Paddy McGuinness

May 2011

I STILL live in Bolton. I like London and I like going down there but in my game it’s nice to get home and get out of the madness. You can immerse yourself in work and lose sight of what’s important, which is your friends and family. I’ll always stay here.

Do I go out drinking on a Friday night? I’m 37 now. You’re asking the wrong man. I bet you were thinking “ooh, I’ll get some good stuff here!”. If you’ve had asked me that 15 years ago it would have been a different interview. There’s no going out with my mates any more.

I do see them once a week because we play football together and we have a couple of pints after but the days of nightclubs are long gone.

I’m more likely to go out for a meal and have a few quiet beers.

I used to have a football team, we’d play Sunday league but it just got a bit full-on having to be there every weekend with me job. So we just have a kickabout. It keeps you fit.

That’s the trick with keeping fit, to do something you enjoy.

I used to work in a gym and I’d see people come in and they hated it. I thought, do something you enjoy.

Having said that, I’m struggling to keep the weight off. I bought some shorts the other day for me holidays and I was arguing with the bloke in the shop. They can’t be a 34, they’re a bit tight. I begrudgingly got a 36.

On a Friday night I’ll have a sit-in with the missus and watch a bit of telly with a Chinese. Or we’ll have a few friends round.

It’s just me and the missus. We’ve no kids. We have a dog. She’s just been in for an op on her leg. She’s OK but she’s barking the place down.

The first thing I’ll do on a Saturday morning is get a cup of tea and flick on @Sky Sports@ to see what’s going on in the world of football. I’m a @Bolton@ fan and I was at Wembley for the semi-final of the FA Cup. Devastated. It’s like we didn’t show up.

I don’t watch them every week because of my job. To be honest, football coverage on TV is so good, half of the time you’re better off watching it at home.

I was over at Forest’s ground a while back doing an advert for @Victor Chandler. @He sponsors them, doesn’t he? I liked it because when I’ve been to Nottingham before, you sort of do your gig and you’re out. You never get a chance to have a look round.

And I had a really good look around the ground and behind the scenes. All the Brian Clough stuff and the European Cup – it were cracking.

The only programme I’ll have on series link on Sky+ is @Match of the Day. @

Other than that, if I’m flicking through the channels late at night I get drawn in to these bizarre documentaries about driving across ice lakes in Canada or summat like that.

I used to go the cinema a lot but not these days. Half of them are on DVD within a week, anyway.

There are a lot of pirate DVDs going around. My mate works on a building site and he says an old bloke comes on there every Friday with all these DVDs.

And I remember once I was in London, walking down Oxford Street, and this bloke stopped me and said “DVDs?” I thought I’ll buy a few but then I saw my own live DVD and I was disgusted. I don’t mind with Hollywood blockbusters but don’t take the bread out of my mouth.

There’s everything on my iPod from @Jane McDonald@ to @Public Enemy.@ There was a song that I heard@ Beyonce@ do and I was trying to find it on iTunes. I thought I’d found it, started to download it and it were bloody Jane McDonald. Yeah, that’s my excuse.

I don’t get time to read. If I go on holiday I’ll take an autobiography but that’s about my limit. @Peter Kay’s? @I’ve not read one (laughs). He keeps sending them to me but I just don’t have time to read them.

It’s the same with going out to gigs – there just aren’t the hours in the day.

I’m doing a new series of @Take Me Out@ this year and I’m hosting another ITV show called @71 Degrees North.@ I’ve just come back from a month in the Arctic filming that. It’s beautiful, it’s bucket list stuff. That’ll be on in September.

Then there’s the tour. Comedians doing arenas used to be a big thing but these days it’s the norm. That’s the way comedy has progressed. It’s to be expected.

On a perfect weekend it would be sunny and we’d be in the garden with family and friends having a barbecue.

The Paddy McGuinness Saturday Night Live Tour comes to the Capital FM Arena on Friday October 14. Tickets are £25, call 08444 124 624 or visit www.capitalfmarena.com