by James Argent
‘Look, will you give me one night that’s normally dead?’ I asked. ‘I want to see if I can put on a party and make some money on the door from the ticket sales.’
‘Yeah, why not? Let’s give it a go,’ replied the manager.
We agreed that I’d try it on a Friday night, which was normally a quiet time for them because there was so much going on at other venues on the same evening. On average they’d get only about ten or twenty people in there. But I was going to do my best to change that. I enlisted the help of a couple of friends, Harry and Ellis, whose families had connections with the nightclub scene in the West End. We hired a DJ to play house music and we busily set about selling as many tickets as we could. At this stage I wasn’t sure it would be a success; in fact I was nervous it might be a washout. So I went on Facebook and invited as many people as I could to come along, and I also texted everybody that I knew.
Oh, my God! I remember thinking. I hope everyone turns up.
I needn’t have worried. About 350 people attended on the first night and the owners of the bar were amazed. All the staff said they had never seen it so busy on a Friday. The management of Faces even came down to see what all the fuss was about and they patted me on the back for all the new business I’d brought in. I was delighted.
This is what I’m going to do, I told myself. I’m a nightclub promoter!
It was an impressive turnout and even George D himself got to hear about how good our party had been. He got in touch and asked me if I’d like to co-promote some events with him in the West End, to which I readily agreed. Our party night was called Liaison and we hosted big evenings at Faces, as well as in other venues like Club Warehouse and Pacha London. I was the same ordinary bloke I’d always been, but I felt very cool and all of a sudden people started to show me a little respect. My mates liked the fact that I could help them to skip the queue, and of course we gave out the odd free ticket here and there.
I felt I’d finally found a moneymaking venture that I was good at, but I continued working at the jewellery shops during the day. My friend James, who’d got me the job through his dad, used to come to the party events that I organised and it was around this time that I met Mark Wright for the first time through James, which was to open up a whole new world.
4
MARK WRIGHT, A HOLIDAY IN MARBELLA AND AN EXPLODING TV
The first time I met Mark Wright it was a painful experience. We did go on to become best buddies but that was only after Mark had nearly knocked out one of my teeth with a beer bottle! Of course it was an accident, but it was a strange beginning to what was to become a lasting friendship. In many ways Mark and I are opposites. He was the flashily dressed man about town who could charm the birds from the trees, whereas I became his slightly overweight pal who was much quieter and very shy when it came to pulling girls.
I got to know Mark’s younger brother Josh first, whom I’d met at a party I’d hosted with George D in the West End. Josh was a footballer on the books of Charlton Athletic at the time, and he and I immediately hit it off after being introduced by James Kane. Even though Josh was slightly younger than me, I looked up to him a little, because his football career had brought him quite a lot of money at a young age. Josh and his pal, called Eren, would ring me up all the time to see if I’d heard any gossip about any girls who were worth chasing. I think they regarded me as a fountain of information because I knew everyone on the club scene in Essex. They would come to my house for a drink and to ask me if the girls they fancied had been up to any mischief in the clubs. We soon formed a genuine friendship. Being a footballer, Josh would bulk up on his calories on a Friday before playing on a Saturday. He would take me out on a ‘carb night’, during which we would have a huge meal together. His football career was going really well and, when he was picked for the England under-nineteens, I went along to watch him.
The first time I met Mark was at a huge party that his family had thrown for his sister Jessica. Mark was very into football at the time. He’d previously played for Tottenham Hotspur’s youth team, and he was currently playing for Bishop’s Stortford, one of the big non-League sides in Hertfordshire. There’s always some amazing banter among people connected to football, and Mark’s mates were no exception. I was used to larking about with my own pals, but Mark’s crowd took the piss out of one another on a whole new level. They were constantly pulling pranks. If you were asked to pose for a photo, you could always expect a slap around the back of the head to distract you. Mark was very much the leader of the group and I could see straightaway he was a boy’s boy.
