a path to my door!"

Serial Killers

2007-11-28T11:26:00.002Z

Some people are so self important. They walk through the door and expect you to wait on them hand and foot, like they are the next messiah. Series producers fit this category. Now most of them are actually nice, but when the shit starts hitting the fan then you really start to see their true colours and the inner cunt comes out to play.

Now there are few categories you can fit these people in. The ones that are extremely posh and are a fully paid up member of the oxford alumni. They also use old terminology and probably wonder why the camera is not handcranked anymore. Then theres the ones that even though it isn't necessary, always like to work 16 hour days 7 days a week and probably sleep in a coffin. To round off this rogues gallery, the fucking miserable ones who have a air of 'I'm pissed off with everyone' to ensure you do anything they request at breakneck speed so as not to invoke the rage virus they've contracted from a zombie rat monkey while filming a tribe on a remote South American island, which probably explains why they've got a face like they've just licked a cats ass.

These people don't seem to understand the concept of time, which is quite strange considering that its been around since the dawn of eternity. The immortal words 'I need a playout' will venomously hiss from their lips, and then they will proceed to call every five minutes asking where it is, conveniently forgetting the fact that their programs a hour long and refusing to understand that it has to be done in real time (how people without any grasp of technology manage to get employed in a industry where its essential in every single stage of production angers and baffles me in equal measure).

Then lunchtime rolls around. Far too busy shopping on the internet and using the facilities telephone to call Botswana even though their own mobile is sat on the desk, they of course have a very specific diet that needs a combination of ingredients available on each far corner of the known world. I know I'll get you a roast dodo, with a salad hand picked from the garden of eden and washed in the tears of Jesus, and you'll take two bites of this glorious feast that takes me half the afternoon to source for your delicate stomach (of course also complaining that its cold and forgetting that would be fucking obvious considering what I've been through to get it for you), before tossing it in the bin (and I also have to note that you will wait until I come to your room once and then ask me for a napkin, and then when I bring you a fucking napkin you suddenly remember you want a spoon, and then when I bring you that you want a perrier like I'm employed solely to wipe your fucking ass all day).

These people really do test my patience, especially as you have to kiss their ass constantly upon fear that they could strike your career down so you never work again (and they also think their position gives them the right to perve over staff members which makes me want to be violently sick into their Fairtrade Latte). I can't wait till the Summer when they're all off planning there next stupendous series of shit in Provence. Until next time......

The Rise of the Chefs

2007-11-27T22:27:00.005Z

A few years back in the dawn of reality television, while big brother was just a twinkling in endemol's eye and Wife Swap was making a name for RDF television, so began the nightmare we live in today. The first fashion to begin was DIY shows. DIY SOS, Changing Rooms, that crap one on ITV where they decorated a house in a hour (if you can't remember it its as shit as it sounds) and the more hi-brow Grand Designs for the Telegraph readers of the world. Slowly these petered out, Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen left our screens and Nick Knowles has hiked his undeserved fame onto the pointless National Lottery crap on a Saturday night (Why can't we just have the numbers, ALL WE NEED IS THE NUMBERS!!). Poor old Anna Ryder-Richardson has had to resort to resurrecting her falling star on the annual twat-fest I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! My heart bleeds for her. It really, really does.

What they should have done is become Chefs! Chefs and food in general are in fashion. The rise of the Chefs is plain for all to see. Now Oliver I can handle. Ramsay to an extent. Masterchef passible. But then they dropped saturday morning kids shows to have a chef off on ITV and BBC1. Overkill begins. But I could handle it. Until now. Just take a look at the schedule today: BBC1 09.15 Whats Really in our food? BBC2 1630 Food Poker, 2000 Oz and James Big Wine Adventure, 2030 Uncharasmatic food robot Heston Blumenthal slow cooking a curry for five years, Cooking The Books at 1830 on Channel Five (with some talking piece of wood from Hollybollocks presenting) and to round off this feast of television Old Leatherface gets his potty mouth out at 2100 on Channel 4 to whip some kitchen into shape in his inimitable style. With my calculations thats 5 hours of TX time across the terrestrial channels dedicated to the same fucking show in different wrapping.

Food poker - FOOD FUCKING POKER! This is quite possibly the straw that broke the camels back. Up pops that bloke who gets in the disguises on Rogue Traders to deal the cards to the best chefs in the country, I shit you not they've replaced the standard playing cards we've been used too since time began in favour of cards with a different ingredient. The chefs are dealt a hand and then have to come up with a dish from this. Where have we heard this before I wander?? Just look at the time slot and get your green peppers and red tomatoes out.

Do people actually enjoy making this toss? Is this the creative outlet they desire? If I want to cook I'll stick to books, where I have a choice about how many recipes I ram into my head every day. So when this runs its course whats next? God help us all.

The Fall of Television

2007-11-27T10:05:00.004Z

Hello, and let me introduce myself. I am a runner for a major post-production company and I'm hear to give the dirt, first hand on the making of television. A behind the scenes look at the overpaid nhs style glasses wearing posh fuckwits, who are greedily chomping away at the innards of the once great establishment of British television like a pack of underfed hyenas, and washing it all down with an 'organic' cola from fresh and wild. I will also try and add my impartial views to what is good and bad about the weeks broadcasts - and sticking it into my most hated medium, so called 'reality' tv. We used to produce quality television, that reflected social movements and offered us an insight into real people with real tragic and interesting stories.

Now I'm stuck with 'Can fat kids hunt' (BBC3 Monday, 10.30pm)? What are they hunting for, a pound down the back of the sofa so they can buy another round of donuts? Why do we have to fabricate documentary's when there are plenty of interesting people in the world? This and many other challenging debates will appear right here, so as they say in the industry stay tuned.