Beccy takes mangoes into the street to test Chris’s theory
The week began with an argument about food television. Beccy had become absorbed by Man v Food and the relentlessly calm Barefoot Contessa, while the others questioned how a programme about making sandwiches for a husband could possibly sustain an entire weekend’s viewing. The exchange set the tone for a show very interested in small, irrational habits.
The main experiment came from Beccy’s supermarket experience. After carrying two melons, she had twice been greeted with the inevitable “nice melons” joke. Chris insisted that men would be unable to resist making the same comment if she held up almost any vaguely suitable fruit, so Beccy went outside Radio 1 with two mangoes held against her chest.
The prediction failed. Plenty of passers-by stared and laughed, but nobody supplied the expected line while the microphones were live. Beccy eventually reported an unverified “nice pair” during a song, while the studio kept trying to extend the experiment with jugs, sausages and even imaginary owls, each creating a worse pun than the last.
The rest of the programme moved between strange listener dreams, a discussion of “sweat-working” as a way of meeting people at the gym, and more Tap End memories. Chris and Scott both admitted that their idea of a successful gym session could involve sitting by the pool or visiting the café rather than doing much exercise.
What should have been a simple test of a silly theory became a minor public ordeal for Beccy. The failure was the funny part: Chris’s certainty that the joke was unavoidable only made the silence outside the building more satisfying.
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