HAVE you heard the one about Paddy McGuinness running up a £280 tab on Peter Kay's hotel room bill when he ordered two of everything from the breakfast menu?

No it’s not a joke, but as the Bolton comedian explains in his latest book — Saturday Night Peter, on sale a week tomorrow — at the time he wished it was.

Peter and Paddy were at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London’s Park Lane for one night as Peter performed at a corporate event.

As Peter explains in the book: “I was downstairs grafting for some Arabs, he was upstairs in a jacuzzi bath ordering champagne and Red Bull.

“Then he drunkenly ordered two breakfasts at 50 quid a pop. He basically ticked everything on the menu card, stuck x2 on it and hung it on the door.

“Paddy’d ordered waffles, omelettes, pancakes, cereal, kippers, yoghurt and a full English for both of us, with a side order of baked beans and 12 rounds of toast. I wasn’t even hungry.”

The tale is typical of many in the Bolton comedian's follow-up to his hugely successful book The Sound of Laughter, which was published in 2006 and rapidly became the biggest selling autobiography of all time.

That book focused on Peter’s early life growing up in Daubhill, his education, life at home and some of the many jobs he had before it occurred to him that comedy could earn him a living.

The follow-up continues immediately where The Sound Of Laughter ended, with Peter remembering the years he then worked as a stand-up comedian, travelling around the club circuit in the UK. Peter, aged 36, said that because he had stored much of his old material on tape, it had helped tremendously with the process of assembling content for the new book.

“Thankfully I recorded most of my early gigs, so by delving into that it opened up a lot of memories I’d long since forgotten.

“Discipline is important when you’re writing a book, because there is so much work involved.

“At the end of the day there’s no way around it — you’ve got to write.

“I was doing 10 hours a day, six days a week.

“Of course there were days when I just didn’t want to do it, but the fact that I was writing about something I loved helped considerably.

“Some people employ ghost writers, but I couldn’t do that. It has got to be my own thoughts and words on the page, not somebody else’s interpretation.”

Peter said that the success of The Sound of Laughter had surprised him.

He said: “I was reluctant to write the first book, so it’s even more difficult to comprehend its success, considering it almost never happened.

“This one focuses on the years I worked as a stand-up comedian.

“Over an eight year period I did over 500 performances, until the end of my last tour in 2003.

“I found it a joy to write and it brought back many happy memories of those early gigs; a happiness that I didn’t really acknowledge at the time as I was too distracted with nerves and worrying if I could sustain comedy as a full-time job.”

Asked how he hopes the new book will be received, he answered: “My main aim is to make people laugh. I’m not Kerry Katona or Jordan, I’ve no wish to bare my soul to the world. I want the reader to smile, relax and forget all about the dark side of life.”