‘Who the hell is this Arg kid?’ I heard him ask Josh, a bit dismissively at the party.
‘He’s cool, Mark. He’s a nightclub promoter,’ Josh reassured him.
Little did Mark know that I was actually a virgin from up the road who worked by day in a jewellery shop! When it came to posing for a group photo at the party it was my turn to fall victim to a prank – or to be ‘bantered’, as they called it. All the boys lined up next to me for the camera and we smiled our best cheesy grins. As I sipped on a bottle of beer I noticed a few of the others laughing, when, suddenly, whack!
Mark slapped me hard around the back of the head. It took me by surprise and made me jump so much that I knocked my front teeth on the bottle that I was holding. The blow was so hard that it took a small chip off the side of a tooth. I took quite a knock and I was probably lucky not to have lost it. I was surprised to say the least, but the rest of the group thought it was hilarious and they all fell about laughing. I could see the funny side, too, and it was from that strange start that my long friendship with Mark Wright began. He hadn’t meant me any harm: it was just one of those things, and I’d been holding the bottle so closely at the time.
Mark loved to be the organiser of everything and his constant banter was hilarious. He could talk anyone into anything and he always managed to do it with a smile on his face. I think everyone in the group looked up to him. He’s a good-looking boy and he always had girls throwing themselves at him. He was dating Lauren Goodger in an on-and-off way at the time, but that didn’t stop other women trying to chase him. He was tall and handsome and good at football, and he drove a Mercedes. He had all the chat and it was easy to see why he was making good money from his job as a nightclub promoter.
We soon became very good friends. Through Mark, I also got to know Jack Tweed, who was going out with Jade Goody from Big Brother. Jade realised that I wasn’t much of a hit with the ladies, so she liked me to be around Jack because she knew that I wouldn’t lead him astray!
Years later, when people saw Mark and me together on TOWIE, it was as if we were joined at the hip. Some people who saw Mark on TOWIE say that he can be very selfish, but underneath he has a heart of gold. He adores his mates. They mean the world to him and he will always do anything to help out one of the boys. I quickly became part of his circle and we all enjoyed going clubbing together.
While we were out and about we always acted like big kids, making a lot of noise and drawing attention to ourselves. I was very happy to be part of this new crowd, who all seemed like fun people who were going places. We were a boisterous group, and all the attention we created often meant other groups of boys could become jealous of us, which led to the odd argument here and there, although, thankfully, nothing serious. We were just young and intent on having fun. At this point it was only Mark, Jack and Josh who were earning decent money, and they were very generous towards the rest of us and funded a lot of our great times together. They paid for our dinners and would often look after us, which we all much appreciated because not many people who were that young had good incomes. Sometimes we’d go for an all-day party at Nu Bar in Loughton and then get a minibus to Faces for the evening. We would mainly go out clubbing at weekends but we would also get up to mischief midweek.
One regular prank involved getting a load of tissues and using them to completely smother a victim’s car in shaving foam, eggs and baked beans, alo
ng with anything else gooey that we could get our hands on. We called ourselves the Tissue Bandits and would strike at night so that the next morning the target would find their car completely covered in mess. The majority of the time we would do it only among our group of friends, but sometimes we would target random people in the area whom we didn’t get on with!
We became the Essex in-crowd, but it meant that all the other groups of boys in the area disliked us. I still got on with everybody fine, but I think people were envious of us, not least because we were collectively very popular with all the girls in the area.
One of the great Essex traditions that I soon became involved with was the annual boys’ holiday. Marbella was always the place to go and we would save up all year to be able to afford it. The thing that attracted us about Marbella was the sheer glamour and glitz that it oozed, with its beautiful port and luxury yachts and its posh nightclubs. Gangsters from the East End of London and Essex would go there frequently to show off their perma-tanned muscles and flaunt their wealth in front of all the beautiful women. Anybody who was anybody wanted to be seen there – and for boys like us it was a chance to party like wild. For the short space of time we could afford to be there, we’d spray champagne everywhere and we’d blow a month’s wages on pretending to lead a millionaire’s lifestyle (even though we’d be skint when we got back home).
