Here for the lentil and butternut squash curry? When is it ever that easy with us?

A few posts ago Paul was given the chance to answer a few random questions from our readers. Because we’re so unspeakably arrogant, let’s roll the dice again! This time, me, James, will be answering. Prefer Paul? You’re wrong – he’s the Lidl James.

That’s not true, he’s better than I could ever dream of being.

What was your first impression of each other?

Great question – our first real time together saw us falling asleep next to each other within twenty minutes of meeting. My conversation will do that. That or my exhaustive anal technique. Anyway, I’d been holding in an almighty fart and I waited until he fell asleep to blurt it out. There was a moment or two of silence then an almighty laugh from Paul, and we never looked back, save for me to check I hadn’t shit myself. I knew then he was a keeper, because anyone who can laugh through the tears caused by my skin-peeling wind is for me. I just asked Paul for his first impression of me and it was simply ‘handsome’. Pfft. I thought Paul would love me more if I turned up looking like a Poundland Triga movie – I turned up in a Newcastle United top, grey trackies and a pair of trainers so clean you could imagine they’d been bleached. Clearly my Chloe Mafia brrrrap-brrrrap swagger won him over.

Do your ‘offline’ friends/family/colleagues know about your online presence/following?

We try and keep offline and online fairly separate. We’ve built up slight caricatures of ourselves for the blog and it can be difficult looking someone in the eye to talk about exciting work stuff when you know they’ve just read a blistering account of the time you accidentally fisted someone on a night out in Hartlepool. I mean, you don’t want anyone knowing you’ve been to Hartlepool, for Christ’s sakes. People are always astonished that the quiet one in the office has over 350,000 followers hanging on his every word. That’s why they call me Jim Jones and stare at me nervously as I’m making squash. We do find ourselves immediately caveating any trip to the website with a warning about the language, content, poor photography and swearing. My parents like to know exactly how much money the blog makes us so when I invariably die early due to a torn rectum, they’ll be able to cash in and bugger off to Alicante for a few months. Ghouls.

What advice would you give your 15 year old self?

Learn to drive as soon as you can. Noshing off lorry drivers for a quick trip up the A69 is never a safe idea. Stop worrying. Jason from Glasgow is going to make you unable to poo without crying for a week, practice first. Don’t grow that fucking awful Enya haircut two years from now. Don’t then dye it blonde so you look like a meth-addled Myra Hindley. Start on the grand plan earlier and you’ll have a house even sooner. Always double-douche. Don’t wank yourself silly over Fred Durst, save some juice for later – he turns into a mega-DILF with age.

If you were prime minister for a day, what would you change?

Mass deportation – straight into the sea, mind – of anyone who starts a sentence with:

• I’m not being funny but…
• I’m not a racist but…
• The thing is, yeah…
• …I turned around and said…

Coupled with the immediate destruction of anyone who shares ‘97% of people won’t share this’ drivel, anyone who doesn’t immediately acknowledge me letting them in on the motorway and anyone who walks more than two abreast on a path. Oh, and the reintroduction of gloryholes.

If you were only allowed to pick one country for the rest of your holidays where would you go?

Germany. Partly because of happy memories, partly because of shenanigans to come, and mostly because it’s an amazing country full of history and culture. Plus fuck it, I can sneak out on a train to all the countries around it. Want to play properly? Canada. I want to live there – a giant farm by a lake, nothing around me than the corpses of the people I pick up on Grindr. As long as I can still download Dr Who and Paul can still get his subscription boxes, we’ll be fine.

Do you read every post and all replies on your FB page?

Yep! We don’t always reply to them – usually if they’re bad mannered, illogical or lazy. I also make a point of refusing to answer anyone who has bilge in their profile picture. If they look like they’ve ever so much contemplated buying a LIFE LAUGH LOVE wall decal, they can go.

Which female celebrity would be your straight crush?

Not even a straight crush – she remains my number one absolute dream. Gillian Anderson. Sophisticated, beautiful, hilarious, strong and incredibly compassionate. I always wanted to be Scully rather than Mulder, not least because I can run in a set of heels and look great with red hair.

Are you readers as well as writers ? Who is your favourite author and why?

Paul reads fussy books about architecture. They all smell of foist and damp and have words like aggregate and tensile in them. The only way they’d send me to sleep quicker would be if he smashed me in the face with it like Little Mo and her Christmas dinner. (sidenote: I used to have such a crush on Trevor, you know – isn’t that awful?) I like Stephen King. I used to caveat that with an apology because he’s so mainstream but you know what, fuck that – he’s an excellent writer and his books are brilliantly entertaining. He can’t finish to save his life, but nor can I without someone working my balls. His best is The Stand, although I bloody hated Frannie. Stuck up cow. The miniseres is an absolute hoot though – I often do my best Mother Abigail voice to Paul as he approaches climax – makes him last a bit longer to think of me as a nonagenarian corn farmer.

How much weight have you both lost?

One or two pounds.

Are you still in love with each other?

More than ever. Paul gets such a rough time of it from this blog because I’m the writer for 99% of the articles, but he’s learned to roll with the punches now (quite right, I keep them on his kidneys). Thing is, I can’t imagine my life without him in it – from all the tiny things we do together to the big stuff like holidays and tag-teaming plumbers. He’s been the first person I speak to in the morning for over ten years and the last person I speak to before sleep. He still laughs at my jokes, he still puts up with my nonsense. I woke him up in a crisis the other day because I’d diagnosed a rough patch of skin in my armpit as lymphoma. He pointed out we’d changed the washing powder and it was just a reaction to that, calmed me down and spooned me until my blanket of back hair made him sneeze. He makes my coffee in the morning and my tea in the evening. Even now, four thousand days later, we still think of nonsense to send one another to cheer each other’s days up. I sent him a picture of Enya in a clock the other day and he laughed like a drain. Love comes in many ways, but they all come from him. My life without him in it is as unimaginable to me as the inky blackness of death or a world without bees and I promise you, reader, that not a single day goes by where I don’t remember how much I love him and tell him how special he is to me. The thought that one day all this will end and one will be torn from the other breaks my heart in two but makes me keen to make every day special.

I just wish he wasn’t such a swivel-eyed gypsy-stock bastard, though.

Have either of you ever done that thing where several men are doing each other from behind simultaneously?

No. Definitely haven’t been part of a group of eight either. I say part, I mean the sponge.

That was fun! Might do one last burst on the next blog post. But until then, it’s time for our lentil and butternut squash curry!

Want more slow cooker wonders? Of course you do!

• slow cooker lasagne (syn free)
• colourful mash (syn free)
• syn free onion jam (syn free)
• campfire stew (syn free)
• slow cooker cottage pie (syn free)
• flicked bean overnight chilli (syn free)
• cheeseburger soup (0.5 syns)
• bloody mary beef (1 syn)
• beary beery barley beef stew (1 syn)
• spicy pork in citrus sauce (1.5 syns)
• beef bourguignon (1.5 syns)
• slow cooker beef keema (1 syn)
• slow cooker pork and apple stew (1.5 syns)
• guinness pulled pork with colcannon mash (2.5 syns)
• slow cooker honey buffalo meatballs (2.5 syns)

J