Viva FAC 51 - THE HAÇIENDA

21-24th Feb 2006 - I get up at 4am to get to Heathrow for the early morning flight at 5:30am and check in fairly quickly with no problems. The week seemed to go quite quickly but there was alot to do and many people to speak to.

Having to catch the train from Amsterdam airport, it soon emerged that I was in full flow of rush hour. I get on the train and was just looking to melt into the background, alas this was not to be. So really tired and feeling lathargic I am leaning against a door inside the train, and at the next stop all these expresso fueled nutters decide to jump on. These two butch women get on and start ranting at me in a fast duch dialect.

So feeling tired I decide to wait till the silly cow finishes her rant. Then thinking of an answer I could not be arsed so I said, "I have not got a clue what you are on about!", butch looks me up and down then points to a sticker over the door, then starts ranting again. I just looked at her and in true northern style said, "Right!". some girl laughs in the corner, some breed, I guess who could speak English better than me?

Well eventually get to Den Haag station and a fifteen minute drive in an S-class Mercedes would get me to the hotel and checkin, I was bushed but I still had to bang out a full days work.

11th floor of a city hotel call the NH which was right next to our office block which was on the 25th floor, threw the bags down and went to get freshened up ready for work, banged an expresso down me and I was ready!

The office was open plan and high tech but you could sense this layed back vibe, all I could remember about the Netherlands was Amsterdam to which I had visited as a squaddie way back when I was a resident in Germany in 1994-95 (Fucking Wicked).

So I meet the people and do my thing meetings and analysis etc.. then tuesday we go out for a meal, spent a fucking fortune on a restraunt downtown mostly drinks to which later we would see one of the bosses moan as it went over 300 euros for three of us. Quite chuffed that I did not have to foot the bill as this jumped up little egotistical tosser from the Netherlands coughed up, at the end sat there wailing like a little girl.

Couple of boring days listening to more egotistical morons, wanking on about how good everything is, eventually loosing the will to live when this erratic bint decides she wants to be a time rapist for about four hours!

Next day we have a kickoff meeting - for the whole company which involved drinks over at our hotel as they had booked a function room - so it made sense to leave an open bar for a few hours in the lobby, this was good news and I wanted to take full advantage as you do like!

one problem was however was that not many people from the office wanted to party and after work I guess that many people wanted to just have a quick drink and go home. I grabbed a beer and sat down infront of the big plasma they had and comfy sofas, watching the football, there was a business man sat in the corner playing with his phone and he had a laptop bag.

I was all set to see what was on tv and asked this buisness man if he minded if I turned the football over, what followed was to be a night of drunkeness and extreme nostalgia, this guy was from up north Manchester side and we got chatting.

I even fucked one of our managers off as he was wanting to talk shop, so we started chatting about Ipods, music etc. My father in law had bought one of these ipods on ebay with about 20GB of tunes to which he thought that they were rubish and gave them to me. I mentioned to this lad who I now know as Nick Catterall, who lives and works in the London area that I had a full Hacienda collection of dance tracks - man this just kicked off, we had the laptop fired up and was listening to the old school tunes, remembering the scene and the era we chatted for hours about old school raves and the party scene. (man is a fucking legend!)

We discussed this fucked up world and religion, I guess as a christian I was pitching it a bit but I think that I was not too full on, basically it was like we were old shcool mates or summat, eventually we got the munchies, the food arrived but was really gay and both of us refused to pay for it. Nick and me then aquired a bottle of wine to drink on after the bar shut but about 30 mins later the laptop had run out of battery and we were too pissed and talking shite to drink the bottle of red we had got from the bar.

we had no corkscrew so this gorgeous blonde about 19 from the bar came up to open it for us I think she loved our cheeky northern charm, also that she wanted a chat as she was a bit shocked that we had returned the gopping food earlier and was killing time before her shift finished, we had a laugh then turned in for the evening about 2:30am

saying goodbye as Nick zigzagged down to the lifts, he said to me "send me the hacienda stuff mate, you have my card", and do you know what when I got back to the UK this was to be my first priority, Viva - La Hacienda - fucking wicked time and wot a nice bloke...

Funny thing is the Hacienda should be re-built man I or Nick or anyone else who was there knows that potentionally this was the best club on earth, still off your face on the beans there were others! Wigan pier, Legends in Warrington, and not forgetting the Quad - The warehouse Leeds, the clubbers and the DJ's will never be forgot, this is true fucking british history to which I will never regret being a part of!---madchester 2006 Rave On!