While Michael (Simon Greenall) is absent for a few minutes, Alan (Steve Coogan) takes his place behind the counter at the petrol station. He recognises his first customer as Frank Raphael (Andrew Burt), a former teacher of his and now head master at the same school. Alan locks Raphael in the petrol station until the headmaster agrees to let Alan give a talk to the children at his old school. Later Alan and his P.A. Lynn (Felicity Montagu) meet with Siobhan (Jacquetta May) the head of the video company that Alan does voice-over work for. He tries and fails to re-negotiate his fee for his next video of car-crashes. Leaving the meeting, Alan has a minor car accident. Siobhan rushes over to see if he and Lynn are OK and Alan agrees to the old fee and says that he will throw in the CCTV footage of the accident gratis. Visiting the school to deliver his talk, Alan meets an old schoolfriend Phil Wiley (Ian Puleston-Davis) who now teaches there. They talk about old times which turns nasty as Alan dredges up memories of incidents from the past. As part of his talk Alan shows the disinterested schoolchildren one of his car-crash videos made during a time when he was depressed and massively overweight. His argument with Phil erupts again and he is shown the door by the headmaster. Alan returns to the petrol station to chat to Michael, Phil arrives and Alan locks him out of the petrol station and uses the microphone to inform him that there is enough food there to withstand a long siege.
Alan makes a new friend at the BP garage, Dan (played by Stephen Mangan). They both like the same beer, use the same deodorant, and drive Lexi ("the plural of Lexus"). Dan owns "Kitchen Planet" and arranges for Alan to present the Colman's Mustard Bravery Awards. Alan's attempts to converse with Karen Colman are hugely unsuccessful; he even admits to her that he had mental health issues. She strikes up an instant rapport with Sonja, however, later inviting her back to her house without Alan. On hearing that the Colmans' family motto is "Too much mustard gets up your nose," Alan tries to impress her by eating a big spoonful. Later, at Dan's home, Alan finds out that Dan and his wife enjoy a deviantly spicy lifestyle; to his great discomfort, they show him a tape of them having intercourse.