Anthony Joshua brings the Olympic week to a close
Olympic super-heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua became the final sporting guest of Scott’s breakfast week. He had left his gold medal at home because he was coming into “battle”, but spoke proudly about the open-top parade which reunited the British team after the Games. In Watford, the support had been especially strong.
Chris showed Anthony the purple and yellow bruise left by Luke Campbell’s punch. Because Luke was a bantamweight and Anthony a super-heavyweight, Chris considered asking for a second dead arm as a point of comparison. Anthony refused, warning that he could break the arm, and everybody agreed the existing bruise was sufficient.
Gemma Cairney joined the feature wearing a purple tie theme which had inspired Chris’s own questionable combination of floral T-shirt, hoodie and formal tie. Anthony had gone for a run after waking at five and approached the game like an athletic contest, which made Chris increasingly nervous.
Three-way Innuendo Bingo
Anthony, Gemma and Chris formed a three-person Innuendo Bingo. Bob Harris asking whether his ring burned a finger produced a relatively controlled opening, before the Hairy Bikers introduced “Grandmother’s Bavarian love sponge”. Huw Stephens’s hairdresser also appeared in a clip which sounded like the players were threatening to soak each other before the game had properly begun.
The Radio 4 bowls drama from the previous day returned with a threat to fire wood through a perfect little cluster. A One Show baker intended to beat off the competition with a carrot cupcake, while a bedtime story left a father sitting in his chair “fingering Uncle Julius”.
Springwatch remembered a place once being excellent for shags, football commentary discussed a player powering one into Ashley Cole’s backside and women’s golf returned to strong wrists and a grip low down the shaft. Gemma, Anthony and Chris soaked one another, with the final perfect-cluster replay producing the largest hit of the game.
Dear Scott and the show’s unofficial album
Listeners continued making breakfast jingles and proposed a theme for the returning 24 Years at the Tap End. One ominous entry repeated the title until Scott compared it to the soundtrack of a horror film. Chris said he had begun composing a gentler acoustic alternative, while the production team offered a deliberately simple chant.
Another email asked whether the programme could release an album. Scott and Chris revisited songs about Nick Grimshaw being “bang on trend”, the Mile High Club, their imagined Lady Gaga track and “Balls of Disappointment”. Scott resisted a DJ album as too predictable and instead suggested performing the collection as a support act for an established pop group.
A listener also argued that the programme had shaped the music industry by inspiring the Editors’ Christmas material and introducing Adele’s laugh to Ryan Tedder. Scott wondered whether his accumulated contribution qualified him for a seat on The X Factor panel.
Chris’s final school days
The last classic Tap End before the new season followed Chris through sixth form. He remembered being allowed to wear a suit, sharing lessons with girls for the first time since primary school and texting somebody he liked, only to discover his friend had supplied the number of her boyfriend, school rugby captain Don Barrell.
Chris also tried to improve the sixth-form common room by removing a coffee machine, stereo, chairs and the former head teacher’s portrait from the staff room. Confidence helped with the smaller objects, but teachers noticed when the larger furniture and their own portrait reappeared elsewhere.
Plans for the final-day prank included diverting traffic through the school grounds and releasing three sheep numbered one, two and four. Teachers learned of the plot and ended the school year early, leaving pupils to settle for moving benches and bins indoors and throwing stink bombs. Chris left with an unexpected sense of sadness, then headed directly to a chicken shop.
Real or No Real
Simon Webbe had not developed a phobia of Christmas crackers after being struck by a novelty hair grip. “Oh” genuinely was reported as the most common word in contemporary pop songs, and the average woman was said to consume six pounds of lipstick during her lifetime.
A 13-year-old boy in Florida really had been arrested for excessive farting at school. People who lived together did not eventually blink in synchronisation, and Diddy’s name changes had not prevented him receiving post since 1977. Chris finished with 40 points.
Handover
Scott marked the end of his five-day tenure with a mock-emotional farewell. A colleague brought photographs of a handwritten “shortest breakfast ever” sign held by a dog, two reluctant children and the Legoland Castle, adding to the deliberately homemade quality of the week.
Scott thanked his listeners, his mother and Sara Cox, while joking that Sara had been present for only two days. Grimmy was upstairs rehearsing his launch in full costume, and Scott prepared to return to afternoons with the new Tap End season.
The handover became melodramatic as an emotional song began. Scott claimed he had been holding himself together all morning, while Sara reminded him that he was not leaving Radio 1 at all and would be back at lunchtime on Monday.
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