... with an inflatable paddling pool

Peter Kay has revealed he wrecked Eric Clapton’s expensive patio with an inflatable paddling pool.

The guitar legend allowed the comic to stay at his 16-bedroom  Provence holiday home after becoming friends backstage at  a gig.

But although the mansion has its now pool, Kay found it was too cold – so bought an inflatable version he put on the patio which he could fill with warm water, and which gave him a good view of the TV inside.

He placed some of Claptons’ black-and-gold Versace towels underneath the pool to soak up water, but they ended up staining his expensive sandstone patio tiles.

‘I grabbed a few scourers from the kitchen, some Fairy Liquid and we all started scrubbing, but nothing was lifting,’ he write in his new  book, Peter Kay’s Diary

‘I pegged it back to the supermarché and bought some steel-wire brushes, industrial floor cleaner and a rake.’

He said he offered to buy some plants and pay for Clapton's patio to be powerwashed – andradded: ‘He was puzzled as to why I’d bought a paddling pool in the first place. I told him his pool was freezing.

‘He said, "But why didn’t you just turn on the pool heating?". It has heating. No bugger told me.’

In the book, Kay – now 52 – told of having to undergo urgent surgery to extract a huge kidney stone.

He said: ‘Kidney stone pain is legendary, and I was starting to sob and make the occasional high pitched whining sound, like when you fire an air rifle at a dog's testicles.’

And he recalls an appointment with the urologist discussing the operation ‘when the penny dropped’.

‘Oh, my God, he means he's going in through the hole at the end of my penis. My world collapsed. Red lights flashed in my head. He can't go up there? It's out of bounds, private land. Area 51. A camera won't fit up there, let alone one carrying a laser. Was this guy on glue?’

Peter's eventually recovered from the operation but recalls: ‘The urologist said I didn't need any pain relief. He said it'd be a walk in the park, though I don't know which parks he walks through.’

• Peter Kay’s Diary is available from Amazon priced £12.50 in hardback or  £10.99 on Kindle – or from uk.bookshop.org, below, which supports independent bookstores.

Published: 11 Oct 2025