A strong independent woman
Chris returned from Beyoncé impressed by the spectacle and newly describing himself as a strong independent woman. Even while everybody around him celebrated her apparent perfection, he had tried to identify a flaw and found himself wondering whether she could make a decent cottage pie.
Scott and Chris also revived listener Joe’s Who Game. The challenge was to keep producing recognisable “who” noises without preparation. It remained much harder than it sounded, and the programme continued collecting examples ranging from songs and film noises to household technology.
Things they had never done together
The friends’ new project was to share experiences one of them valued but the other had never tried. They had already been on holiday, in water and for massages together, while Scott had shaved Chris. Lebanese food and possibly shisha were on Scott’s list, but first came something far less welcome to Chris: a spray tan.
A pop-up tent was installed in Radio 1’s Live Lounge, where the Queen and some of the world’s biggest artists had previously stood. Scott stripped to his underwear and went first so Chris could watch the process. Chris regarded observing his friend being sprayed as a low point, then had to enter the tent himself as BBC staff appeared with cameras.
The tanning specialist explained that Scott had received the equivalent of three or four days in the sun, while Chris’s rapid tan could resemble one or two weeks. This was not the equal treatment he thought had been agreed. Scott kept interrupting the professional, made Chris adopt a Charlie’s Angels pose and was briefly allowed to handle the spray gun.
Chris became convinced Scott had drawn a rude shape on his back. Scott denied deliberately adding anything, but could not guarantee the result. The colour continued developing throughout the show, leaving them sticky, increasingly bronze and waiting to see what would remain after the evening shower. Scott regarded the experience as successful bonding; Chris remained less certain.
Alice Levine in daylight
Alice Levine arrived for her first Real or No Real. Scott introduced the evening presenter as Barbara Windsor and joked that listeners normally encountered her material months late through old podcasts. Standing beside the newly tanned pair made Alice look almost translucent.
Phil Taggart really had called Elijah Wood “Frodo” while DJing with him. The Nottinghamshire accent had not been created by Londoners marrying Yorkshire people, and Martin Garrix’s production schedule was not controlled by his mother’s Tuesday PTA meetings.
The strangest claim was genuine: a study said women looked their oldest at 3.30pm on Wednesdays, when energy fell, work stress peaked and the weekend’s late nights finally showed. Alice scored thirty points to Scott’s twenty before returning to the safer darkness of her evening programme.
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