«I JUST READ EVERYTHING»

Tennant: "No, it'd be my diaries. I've kept them since 1977. There's no comment, or not very much. Today's entry might read: 'Met journalist from Scotland on Sunday who thought we'd be nostalgic.'"

Lowe: "So do you use secret symbols?"

Tennant: "Like for when I had sex? No. But my first editions would be next out of the house. Graham Greene, George Orwell, EM Forster, Evelyn Waugh – I've got A Handful Of Dust with a letter inside written by Waugh."

Lowe: "So are you going to bestow them on the British Library when you die? They could form The Neil Tennant Wing!"

Perhaps Alan Bennett's little entertainment would be called Shopping For A New Woofer, on account of the fact they met in a musical equipment emporium where Tennant, an ex-Smash Hits! journalist, was buying a £150 synthesiser. "This disco lad from Blackpool taught me about rhythm," he says. "I liked the Bee Gees, but had no idea how you did that stuff." Tennant had been writing songs for a while – "piano ballads" – including one about the Profumo affair which would later form the basis of their Dusty Springfield collaboration, Nothing Has Been Proved.

Tennant: "I was also struck by how funny Chris was."

Lowe: "And I was struck by how unlike any of his friends I was – the rest of them were pretentious Geordies.

Tennant: "Absolument!"

At this year's Brits, the Pet Shop Boys were honoured with a gong for Outstanding Contribution to Music presented by a gushing Brandon Flowers of the Killers.


-Scotsman
July 6 2009