Valentine’s week was busy for private investigators
James the PI said Valentine’s week was predictably busy because suspicious discoveries become harder to explain around 14 February. People notice restaurant reservations, gifts or hotel bookings that are clearly not intended for them.
He had spent Valentine’s Day in London following somebody after a client discovered that his wife had booked a hotel room which was not for him. She had told her husband she needed to work late. James could not reveal the outcome because the case was still active, but the booking was enough for the husband to commission surveillance.
James refused to impersonate a priest
One of the strangest jobs James had turned down involved a client who wanted him to dress as a priest, position himself in a confessional and somehow encourage her husband to admit to an affair.
James thought there were rather too many practical and ethical complications, not least the fact that a real priest would ordinarily be occupying the confessional. Scott and Chris immediately imagined a far more cinematic version in which James would have to remove the real priest and steal the clothes, which was very much not what James had in mind.
He did explain that private investigators keep practical disguises for real surveillance, including delivery-worker clothing. He also performed bug sweeps in homes and offices for hidden listening devices, cameras or tracking equipment.
A rather different request had once involved personally delivering a Valentine’s card to Benedict Cumberbatch so that the sender could be certain it had reached him rather than simply trusting the post.
Going undercover at the Dreamboys
James then moved on to jobs he had accepted but did not necessarily advertise. One involved following somebody on a hen do which went to see the Dreamboys.
That meant James, a male private investigator trying not to attract attention, had to blend into an audience largely made up of women watching the male strip show. He tried to behave like another enthusiastic member of the crowd while keeping the person under surveillance in sight.
Scott and Chris were delighted by the image of a serious covert operation requiring James to appear excited by oiled dancers. James accepted that private investigation occasionally produced a very fine line between surveillance work and situations that looked completely ridiculous from the outside.
Once a cheat, always a cheat?
Chris then tested the phrase “once a cheat, always a cheat” with listeners. One woman rejected it completely. She had cheated once during a four-year relationship after meeting somebody else, eventually left the first relationship and was still with the new partner. She said the experience had been awful and she would never cheat again.
Matt took the opposite position. A woman he met already had a boyfriend when their relationship began. She left that boyfriend for Matt, they stayed together for around three years and she later cheated on him with the next-door neighbour. For Matt, that was all the evidence required to believe the phrase.
The calls left the audience almost perfectly divided rather than producing any universal rule.
Persistence finally paid off on Bangers
Chris had repeatedly tried to get Blink-182’s “First Date” chosen on Bangers and finally put it forward again when the week’s score was tied. Farmer Sid in Devon, preparing for a young farmers’ night out and hoping to fit rugby around work, had the deciding vote.
After several days of rejection, Chris finally got the song played. Scott compared the persistence to a cat repeatedly presenting its owner with a dead mouse until the gift is eventually accepted.
Assembly Anthems, volume two
Jaguar Skills returned with a second school-assembly mix. Scott suggested listeners recreate the full experience by sitting cross-legged on an uncomfortably cold floor, preferably near one of the supposedly soft PE mats that never actually felt soft.
The new mix drew on more childhood staples, including “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree”, “I Can Sing a Rainbow” and “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”. Again, the songs were treated like club records, complete with transitions and drops.
Scott and Chris finished the week amazed that material associated with school halls and wooden benches could work so effectively as a Friday-afternoon rave-up.
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