Another popular holiday haunt was Cancún in Mexico. After I became friends with Mark he invited me to join the lads on a holiday there. I remember thinking that I would love to join my new best mates but, unfortunately, at the time I didn’t have the cash. To be blunt, I was skint, but, thankfully, Mark had a plan.
‘Don’t worry, Arg. I’ll pay for your holiday and you can pay me back whenever you can,’ he offered.
‘No, Mark, I can’t let you do that,’ I replied, but Mark had made up his mind.
‘Arg, I want you to be there,’ he insisted. ‘And I want you to have a good time. I’m loaning you the money. I’m not giving you it. But I want you to come on this holiday.’
That settled it. I didn’t need to be asked again. I went on the Cancún holiday and I loved every second of it. The night before we left we all went to a local nightclub in Essex called 195 for a group bonding session. One of the boys, George Andretti, brought his passport to the club to use for ID purposes. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the airport by cab the next morning, Andretti realised he’d lost his passport in the club and ended up missing the flight and the holiday. We were all gutted because we wanted him to come, but there were still about eight or nine of us who went. We all had terrible hangovers on the plane but, during the holiday itself, the boys had me laughing from the moment I woke up until I went to sleep at night. One minute we’d be playing pranks and the next we’d be drunkenly crying about how much we loved one another! It was a huge laugh. We went out there with visions that all the American girls would be throwing themselves at us.
‘We’re English and American girls love English boys!’ was our motto.
We were convinced that all the women would be charmed by our accents and that we’d go with a different girl every night. But, unfortunately, when we got to Cancún the opposite happened and it was like being on The Inbetweeners. We dressed ourselves up in tight shirts and long trousers with smart shoes, yet all the American guys were wearing baggy shorts with huge T-shirts and baseball caps. We stood out like sore thumbs and we soon discovered which style of dress the American girls preferred – and it wasn’t ours! But, despite our lack of success with women, we still had plenty of laughs, and we went to a famous bar called Coco Bongo’s. Whenever we were together in a group, we sang a song called ‘Low’ by Flo Rida and T-Pain, which was a huge hit in the charts at the time (it was a song that we would all later perform together at Jack and Jade’s wedding). All in all, we had a sick time in Cancún (sick meaning good, in case you’re wondering). I had one of the best holidays of my life and I was very grateful to Mark for paying for me to go along.
If Cancún had been wild, nothing could have prepared me for the chaos of the annual get-together in Marbella. When we arrived we went seriously off the leash, acting all flash. We were up for anything. We thought we were the top dogs, although, looking back, I realise that at times we behaved like dickheads (you are only young once). Marbella has always attracted rich people who use it as a playground and we wanted a slice even though we weren’t rich. Our lack of serious cash meant we had to stay every year at the same cheap hotel, which was called the PYR and it had four beds in every room. When we arrived I could imagine how the poor manager would shake his head, thinking, Oh, God! Not this lot again!
We always chose the same hotel because (a) it was cheap and (b) we could have the run of the place.
There was no security there to stop you from taking back girls, and we could do as we pleased. We acted like rock stars. Jack had become a minor celebrity through his relationship with Jade, and, of course, Josh played for Charlton – so in our minds we were the bee’s knees.
It was on my first holiday in Marbella with the boys that banter went to wild extremes. The hotel had long marble corridors that linked all our rooms. One of the first things we did when we arrived was turn the corridor into a massive water slide. We all went into our rooms and got buckets of water that we threw onto the floor until the place resembled a giant swimming pool. Then we grabbed tons of shampoo and shower gel and we chucked it onto the floor to make it super-slippery.
Slip-’n’-slide time!
