Scott celebrates New Year two minutes late
Scott returned after the Christmas break with an apology to the people who had attended his New Year’s Eve DJ set in London. He had been responsible for the club’s countdown to midnight and had relied on the clock on his phone, without realising that it was running two minutes slow. The screens behind him showed Big Ben and people on the dance floor pointed urgently at their watches, but the balloons and countdown still arrived at 00:02. It was not even Scott’s first mistimed New Year, as he had played the Big Ben chimes a minute early at his previous New Year’s Eve booking.
The mistake became one of three contrasting celebrations revisited during the programme. Chris had travelled to Glasgow to DJ at Mansion House, his friends had eventually organised a night at Revolution in Beaconsfield, and Beccy had remained at home in Reading. Her apparently wild plans consisted of drinking with her boyfriend, eating dry-roasted nuts and assembling a coat stand, although losing the Allen key after a few glasses of wine made even that more challenging than expected.
Hogmanay with the Tap End
The first 24 Years at the Tap End of 2013 began with Chris looking back only a few days, to his 25th year and his first experience of Hogmanay in Glasgow. He took Perkins and Latham with him, and their sense that they were going on holiday was so strong that Perkins packed sun cream for Scotland in December. They ate steak before the club, replaced their usual energy-drink mixers with Irn-Bru and enjoyed what Chris regarded as a surprisingly cultured start to the evening.
Back home, Cantonard, Dosa, Chazza, Banksy and Little Ben headed out in Beaconsfield. Little Ben had begun drinking on the train, decided that eating was cheating and continued talking to a woman who was plainly not interested. Her angry boyfriend eventually intervened and security removed Little Ben from the venue. The rest of the group, having failed to find much success of their own, abandoned the night shortly after midnight.
Chris’s own evening was much happier. He linked arms with the crowd at midnight and began his DJ set soon afterwards, leaving him convinced that Hogmanay in Glasgow was on another level. The story ended with a roll call for Chazza, Chango, the Beast, Jono, Broadly, Banksy, Dugsie, Webbo, Dosa, the Convict, Gilbert, Moriarty and Cantonard, and with Chris hoping that 2013 would create as many memories as the extraordinary year before it.
A noisy flight home and an airport souvenir
The journey back was less relaxing. An electrical problem with Scott’s aircraft seat repeatedly activated the call light, making the cabin crew think he needed assistance even while he was trying to sleep. Every chime irritated the passengers around him, while attempts to ignore it only resulted in a crew member waking him to check whether he was all right.
Scott also experienced a full-body airport scanner and became fascinated by the idea that security staff could see an image beneath his clothes. He proposed treating the scan like a theme-park ride photograph, offering passengers prints, magnets or keyrings after security. A listener later confirmed that theme parks really would sell somebody else’s ride picture: she had bought a photograph of Razorlight’s drummer, asked him to sign it and accidentally hit him in the face when she dropped her pen.
Loving the Trolls
Lawrence’s computer-generated voice returned to remove the sting from another collection of online abuse. Beccy joined the sung introduction despite repeatedly warning that she was not comfortable with it, went far too high and was quickly faded out. The messages accused the team of entertaining themselves rather than the audience, described Beccy as having a moaning voice and announced that one listener was switching over to Greg, even though Greg James was not broadcasting elsewhere at the same time.
Chris received most of the attention. He was called the “prat from Pinner”, a radio tag-along who thought he was important, and finally a spoon. Rather than being offended, he adopted both “prat from Pinner” and “you spoon” as useful new phrases. Scott noted that several people apologised immediately after insulting him, giving the criticism the odd rhythm of somebody announcing that they hated the programme and then politely saying sorry.
Real or No Real
The newly inflated prize was 12 Danny Howard points for each correct answer. Squirrels really did forget where they had hidden about half of their nuts, and shouting continuously for eight years, seven months and six days would theoretically create enough sound energy to heat a cup of coffee. Fourteen people had not drowned in urinals during 2012, although that claim opened an unexpectedly long discussion about the cubes and miniature football goals found in men’s toilets.
“Buttocks” could be used as a child’s name in Japan, while David Attenborough did know about animals rather than simply reading scripts while trained wildlife performed for the cameras. Scott and Beccy finished level with 24 points each, after Chris had successfully used a calculator to manage the new scoring system.
Predictions for 2013
Chris predicted that he would win a Brit Award, despite nominations being only weeks away and his song still unwritten. Rear of the Year appeared more achievable. Scott decided that either he or Beccy should win the title and immediately treated it as a genuine campaign, offering the first substantial promise of 2013 even though neither prospective candidate had yet agreed on how to attract the required votes.
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