Dial-a-Carol returned
One of the programme’s oldest Christmas traditions returned with another call to Dial-a-Carol at the University of Illinois.
Students staffed the service around the clock and sang requested Christmas songs over the phone.
Scott and Chris had been calling for years, often deliberately choosing British festive songs that American students were less likely to know.
The charm was partly in whether the volunteer recognised the request and partly in hearing a complete stranger perform a carol down an international phone line.
Scott also treated the newly announced date of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding rather like an ordinary friend’s ceremony and added it to his diary.
James followed the husband after lunch
Private investigator James had been hired by a wife who suspected her husband was cheating.
The man’s day initially looked completely ordinary.
Then he drove to a playing-field car park in Dagenham.
Several other cars were already there and people appeared to be waiting around without any obvious sporting reason.
James and his colleague eventually realised they had followed their target into a daytime dogging location.
The surveillance car attracted attention
Their own vehicle had blacked-out rear windows, ideal for surveillance but also exactly the sort of car that looked interesting in those circumstances.
James sat in the front while his colleague remained hidden in the back with a long-lens camera.
Another man approached James’s window and began chatting to him.
Seeing somebody sitting in the back only reinforced the stranger’s assumption that James was there for the same reason as everybody else.
The investigators decided to withdraw and monitor the site using a drone instead.
Police later arrived and the gathering rapidly dispersed.
When James finally explained the surveillance to his client, the wife’s confused reaction was memorable: they did not even own a dog.
James promised a different kind of assignment for the following week involving a honey trap.
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