Rhianna Dhillon returns to Innuendo Bingo
Radio 1 film critic Rhianna Dhillon returned to Innuendo Bingo wearing a specially chosen T-shirt and admitting that she felt jealous whenever somebody else played. She and Chris were asked to maintain eye contact, while the show’s upgraded cameras provided close-ups and made every lost mouthful of water much harder to disguise.
The clips began with Bargain Hunt instructions to take the top off and run a finger around the rim. Snow in Dorset was six inches deep, a radio caller disputed whether something was a full 12 inches, and Lisa Tarbuck concluded that sometimes people simply needed an old-fashioned rod. Rhianna and Chris quickly soaked each other as Four in a Bed introduced hotel owners Megan and Dick, producing praise for an amazing Dick and a determined search for dust on Dick.
May the Best House Win offered somebody who would not mind being dragged up and down, while Splash! considered the pain of being hit in the ring. Matt Baker described a hairy challenge on Countryfile, and snooker supplied a professional who sometimes completed the job from behind. The eye-contact rule ensured that most of the water travelled directly into the other player’s face, leaving Rhianna trying not to choke as Scott replayed her favourite Dick clips.
How long is food safe on the floor?
Chris’s imaginary eating had prompted listeners to describe the meals they consumed entirely in their heads. He had eaten a real lasagne that day, but Scott moved the food discussion towards the rule for something dropped on the floor. Chris believed he had ten seconds to retrieve it, Scott preferred five and others insisted the accepted limit was three.
They tried to imagine germs waiting for the allotted time before pouncing. Scientific messages produced no agreement, although one explanation suggested that bacteria built bridges to the food over roughly seven seconds. A listener eventually cited MythBusters, which had found that contamination began immediately and was not governed by an informal countdown. The answer was less comforting than the rule, so five seconds remained the studio’s more appealing compromise.
Is your husband here?
Concern continued over the Tenerife apartment Chris had reserved for £100 between four people. The deal apparently included champagne on arrival and a food pack, details which increased Scott’s suspicion rather than reducing it. Chris’s friends had given him a Spanish phrasebook so that he would not arrive as an uncultured British tourist, although his previous trips to Kavos, Malia, Zante, Magaluf and Ayia Napa had rarely required much local conversation.
The book’s suggested phrases were astonishingly specific. Chris could explain that a woman had been born on 5 July 1884, ask “Is your husband here?”, announce that he wanted to stretch out in the sand, inquire when the parade of bullfighters began, check whether somebody had found their sea legs and demand to know the location of his rug. Scott challenged him to place every phrase into a genuine conversation during the holiday and record the results.
The booking itself remained incomplete. Chris had bought a voucher but needed to telephone the apartment after the promotion expired. He had already been calling for five days without receiving an answer. Listeners split into Team Chris, convinced that he had found an extraordinary bargain, and Team Scott, expecting him to arrive before the hotel had been built. Even Scott wanted him to proceed now, partly because the uncertainty had become more entertaining than an ordinary holiday could ever be.
Charlie’s enormous lunch
Charlie Sloth arrived before his 1Xtra show looking physically uncomfortable. Unable to decide what to eat, he and his producer had ordered a little of everything, leaving him struggling to walk and worried about getting through his programme. Scott offered to take over on 1Xtra, but encouraged Charlie to move to his own studio before dealing with the digestive consequences.
Charlie joined Alan Dedicoat for Real or No Real. An experimental musician had not created an album entirely from American car alarms, while first cousins really could marry in Utah if both were at least 65. Writing in blue ink genuinely helped people remember information, but 42 per cent of librarians had not formally reported never using the word “shh”.
The final claim suggested that remote controls displayed an instruction to change the channel manually before erasing the user’s memory. Charlie used it as the basis for a long story in which he apparently switched channels, returned to find Celebrity Big Brother playing and discovered himself surrounded by empty food packaging with no memory of eating. The fact was false, the story was no more convincing, and Charlie nevertheless defeated Scott by 50 points to 40. For everybody’s relief, the scoring had returned from 10.3 points to a manageable ten.
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