Read Online Ooh! What a Lovely Pair Our Story by Ant McPartlin, Declan Donnelly - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ant McPartlin, Declan Donnelly
Ads: Link
a drink called ‘The Top Shelf’
Oh no.
Oh yes.
The experienced pub-goers among our readers are already ahead of me here. This drink contained every single spirit from the top shelf in the same glass – vodka, Bacardi, Baileys, whiskey – you name it, it was in that glass – and we all had to down one. Well, I say, ‘had to’, we didn’t have to, but we were all obeying the first law of teen life: if your mates tell you to do something, you do it, no matter how stupid, reckless and hangover-inducing it might be.
At the end of the night, I staggered home and did what everyone does at some point in their teenage years – I threw up all over my bedroom.
I woke up the next morning with a puzzle to solve. How had someone managed to break into my room and hit me over the head with a hammer for eight hours solid?
I felt absolutely dreadful. My head was banging, and the phone was ringing. It seemed louder than usual but, frankly, so did everything. I finally answered it, and it was the production office at Byker Grove, demanding to know why I was an hour late for filming. I’d forgotten all about it. To be honest, it was a miracle I’d even remembered where I lived.
I jumped up, begged Sarha to help me clean my room, had a shower and got to the shoot. We were heading to location, and I got on the minibus and sat next to Dec. I thought, ‘At least my best mate’ll be sympathetic, he’ll help me get through this and give me a shoulder to cry on.’ I was wrong.
He just took one look at me and said…
‘You absolutely stink!’
And he did, he stank of Baileys, and pretty soon, the whole mini bus stank of Baileys – all the way to location. And this wasn’t any ordinary location.
We were filming at the Junior Great North Run. And we were dressed as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I’ll just repeat that, in case you thought your eyes were playing tricks on you.
We were filming at the Junior Great North Run.
And we were dressed as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
And I stank of Baileys.
I considered jumping out of the moving minibus to try and get out of it, but in the end I decided there was no choice, I’d just have to try and get through the shoot.
We were dressed as turtles because PJ and Duncan were doing the run in fancy dress for charity, and we didn’t even have proper turtle outfits, because they were supposed to look homemade. So we had to wear white boiler suits made out of paper and painted green, homemade shells on our backs and turtle masks from a joke shop. The only thing greener than those turtle outfits was Ant’s face.
We put the costumes on and jumped out of the minibus into the middle of a baking-hot day and thousands of people warming up for the run.
I turned to Ant and said, ‘Cowabunga dude, Turtle Power!’
I won’t repeat what I said back to him.
Chapter 6
‘He cannot see, can he? He can’t see, man!’
Not my words, but the words of my character, Duncan, immediately after his best mate, PJ, had been blinded in a horrific paintball accident.
It was definitely the most memorable storyline we were involved in on Byker Grove and, even now, nearly twenty years on, I still get people coming up to me and mentioning it. In fact, if you’re reading this and you bump into me in the future, desperate to check how I am, all I’ll say is my eyes are okay, my vision is fine and I haven’t been paintballing since, thanks for asking.
It all happened towards the end of our time on the show, and we both took it very seriously. The plot was basically that, during a paintball contest between Byker Grove and rival youth club Denton Burn, PJ took off his mask to warn his mate Noddy – played by Brett Adams – about a shot that was coming towards him, when not one, but two paintballs were fired into his eyes. How’s that for bad luck? To make it even more tragic, the shots came from the two girls PJ was seeing at the same time. He was involved in a love triangle with
Oh no.
Oh yes.
The experienced pub-goers among our readers are already ahead of me here. This drink contained every single spirit from the top shelf in the same glass – vodka, Bacardi, Baileys, whiskey – you name it, it was in that glass – and we all had to down one. Well, I say, ‘had to’, we didn’t have to, but we were all obeying the first law of teen life: if your mates tell you to do something, you do it, no matter how stupid, reckless and hangover-inducing it might be.
At the end of the night, I staggered home and did what everyone does at some point in their teenage years – I threw up all over my bedroom.
I woke up the next morning with a puzzle to solve. How had someone managed to break into my room and hit me over the head with a hammer for eight hours solid?
I felt absolutely dreadful. My head was banging, and the phone was ringing. It seemed louder than usual but, frankly, so did everything. I finally answered it, and it was the production office at Byker Grove, demanding to know why I was an hour late for filming. I’d forgotten all about it. To be honest, it was a miracle I’d even remembered where I lived.
I jumped up, begged Sarha to help me clean my room, had a shower and got to the shoot. We were heading to location, and I got on the minibus and sat next to Dec. I thought, ‘At least my best mate’ll be sympathetic, he’ll help me get through this and give me a shoulder to cry on.’ I was wrong.
He just took one look at me and said…
‘You absolutely stink!’
And he did, he stank of Baileys, and pretty soon, the whole mini bus stank of Baileys – all the way to location. And this wasn’t any ordinary location.
We were filming at the Junior Great North Run. And we were dressed as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I’ll just repeat that, in case you thought your eyes were playing tricks on you.
We were filming at the Junior Great North Run.
And we were dressed as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
And I stank of Baileys.
I considered jumping out of the moving minibus to try and get out of it, but in the end I decided there was no choice, I’d just have to try and get through the shoot.
We were dressed as turtles because PJ and Duncan were doing the run in fancy dress for charity, and we didn’t even have proper turtle outfits, because they were supposed to look homemade. So we had to wear white boiler suits made out of paper and painted green, homemade shells on our backs and turtle masks from a joke shop. The only thing greener than those turtle outfits was Ant’s face.
We put the costumes on and jumped out of the minibus into the middle of a baking-hot day and thousands of people warming up for the run.
I turned to Ant and said, ‘Cowabunga dude, Turtle Power!’
I won’t repeat what I said back to him.
Chapter 6
‘He cannot see, can he? He can’t see, man!’
Not my words, but the words of my character, Duncan, immediately after his best mate, PJ, had been blinded in a horrific paintball accident.
It was definitely the most memorable storyline we were involved in on Byker Grove and, even now, nearly twenty years on, I still get people coming up to me and mentioning it. In fact, if you’re reading this and you bump into me in the future, desperate to check how I am, all I’ll say is my eyes are okay, my vision is fine and I haven’t been paintballing since, thanks for asking.
It all happened towards the end of our time on the show, and we both took it very seriously. The plot was basically that, during a paintball contest between Byker Grove and rival youth club Denton Burn, PJ took off his mask to warn his mate Noddy – played by Brett Adams – about a shot that was coming towards him, when not one, but two paintballs were fired into his eyes. How’s that for bad luck? To make it even more tragic, the shots came from the two girls PJ was seeing at the same time. He was involved in a love triangle with
Similar Books
