Edith Bowman gets drenched in Innuendo Bingo
Natasha from Bristol introduced the programme on her birthday and reminded Scott that she had once cut his hair after working behind the scenes on the BBC Three programme Upstaged. She remembered him as quieter than his radio persona, although she refused to reveal the gossip they had exchanged about other Radio 1 presenters. Scott asked hairdressers around the country to place a faded photograph of him among their style pictures and see whether any customer requested the same look.
Edith Bowman then made her Innuendo Bingo debut opposite Chris. Clips involving the “C-word” at Christmas, someone being “winched”, Gary Barlow being unable to wait to “get it in” and a footballer coming “strong in the tackle” produced repeated sprays across the studio. Edith embraced the game immediately, soaking her jeans and Chris while worrying about how she would dry herself before presenting the Review Show that evening.
Joe, who had introduced the previous day’s show, called back from Harrogate as Elton John prepared to play across the road from his home. His story encouraged Chris to declare that he and Elton ought to become friends because they had both grown up around Pinner and supported Watford. Scott struggled to find any other similarities, but Chris believed a drink together would reveal how closely their lives might have resembled each other if Elton had never written Rocket Man.
Chris had drafted an open letter inviting Elton out. It began with a nudie pen for whichever assistant screened the post, then provided updates on Pinner’s pubs, Italian restaurants and Watford’s unfinished stand. He argued that Elton might enjoy meeting somebody from the same area whose life had taken a very different route. Listeners going to the Harrogate concert were encouraged to turn copies into paper aeroplanes and throw them towards the stage.
The programme’s own Diamond Jubilee continued with more archive favourites. Scott replayed calls to chemists asking for nonexistent “tampoons” and to bookshops requesting titles by authors with deliberately indecent names. The old material sat neatly beside Chris’s new Elton campaign: both relied on his conviction that a nudie pen, a straight face and an implausible request could eventually get him what he wanted.
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