Chris’s Armenian internet romance turns into a scam
Chris began the show by reporting his first trip to a sushi restaurant, which had been less sophisticated than he hoped. The moving conveyor belt made him anxious because dishes disappeared while he was checking their prices, and he was especially disappointed by an expensive portion of eel that he had been assured would taste like chicken. It did not. Beccy, alarmed at the bill, was equally unimpressed that green beans had become “edamame” and cost four pounds.
The main event, though, was Chris’s developing internet correspondence with a woman calling herself Rimmer from Armenia. She had sent him an unsolicited message asking whether he was “seeking serious relations”. Chris initially replied that he might have emailed the wrong person, but Rimmer treated this as the start of a friendship and sent an unusually detailed life story, repeatedly stressing Armenia’s honesty and the principle that “lies and treachery” were strongly penalised.
Scott and Beccy suspected a scam almost immediately. Chris, who was unemployed but also had a girlfriend, played along with an elaborately polite reply, telling Rimmer that they had plenty in common and referring to S Club 7’s Two in a Million. He congratulated her on supposedly being an accountant, said he too followed Armenia’s “one for all and all for one” motto, and declared that her insistence on honesty made her sound very trustworthy.
The relationship accelerated when Rimmer described their future life together, then explained she needed €520 for a passport, visa, medical examination and insurance so that she could visit him. Rather than sending money, Chris responded with a fictional plan to fly to Armenia himself. He said his flight would arrive on Thursday at 6pm, asked whether she would collect him from the airport and announced that he hoped one day to call her parents Mum and Dad.
The correspondence was given the full romantic treatment, read by the Posh Radio 4 Lady and her male counterpart over Dido-style music. Scott then dropped the pretence for listeners, warning that it was obviously a scam and that nobody should reply to similar emails or send money. Chris’s imaginary journey remained the show’s cliffhanger, while a Danny Howard Points question asked listeners how many times Jamie Oliver said “beautiful” in one 30 Minute Meals episode. The answer was 13, not Chris’s optimistic guess of 25.
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