Chris had a deliberately low-key birthday
It was Chris Stark’s birthday and, despite insisting he did not want a fuss, the show inevitably kept mentioning it.
Scott had bought him gym clothes and sports socks, joking that their friendship had now reached the stage where practical socks counted as a birthday present. Sophie from the show team also appeared in Scott’s Instagram Story delivering an especially enthusiastic rendition of “Happy Birthday”.
Chris had already stretched the celebrations across the weekend, which Scott felt was approaching dangerous territory for somebody who claimed not to be making a big thing of it.
Scott became Calum Scott’s personal shopper
Scott had spent part of the weekend helping his boyfriend, who worked at another radio station, buy the items on Calum Scott’s rider before a performance.
What should have been a simple supermarket trip turned into Scott scrutinising a pop star’s shopping list. They picked up lemons, ginger, cooked salmon, nuts and a chopping board, among other things.
Scott admitted that he had not treated every request as sacred. Faced with chopping boards at different prices, he chose the cheapest one, around £1.50 rather than the more expensive alternative. Where a requested brand was unavailable, he was happy to substitute the supermarket’s own version.
Calum then found out. He tweeted Scott asking what he had heard about Scott buying his rider and saying he dreaded to think what would be waiting for him.
Scott replied that it was all “top-quality stuff”, while also pointing out that the supposedly private supermarket errand had now somehow become content for Radio 1.
BBC.co.uk’s biggest fan played Bangers
Listener Amber joined Bangers with a slightly unusual claim to fame: she was such a devoted listener that she referred to the programme as “the bbc.co.uk show”.
There was one problem. She regularly forgot Scott’s name.
Amber wished Chris a happy birthday and told him how funny he was, which appeared to give him an obvious advantage in the game. Chris picked Good Charlotte’s “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”, while Scott went in an unexpectedly rockier direction with Queens of the Stone Age’s “No One Knows”.
Despite all the birthday praise for Chris, Amber chose Scott’s record.
Ghostbusters investigated a date that vanished at the last minute
Tom had met a woman on Tinder and the conversation had moved to texting. They discovered a shared interest in snowboarding and arranged a date involving food and a session on a dry ski slope.
Everything seemed normal until shortly before they were due to meet. Around 15 to 30 minutes before the date, she messaged to say she was getting ready and would tell Tom when to leave.
Then nothing happened.
She later sent him Snapchat messages from a trip to Norway as though the abandoned date had never happened.
Ghostbusters got through to her, but she did not want the explanation broadcast. Tom was allowed to hear what she said off air and came back sounding stunned: “I’m in absolute shock. My jaw is… hanging to the floor.”
Because she had not agreed for the call to be used, Scott and Chris did not reveal the full private explanation. Tom at least felt he finally had an answer and said he would return to the dating apps.
Mark dreaded the “upstairs talk”
The show also met Mark, whose girlfriend liked talking during intimate moments and wanted him to join in.
Mark hated it. He said being asked to say things in the moment filled him with dread and made him freeze.
Scott and Chris wondered whether the solution might be role-play rather than trying to sound spontaneously seductive. One suggestion was a particularly unpromising taxman scenario: “You haven’t submitted your tax return” and “My investigation shows you’ve been avoiding tax.”
It was clearly not solved in one conversation, so the show decided Mark needed help finding a character he could actually commit to.
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