Fade from black. Scene: an old, decaying theatre. A band start playing an old Whitesnake song. A set of rotating lights start up, illuminating the drummer, who is revealed as Chris. He is dressed in dodgy rock gear. As the song starts to rock, the credits roll:
Paul James Presents
A Team Lard Adventure
Kevin Feltham
Chris Gillmore
Paul James
David Parr
In
Sunday 1st October 2000
Its the night before the big Nottingham trip and Chris is performing in his Whitesnake tribute band. They're supporting a band fronted by a guy who did Jon Bon Jovi on Stars In Their Eyes. After the gig arrangements are made for travel - meet at Chris's parents house at 7am...
Monday 2nd October 2000
7am - I arrive at Chris's parents house. Dave is ready, but Chris is not. What a surprise.
Eventually we get going, driving 2 cars to Dave's house. We leave one car at Dave's and travel up in Amy the Astra - Dave's beloved GTE. He says she's getting elderly, I say she's the car equivalent of a fat barmaid in a tracksuit. Dave has devised a little game to make the trip up the motorway more exciting - guess the obscure 60s and 70s theme tunes. As I was only born in 1977, I do quite badly. I nearly got Return of the Saint (I said The Saint) but totally missed Charlie's Angels. There was a forfeit to my failure - I start with a pint, and every time I get an answer wrong, the drink gets less 'manly'. I was down to a Babycham (that would have been embarassing!) when I got an answer right. Dave offered me double or nothing and I got it right, winning myself a pint.
We arrive at Chris's house, where his girlfriend Sophie is hard at work (she works from home). They've just got back from Greece and Chris needs to repack his newly washed clothes. Kevin arrives soon after. We're taking his BMW, partly because Chris managed to blow his Escort estate up and partly because its way cooler.
While we wait, we watch a schools programme about the making of The World Is Not Enough. Kev eats about a million sandwiches. Finally we set off, and immediately stop for petrol. Kev also buys the Daily Sport (with a lesbian ladies supplement). A few minutes later, Dave has managed to smear chocolate over the supplement.
| Soon we're well under way. Its quite a long journey to Nottingham, so Dave decides to take a nap. Kev gets wind of this, and presses sharply on the brakes, waking Dave with a shock. He spends the rest of the journey too paranoid to go back to sleep, and tries to convince Kevin to tell him how he knew he was asleep without turning round and looking. Could he see in the mirrors? Was it a conspiracy involving Chris? Dave starts to offer Kev and Chris lager in return for finding out the answer and getting some sleep. Chris realises he's onto a good thing and pretends to know the answer. In reality, he doesn't know a thing. |  |
Making good time, we're soon approaching the outskirts of Nottingham. A few miles out we pass the turn off for Alton Towers (conveniently signposting the story). We reach the actual Nottingham turn off and within a few minutes Chris has got us lost. But, hey, what else is new?
Driving around in circles soon brings us to our guest house and we check in to our rooms. As no one wants to share a room with anyone else, we draw lots. Chris and I get the 1st floor room while Dave and Kevin are shut in the attic in a room that doesn't lock and has no hot water. After settling in, we get ready to go out. By now its late afternoon, so we're ready to go drinking. But first we have to get into town - we decide to take a taxi in. After trying several numbers, we find a taxi firm that can take us. We soon find out why...
Cut to a mini-cab travelling at speed, weaving around the traffic. Our four heroes are sitting inside, looking nervously out of the window.
"Safe, man!" exclaims the taxi driver as he speeds around town. "Not really!" we all think. We make small talk and thank our lucky stars when we pull up outside our destination - an Australian theme pub. The barman is also Australian and he serves me two bottles of beer for the price of one - a promotion that is happening at the time. He then realises that that particular brand isn't included in the offer and the others only have a limited choice of 2 for 1 bottles.
We sit at the table (its only about 5pm on a Monday night, so there's plenty around!) and watch the various TV screens. Chris receives a call on his mobile from the garage - his engine needs a new cylinder head, which is going to be expensive. We discuss the various options to him, such as buying a reconditioned one and getting it fitted by the garage. There's a leaflet on the table which clearly states that the 2 for 1 offer applies to all bottles, so we show it to the barman. He admits his mistake and promises us a written apology, which he writes on a napkin.
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Several beers later we decide to move on. Dave wants to go to another pub, but I insist that we have something to eat first. We decide on pizza and visit a well known chain. Shunning etiquette, we all have separate conversations on our mobile phones while we wait for our food.
After the meal, we try to decide on another pub to go to, but end up wandering aimlessly around the city. Eventually Chris leads us to a pub he's visited previously.
Our heroes walk into a church, but inside, its not a church - its a bar. The inside has been refurbished.
We finally settle on the Pitcher and Piano, an old converted church. We have a couple of drinks and Cassanova Chris decides to give us advice on picking up ladies. Actually, he just slags off all of our clothes and watches.
We decide to get an early night so we're refreshed for our trip to Alton Towers in the morning. Click here to turn to Chapter 2: Rapid Fire Fun.