Scott arrives with an injury
Scott began Thursday carrying evidence of the previous night’s socialising: a plaster between his thumb and finger after attempting some late-night cooking without quite enough care. Chris regarded the injury location as particularly uncool, while Scott maintained that plasters were perfectly acceptable.
The much bigger physical danger was waiting at 1.45. Radio 1 had a new Innuendo Bingo guest and she had spent the morning promising on social media that Chris would be the wetter person when it finished.
Clara Amfo’s first Radio 1 appearance
Clara Amfo had recently started presenting weekend mornings on 1Xtra and came to Radio 1 full of confidence. She had grown up with four boys, she said, and was not afraid of a little water. Her plan was to spray Chris before he could spray her.
The clips included Come Dine with Me, Chris Evans interviewing the Archbishop of York, Match of the Day, BBC London, Jamie Oliver, Radio 4 and Vanessa Feltz. Clara’s confidence survived the first few rounds, although at one point a particularly explosive reaction almost took her off the chair.
Chris had his share of direct hits too. By the end Clara was completely soaked, very happy and still talking up her new Saturday and Sunday morning 1Xtra show. For a first visit to Radio 1, it was a fairly comprehensive initiation.
Scott’s unfortunate finger
Immediately afterwards, Scott noticed food on Chris’s face and reverted to the most parental method possible: wetting his finger and wiping it off. He apologised as soon as he realised what he had done, while Chris pointed out that the sentence sounded substantially worse if Scott did not finish explaining it.
It fitted a show already full of accidental physical indignities: Scott’s plaster, Clara and Chris dripping from Bingo, and now a presenter licking his finger to clean a colleague’s face.
The day before Radio 1 stops talking
Scott and Chris were also preparing for an unusual Friday. Radio 1’s Even More Music month would culminate in a day dominated entirely by music, with presenters effectively barred from doing their normal links.
Scott joked about going home, programming tweets in advance and pretending he was still working. Chris imagined what Radio 1 would sound like if presenters simply stopped turning up. The idea was funny, but Scott also knew he would find it almost impossible to sit in a radio studio and not talk.
That restriction would directly create the next piece of the story, although there was no normal 27 September podcast to record it.
Greg James and the final Thursday Real or No Real
Greg James joined for the game, including a genuine fact that Aerosmith had earned enormous money from their branded Guitar Hero title and another about DJ Fresh travelling with belongings in a bin bag despite his success.
The show closed with Friday’s silence looming. For once, the hardest challenge Scott faced was not getting soaked, fooled or made to confess something. It was simply keeping the microphone off.
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