We all stripped off and took it in turns to sprint full pelt down the corridor and dive onto the soapy mess to see who could slide the furthest. It was very immature, but it was amazing fun! God knows what all the other guests must have thought. All you could hear was this hysterical laugher followed by swishing sounds and occasional bang as somebody collided with something. One of the guys hit the end of the corridor so hard that it broke a reinforced glass panel, which caused us all to run off and hide for a while in case the manager came to investigate. It’s fair to say that we created a right mess and I’m not quite sure how we managed to get away with it.
Our nights would be spent touring the local bars and clubs in search of beautiful girls and the banter between us would go on from morning until night. There were hordes of people out there who were from Essex, including Sam and Billie Faiers, whom I knew through my mate Lewis Bloor before we all appeared on TOWIE together. Sam and Billie were there on a girls’ holiday at the same time as we were there, and occasionally we would bump into each other. I’d known Sam for quite a while. We got on like brother and sister and I remember that Sam would dance with me during my nights out at Faces. She’s a lovely bubbly girl and I like her a lot.
One thing I’d been warned about before I went on the holiday was that I should pack plenty of spare toothbrushes.
‘Why should I do that?’ I asked.
‘You’ll find out when we get there,’ advised Mark.
Basically, there was a custom that, if anyone left their toothbrush unattended, it was fair game for a bit of bantering. This would usually involve somebody using it to clean the toilet, or, worse, putting it somewhere very impolite. I came back from the pool one day to discover I’d fallen victim.
‘Aarrgh! Who’s being sticking my toothbrush up their arse?’ I screamed.
There was also a custom whereby, if anybody left an item of clothing lying around while we were out, it was fair game to be used in a tug-of-war event. Some of the pranks were a bit near the knuckle but it was all good natured. I went out on the balcony one evening to discover the boys were playing a game of Frisbee – using china plates! Some of the boys were standing three or four floors up and flicking the plates off the balcony as if they were made of plastic. Every time one smashed below, a large cheer would go up (thankfully, somebody had checked that nobody was on the ground below).
Days would be spent on Plaza Beach, which was packed with gorgeous women showing off their bodies in bikinis. All the guys seemed
to have very athletic bodies bodies with rippled stomachs, which made me very conscious about my weight. Mark, Josh and Jack were all very slim and muscular, so I felt the odd one out. At first I refused to take off my T-shirt because I was embarrassed. Wearing a T-shirt all day made me stand out. I soon paid the price when I fell asleep while sunbathing. Josh spotted that I had dozed off and went to the bar to fetch a huge bucket of iced water. I guess he’d decided that, if I wasn’t going to take off my T-shirt on my own, I needed a bit of help. The beach was packed and everybody watched as Josh crept up on me and let rip with the bucket . . .
Splash!
I woke up with a huge start as the icy water completely took my breath away. It seemed to attract the attention of everyone on Plaza Beach and I went bright red amid all the laughter. Of course, I had no choice but to take off my T-shirt now that it was dripping wet. Everybody cheered after I removed it and in a way it did me a favour because after that I didn’t worry any more about showing my body!
It was a tradition that on the last night of the holiday we’d hold our own awards ceremony to give out special mentions to whoever had pulled off the wildest stunts. We’d go to an Indian restaurant called Khan’s in Puerto Banús, where the awards would be handed out in different categories such as Biggest Banterer for the best prankster, Most Bangs for the biggest Romeo, and Best Newcomer for anyone who was making their debut in Marbella.
Mark always won Best Organiser, and I think I won Best Room Mate because I’d always be first to arrange the food. The ceremony would be hilarious because people would be offended if they hadn’t won certain awards, and there would be heated discussions about who deserved to win. The prospect of the awards meant that everybody spent the whole holiday trying to outdo the others by behaving in the most outrageous way or trying to pull off the best prank. Newcomers to the group would always be the biggest target, which meant I had to take my fair share of stick on that first holiday.