Chris tells the truth about the nuggets
Chris used 24 Years at the Tap End to issue what he described as a formal statement about his chicken-nugget failure at the Edinburgh Fun and Filth Cabaret. He felt the incident had been misrepresented and wanted the full circumstances placed on record.
The day began after the team had returned from Zante. Chris was excited to be in Edinburgh for his first proper run as an official team member, but nobody trusted him with much work. His main discovery was the catering truck beside the studio, where his lunch token bought beef olives, gravy, coffee and a bread roll. Despite knowing that he would soon attempt a food challenge, he later had fried chicken, helped himself to somebody else’s Portuguese chicken and drank beer to “start the engine”.
The record required him to eat 22 nuggets in three minutes, with a date with Emily Atack promised if he succeeded. As the cabaret approached, he saw the size of the theatre, the cameras for the BBC Red Button coverage and the giant onstage clock. Scouting for Girls had written a live song for the attempt and advised him that speed was essential.
Once on stage, Chris put two cold nuggets into his mouth together. They formed what he called a congealed nugget ball and refused to go down. He continued adding food while Emily tried to help by force-feeding him more. Feeling sick, he used a pre-arranged safety signal asking the camera operators to cut away, but delayed it because he did not want to interrupt Scouting for Girls’ song.
Chris needed 22 and was credited with only seven. He suggested the scoreboard had fallen behind and wondered whether its operator also wanted to date Emily, but Scott felt his account blamed almost everybody except the person who had eaten a large chicken meal before a chicken-eating competition. Even so, Chris believed the experience had made him stronger and insisted that slow and steady tactics would produce a different result next time.
Emily Atack accepts the rematch
Listeners argued that the only way to clear Chris’s name was to repeat the challenge. He worried that a second defeat would be worse, but Scott suggested training him on popcorn chicken before moving up to full nuggets.
Chris immediately tweeted Emily to ask whether the promised date would still be available. She replied within five minutes: it was on, provided he ate 20 nuggets with no sauce or drink and was sick no more than once. She added the hashtag “Mr and Mrs Stark-Attack”, prompting the team to declare them a new celebrity power couple.
Loving the Trolls
Lawrence read another selection of complaints. One listener declared the programme’s banter pathetic, setting off increasingly strained attempts to place “banter” inside names and phrases. Another called Scott “fatty fatty bum bum”, which the team linked to his late-night three-course fridge raids.
The harshest message called 24 Years at the Tap End rubbish and accused Chris of making it up. Chris objected only to the suggestion that the stories were invented, inadvertently leaving the criticism of their quality unanswered. He admitted that he was beginning to run short of suitable memories and considered hypnotic regression as a way to recover more.
Other messages asked the team to stop talking, predicted that listeners would move to BBC Radio Devon and described the material as “shocking rubbish”. Lawrence’s pronunciation made it sound like “sharking”, inspiring the imaginary compilation Music to Shark To.
A warning for boyfriends at Christmas
Scott delivered a public-service announcement to men entering new relationships before Christmas. He had heard that some women found boyfriends purely to receive presents and then ended the relationship by text on Boxing Day. A bitter-sounding listener confirmed the theory, and Scott warned people to remain alert throughout the festive season.
The Christmas song gathers support
The team replayed Chris’s first attempt at the ultimate Christmas song, built from Noddy Holder’s advice and a melody strongly resembling Only Fools and Horses. Its YouTube video illustrated every reference, from turkey crowns and cheese wheels to Mrs Claus.
Positive messages continued to arrive, leaving Scott unsure whether to develop the existing track, add a choir or start again with something more serious. Copyright remained the obvious difficulty. Chris maintained that they had written the melody themselves and any resemblance to an existing theme was simply a coincidence.
Real or No Real
The first modern bra really had been created in 1913 from two handkerchiefs tied with ribbon. An ancient Egyptian pie had not contained wasps and parsley. Flo Rida’s “Low” genuinely had sold eight million copies, matching the figure given for The Beatles’ “Hey Jude”.
Sweden and Switzerland had not banned music to combat file-sharing. It was, however, illegal in the Netherlands to stand beside a member of the opposite sex while carrying underwear, a fact which made Scott realise he might previously have broken the law while shopping in Amsterdam.
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