Read Online Ooh! What a Lovely Pair Our Story by Ant McPartlin, Declan Donnelly - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Ant McPartlin, Declan Donnelly
Ads: Link
people looked on you as, well, a child, but it seemed like the bouncers didn’t even watch Byker Grove.
They looked more like Children’s Ward fans to me…
Not only did the bouncers let us in, we were always left alone at indie gigs too. There was a good reason for that: the people there didn’t have a clue who we were either.
We also went to a fantastic Jamiroquai gig at the Newcastle Riverside. I can still picture those venues now – the air thick with the smell of cigarette smoke, old beer and stale urine…
They were really magical places.
We loved both those bands and, years later, our paths crossed again. Clint Boon, from the Inspiral Carpets, wrote the theme tune to Engie Benjy – a children’s animation series that me and Ant provided the voices for.
And people say we’re not rock ’n’ roll…
We also interviewed Jay Kay (from Jamiroquai) at his house for cd:uk . It was a huge country mansion in Buckinghamshire, and we had a great day. We played on his quad bikes and mini motorbikes, but never got the chance to try on his giant hats – unfortunately.
When we weren’t going to gigs, we’d go to bars in town. Whatever it took to perfect the art of alcohol poisoning, we were prepared to do it. It was harder to be anonymous in pubs though. We would often get recognized, and that nickname that followed us around for years would come out: ‘those two poofs off the telly’.
One year, after a premiere, me, Dec, Nicola, Jill and John went into town for a few drinks and, when a few members of the cast went out together, well, you were asking for trouble.
You may as well have gone up to the bar and said, ‘Three pints, a Bacardi and coke and, if it’s not too much trouble, could you find someone who’d like to beat me up, just so I can get it out of the way early?’
We were walking from one bar to another and a stocky lad in his late teens came up to me and asked me to take off my trousers. I thought, ‘That’s quite a chat-up line,’ but I said no, I was using them and I had no intention of standing in the middle of town in my underpants. He asked again – ‘Give me your trousers’ – and I said no again. Then, surprise, surprise, the truth came out – the trouser request had been a red herring to distract from the main point of this encounter: he wanted to punch me in the face. After having the – pardon the pun – bare-faced cheek to keep my own trousers on, well, in his opinion, I was asking for it. And he gave it to me, in the form of a black eye.
It didn’t go down very well at home – my mam hit the roof because, as she quite rightly pointed out, I should have run away, or just done anything but get punched in the face. The make-up girls at work weren’t too pleased either: I was now doing a convincing impression of a bloke who was half man, half panda, and it made their job much harder. The next time I went out in town I wore two pairs of trousers, just to be on the safe side.
I really felt for Ant but, at the same time, I was glad the lad hadn’t gone for me. Clare was with me on one of her visits from London, and we were walking a few metres behind, so the lad just got to him first. Plus, my trousers weren’t as nice as Ant’s.
It has to be said, I was also capable of bringing trouble on myself on a night out, like the time we went out for Boppa’s eighteenth birthday. I had a lot of scenes to do the next day, so the sensible thing to do was take it easy and have an early night. I decided to go for the other option, which was to get blind drunk. We went to the same pub we’d been going to for a couple of years and, as we were all saying ‘Happy eighteenth’ to Boppa, you could see the landlord looking at us thinking, ‘Happy eighteenth? Hang on, I’ve been serving these kids for two years…’
Then, towards the end of the night, not content with consuming our own body weight in lager, we decided it was time to move on to the spirits, and Boppa got
They looked more like Children’s Ward fans to me…
Not only did the bouncers let us in, we were always left alone at indie gigs too. There was a good reason for that: the people there didn’t have a clue who we were either.
We also went to a fantastic Jamiroquai gig at the Newcastle Riverside. I can still picture those venues now – the air thick with the smell of cigarette smoke, old beer and stale urine…
They were really magical places.
We loved both those bands and, years later, our paths crossed again. Clint Boon, from the Inspiral Carpets, wrote the theme tune to Engie Benjy – a children’s animation series that me and Ant provided the voices for.
And people say we’re not rock ’n’ roll…
We also interviewed Jay Kay (from Jamiroquai) at his house for cd:uk . It was a huge country mansion in Buckinghamshire, and we had a great day. We played on his quad bikes and mini motorbikes, but never got the chance to try on his giant hats – unfortunately.
When we weren’t going to gigs, we’d go to bars in town. Whatever it took to perfect the art of alcohol poisoning, we were prepared to do it. It was harder to be anonymous in pubs though. We would often get recognized, and that nickname that followed us around for years would come out: ‘those two poofs off the telly’.
One year, after a premiere, me, Dec, Nicola, Jill and John went into town for a few drinks and, when a few members of the cast went out together, well, you were asking for trouble.
You may as well have gone up to the bar and said, ‘Three pints, a Bacardi and coke and, if it’s not too much trouble, could you find someone who’d like to beat me up, just so I can get it out of the way early?’
We were walking from one bar to another and a stocky lad in his late teens came up to me and asked me to take off my trousers. I thought, ‘That’s quite a chat-up line,’ but I said no, I was using them and I had no intention of standing in the middle of town in my underpants. He asked again – ‘Give me your trousers’ – and I said no again. Then, surprise, surprise, the truth came out – the trouser request had been a red herring to distract from the main point of this encounter: he wanted to punch me in the face. After having the – pardon the pun – bare-faced cheek to keep my own trousers on, well, in his opinion, I was asking for it. And he gave it to me, in the form of a black eye.
It didn’t go down very well at home – my mam hit the roof because, as she quite rightly pointed out, I should have run away, or just done anything but get punched in the face. The make-up girls at work weren’t too pleased either: I was now doing a convincing impression of a bloke who was half man, half panda, and it made their job much harder. The next time I went out in town I wore two pairs of trousers, just to be on the safe side.
I really felt for Ant but, at the same time, I was glad the lad hadn’t gone for me. Clare was with me on one of her visits from London, and we were walking a few metres behind, so the lad just got to him first. Plus, my trousers weren’t as nice as Ant’s.
It has to be said, I was also capable of bringing trouble on myself on a night out, like the time we went out for Boppa’s eighteenth birthday. I had a lot of scenes to do the next day, so the sensible thing to do was take it easy and have an early night. I decided to go for the other option, which was to get blind drunk. We went to the same pub we’d been going to for a couple of years and, as we were all saying ‘Happy eighteenth’ to Boppa, you could see the landlord looking at us thinking, ‘Happy eighteenth? Hang on, I’ve been serving these kids for two years…’
Then, towards the end of the night, not content with consuming our own body weight in lager, we decided it was time to move on to the spirits, and Boppa got
Similar Books
