him a lot and I think, when we were together, you took it to heart a bit, didn’t you?
CHRIS: Yeah. Because the thing is, if you’re supposed to love someone, why would you rip the piss out of them the whole time?
STEPHEN: Entertainment, dear.
CHRIS: For you. Not for me.
STEPHEN: There’s twenty-four hours in a day: I get bored. But it did make me feel bad because I felt like a bully.
CHRIS: We’re much better as friends, anyway.
STEPHEN: I still take the piss as much, but you just say, ‘Shut up.’
HOW DID YOU GET ON GOGGLEBOX?
CHRIS: This woman walked into the salon and said she was looking for someone to take part in a TV programme, so I went running over and went, ‘Oh my God! Tell me about it! Tell me about it!’
STEPHEN: Fame-hungry bitch. I wasn’t interested at first. I just thought, it will sink without trace. And then he said, ‘They’re paying us,’ and I went, ‘All right, I’ll do it.’
Chris and Ginge, the big pussy
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOURSELVES ON SCREEN?
CHRIS: It was a bit strange at first, because I think people had said, ‘You’ve got to be careful what you say, because you’re going to be on TV, it’s going to be out there,’ so in the first one I was really quiet. And people were, like, ‘That’s not you.’ But you overanalyse things in your head and you think, I can’t say that because you know, it might go on TV and I don’t want people to think that I’m nasty or I’m rude or …
STEPHEN: I didn’t give a fuck.
CHRIS: Yeah, but you don’t give a fuck anyway.
WHAT WAS YOUR
FAMILY’S REACTION?
CHRIS: My sisters absolutely love it. Tune in every single week.
STEPHEN: All my family watch it, and I’ll say something and they’ll go, ‘Oh, that’s something your nan used to say,’ or, ‘Oh my God, you looked like your brother when you said that.’ So they’ve said it’s like watching them, because we’re all pretty much the same character, our family.
CHRIS: Oh God, yeah. A bit inbred. You all look the same.
BEING RECOGNISED
STEPHEN: When we did the first series, I didn’t have a Twitter account, nor did Chris. And someone said to us, ‘Why don’t you get a Twitter account?’ So we opened it up, and I think within two days it was, like, 7,000 followers – and it’s just gone up and up and up. I think we’re up to about 60,000 now.
CHRIS: Well, you are. I’m up to about 47,000.
STEPHEN: And out of all the Tweets I’ve had, I’ve only ever got two crap ones. One was a bit weird and said she wanted to fuck me mum. My mum was, like, ‘Does she? Get her round here. I’ll fuck her up.’ That one, she got chucked out of Iceland’s. There’s a picture of her, on her Twitter page, being carried out of Iceland’s.
In real life, people are brilliant. I don’t suppose I’ve ever been so popular. You know, you walk into a bar and everyone’s really nice. Everyone. Not one person has said … Oh, actually, the other day I was in Hurstpierpoint and this car went past, it slowed down and the window went down. And the bloke went, ‘Oi, mate! Are you the geezer off the telly?’ And I went, ‘Yeah.’ And he went, ‘You’re a wanker!’ I really started laughing, and I went, ‘I know!’ And he laughed and drove off.
CHRIS: I’ve had all really good responses as well. But I was out a couple of weeks ago, and this woman came running over to me, waving at me, and she was, like, ‘Oh my God! I love you on the TV. Can I have my picture taken with you?’ And I was, like, ‘Yeah, course.’ I sat down with her and one of her friends was trying to take the picture. Then, all of a sudden, this guy came over and tapped me on the shoulder and went, ‘Someone’s sitting there.’ And I said, ‘I’m just having a picture done with her.’ And he was, like, ‘Yeah, but you don’t get what I’m saying: someone’s sitting there.’ And I went ‘Yeah, I know. I’m going to be moving in a minute. She wanted to talk to me.’
And then I got another tap on my other shoulder – and it was her husband. And he went, ‘That’s my fucking missus.’ And I went, ‘She’s called me over here because she likes me on Gogglebox. I’m only having a picture taken with her, then I’m going …’
STEPHEN: ‘And I’m as bent as a nine-bob note …’
CHRIS: Why would I be interested in her? We were in a gay bar. But the thing was, the rest of the night all they did was just throw me the evils.
STEPHEN: But I love it. On a Saturday night, when you’re out and you’ve had a load of drink, it’s brilliant. Sunday morning, when you’ve got a hangover – stranger danger and beer fear – that’s when I start getting paranoid, thinking that someone’s going to be horrible or something.
There’s a woman who works on the road I work on, and she said to me, ‘You really do look better in the flesh.’ I thought, you cheeky cow.
CHRIS: You see, I get the opposite. Some of my really close friends are, like, ‘Oh my God, Chris, you look so good on TV.’ And I’m, like – I don’t in real life? ‘Well, yeah, you look nice in real life, but on TV you look really hot.’
WHOSE HAIR WOULD YOU CHANGE ON TV?
STEPHEN: Beeny’s. Frizzy bleached chunk slices.
CHRIS: We’ve always said that we’d like to do her hair.
STEPHEN:
