Quote
The quote for this chapter is from Noel, commenting on his meeting and becoming comedy partners with Julian. Now sometimes you might wonder if I've manipulated a quote by taking it out of context and making it seem as if it's saying more than was intended by the speaker. So I'll give you the full quote:

So it was quite special. We sort of went, 'Oh right, this is sort of a once in a lifetime deal.' It's a bit like falling in love, you know.

https://youtu.be/nSQx51l23fs

Hackney
When Julian asks Noel where he lives, he says he lives in Hackney with a couple of mates from art college. When Noel first moved to London, that's exactly where he lived. The two art school mates were Dave Brown and Nigel Coan, who both studied graphic design at Buckinghamshire College with Noel.

Dave played Bollo the Ape and other characters on The Mighty Boosh TV show and live shows; he also choreographed the dance routines for them. He designed the DVD box sets for the show and The Mighty Book of Boosh, and was the official photographer on all their tours.

I know a cute story about Dave that Julian told on a podcast. Julian's twins were having a birthday on Hampstead Heath, which is just over the road from their home. Julian thought it would be a fun surprise for Dave to turn up at the party wearing his ape suit to entertain the children. And to make it more realistic, he wouldn't just wander over in a "Hi, I'm an ape come to gatecrash your party" kind of way – he would run up the hill towards them as if he was a wild ape who just happened to be passing.

Dave was such a trouper to agree, because Julian's boys were born in late June, and it was a blazing summer's day on their birthday that year. The ape suit is boiling hot to wear, and then he had to run UP a hill on top of it, and then frolic and cavort and do whatever else you do to entertain little kids at a party. Seriously unpleasant stuff.

But he did it just as Julian had asked him to, turning up at exactly the right moment, when the kids had settled in a bit and were starting to get slightly bored. What Julian hadn't considered was the utter panic that ensued when an enormous ape raced up the hill towards them making what they took to be threatening gestures and grunting in ape language. Screaming and running away was the order of the day, major lifetime trauma for all, total chaos.

Nigel was the lead animator for The Mighty Boosh TV show, as well as for Noel's TV show, Luxury Comedy. He directed the music video "Can't Wait For Christmas" by Loose Tapestries, a musical project by Noel and Serge Pizzorno from the rock band Kasabian [see above].

The second series of The Mighty Boosh TV show is set in a flat in Hackney – most likely a nod to Noel's sharing a flat with Dave and Nigel there. I've used a photo of Hackney in the 1990s as the chapter illustration, and you can see a pie and mash shop in the picture. In The Mighty Boosh TV show, the characters live over a shop called The Nabootique, which was once an old pie and mash shop. 

https://youtu.be/dfrcZsKcVxU

Green Ford Granada
I gave Julian this car to drive because it's the car used in the 2003 music video to Blue Song by Mint Royale – the one in the video is a 1983 model, which seemed pretty plausible for a young struggling comedian in 1992.

Both Noel and Julian are in this video. Julian is one of three bank robbers, while Noel is (ironically) the getaway driver who listens to the song while waiting for the others to return, using it as a timing device. The video was directed by film maker Edgar Wright, who went on to make the 2017 film Baby Driver – which is about a getaway driver who listens to music and uses it as a timing device.

This music video has spawned its own sub-fandom which is part of the Noelian (Noel + Julian) fandom. Their fanfiction tends to be grittier and kinkier, and the most famous example is Stockholm Syndrome, which is sold as a hard copy now and has its own sub-fandom.

I used a green 1983 Ford Granada driving through London streets as the chapter illustration. It's a screen cap from the 1986-2002 TV drama series London's Burning, about the London Fire Brigade.

This was Noel's spiky hair like a hedgehog that looked like he'd put it on backwards - according to Julian when they first met. 

Noel Reality Check

Noel really can't drive and doesn't have a licence. He's tried several times to learn but to no avail – he commented once that he thought it might be related to his dyslexia. His most recent attempt, when he was already reasonably famous, was abandoned when his female driving instructor behaved inappropriately – she made him drive to her house and put her hand on his knee.

When The Mighty Boosh were touring, Julian had to do all the driving – and when they were in Australia, that meant some really long drives between gigs! At first Julian thought that Noel could be the navigator, but it turned out he isn't good with directions either. I think that's probably related to his dyslexia as well. So instead it became Noel's job to entertain Julian by telling him stories, just as happens in Between Life and Death.

Noel had liver disease in real life and couldn't drink for five years – he credits Nigel Coan for helping him through that. In the story, John Coltrane's kiss leads to Noel being instantly healed when he is transported back to his body in the ambulance, just a moment before he died in the previous timeline. In real life, Noel had to recover normally over several years.

I did some research and apparently it's not that uncommon to have spontaneous remission from liver disease – it's happening at the very point of death that makes it clearly miraculous. I feel that the doctors in the story would have accepted it as highly unlikely but not implausible.

At the end of the car ride, Julian offers Noel a lift to the next gig where they are on the same program – it's at Oxford University, perhaps as some kind of end-of-term entertainment. Noel always says that the very worst gigs he ever did were at Oxford Uni, as the students were always extremely drunk and badly behaved.

It's possible the gig he did where somebody wrote rude things on his handbill was at Oxford, but I can't confirm it. If not, it means Oxford Uni was even worse than that!!! I sent him to the gig with Julian in the story so at least he would have backup.

Julian Reality Check
When Noel does his "Old Gregg" impression, Julian is shocked and then falls into a fit of giggles. In real life Julian is a total giggler. In fanfiction he tends to do manly guffaws, but really he blushes and giggles like a schoolgirl around Noel. It's very cute.

In the story, Julian tells Noel that their car ride has been filled with death and mystery, like driving around in the Scooby-Doo van. While they were still riding a huge wave of success, Noel and Julian were asked to pitch a TV script idea to HBO when they were in the US. It was their chance to "break America", but they possibly weren't quite prepared, and the only thing they could think of was that they would drive around in a haunted van, solving mysteries.

HBO apparently weren't impressed by this homage to Scooby-Doo, and things got pretty unpleasant. Julian and Noel say it was the most embarrassing and devastating professional failure they ever experienced, and if it had happened to them individually, they would have absolutely fallen apart. Because they were a team, they were able to comfort each other and laugh about it.

Oddly enough, Julian did end up as a regular character on the 2020 horror comedy TV show Truth Seekers, about two guys driving around in a haunted van solving mysteries! Did they inspire Nick Frost and Simon Pegg???? This was actually a pretty good show, and I was bummed when it was cancelled just as it started to find its feet.

Julian got his first taste of performing comedy for an audience by riffing on Scooby-Doo to amuse his schoolmates, so this little reference was doing a lot of heavy lifting!!!!

Julian really had been to Europe several times by this stage. He did European tours with the band Little Chief in the 1980s, and I'm sure travelled there for pleasure as well.

I can't remember if I already told you this, but Julian really did almost drown. It was by accident when they were on tour in Australia. Australian beaches are quite dangerous with a rough surf – we remain the only country in the world to have lost its state leader at the beach; he went for a swim and was never seen again. That was Prime Minister Harold Holt (1908-1967), and strangely enough there is a swimming pool in Melbourne named after him!

Anyway Julian did what lots of other people have done, but shouldn't. He went swimming at night, when the beach was unpatrolled, and he was drunk, which is the No. 1 risk factor for drowning among young men. He was rescued by one of The Mighty Boosh tour gang, and I honestly can't remember who, but I feel it might have been Dave???? I'm not sure if this in some way inspired "The Legend of Old Gregg" when they did the second series of the TV show. In this episode Julian is dragged into a lake at night and needs to be rescued.

Mighty Boosh Reality Check
In the story, Julian tells Noel he was rescued from the lake at his university by a stranger named Greg that he knows nothing about. He doesn't know if "Greg" was a student or an old man. This tickles Noel's fancy and he says, "Hey, I'm Old Greg, bitch!" while doing a Rick James impression.

This is obviously a reference to "The Legend of Old Gregg", with one of Old Gregg's biggest catchphrases (yes, they based Old Gregg on funk-pop star Rick James.) Between Life and Death seems to be suggesting that the idea for Old Gregg was born at this moment, because it made Julian laugh.

The joking conversation that Julian and Noel have about Death is taken almost word for word from the "Bollo" episode of The Mighty Boosh TV show. You can see that the line about "welcoming Death in like an old friend" is something that Julian actually heard in the Afterlife – it was part of the blessing that Bronwen received before being sent Back. 

This tells the reader that Julian unconsciously remembers more than he thinks about the Waystation – the major conceit behind Between Life and Death is that many of the jokes and sketches performed by The Mighty Boosh were inspired by these dim half-memories.

Just like in the story, both Julian and Noel have a dislike of personal anecdotes as the basis of stand-up comedy, although both have used their personal lives as inspiration for comedy sketches.

The Rest is History
I normally do the chapter titles at the start, but this time it will be at the end. This chapter, and Part Two of the story, ends with Noel beginning to repeat the line that Julian said to him at the Waystation on their first night together: "You can come in, but you can never leave."

Instead of letting him finish, Julian stops him by kissing his nose and saying he knows what he was going to say. He reassures Noel that he doesn't need to worry – Julian will never leave him. I gave a little twist to that quote in this story, because Julian could say what he really meant after being in the Afterlife, even if he can't consciously remember any of it!

(This is another clue that on some deep unconscious level they do remember bits and pieces from their time in the Afterlife.)

As earlier indicated (in Chapter 8), this is something which happened in real life. The first night that Julian round to Noel's house in Hackney, he said to Julian, "You can come in but you can never leave."

I don't know if Julian really kissed Noel on the nose that night, but it is in every fanfiction account of the evening ever, so I put it in. Either Julian or Noel mentioned it somewhere and it is canon, or someone put it in a fanfiction and everyone jumped on it and it became fanon. Either way, I couldn't leave it out. It certainly doesn't sound implausible.

Anyway that's the end of Part Two, and forms the beginning and the ending of Life on Earth.