Chris’s gig journey turned into an overnight ordeal
The return of heavy snow had made Chris’s weekend journey to a DJ booking considerably harder than expected.
A drive that should have taken around three hours stretched to seven or eight in a blizzard. The roads were too bad to attempt the journey home after the gig, so Chris and the friend who drove him had to find somewhere to stay.
Only one hotel room was available and it meant sharing. Chris described the awkward process of deciding what to wear to bed, how to behave normally and when to turn the music and lights off when neither of them had ever shared a room before.
The story quickly triggered more memories of disastrous hotel stays and awkward moments when people had been forced to hide from parents or partners.
More listeners confessed to hiding in bedrooms
The previous week, James the private investigator had told the story of hiding in a spare room when a client’s husband returned unexpectedly during a bug sweep.
Listeners now supplied their own versions.
One woman remembered being at her boyfriend’s house when his parents returned early from a trip. With no realistic hiding place, she stayed upstairs while he went down and tried to manage the situation.
Eventually his mum simply called up that she could come downstairs. Instead of escaping unnoticed, she had to make the humiliating walk down to find the family waiting for her.
The mysterious cheese man
Scott had also been visiting family and discovered a character at his brother’s local pub whom everybody knew simply through what he brought with him.
A man would arrive, put up a trestle table and lay out cheese for people in the pub to try for free, complete with knives.
Scott compared him with the older tradition of people appearing in pubs selling seafood, and even remembered a fish seller once turning up at his own front door asking whether he wanted to buy anything.
Balaclavas deserved a fashion comeback
After another freezing spell, Scott began wondering why balaclavas were not more socially acceptable.
He argued that they were ideal protection for an expensive face in cold weather, comparing the idea to putting a cover over a swimming pool.
Chris’s immediate objection was that somebody wearing one near a bank was still going to look as though they were about to commit a robbery.
The show had already been making “robbery” jokes during Bangers, so the balaclava discussion naturally became another excuse for alarms and criminal imagery.
Lucy wanted her scarf back from the ghoster
Ghostbusters heard from Lucy, who had met a man online, gone on a couple of dates with him and then seen the communication stop after he went skiing.
The confusing part was that he had told Lucy he loved her on the second date. She had not said it back, and after the trip he disappeared from the conversation.
Lucy was not interested in getting the romance going again. Her immediate priority was recovering a warm, fluffy grey scarf he still had, especially because her grandmother kept asking about it. Lucy had one of his hoodies and was happy to make a straight swap.
The live calls went to voicemail, so Scott and Chris left a message explaining that Lucy wanted her property back and was not trying to rekindle anything.
The ghoster then messaged the show. He said he was at work, had completely forgotten about the scarf and would post it the next day, adding that he would do so “only because her grandma asked so nicely”.
Ghostbusters had somehow become a lost-property service, but Lucy finally appeared to be getting the answer she wanted.
Martin the Guard became Radio 1’s accidental AMA
Scott had travelled on a train whose guard, Martin, repeatedly told passengers they could tweet him at @MartinTheGuard.
Radio 1 listeners took that invitation extremely literally.
They began asking him everything from his favourite chocolate and whether somebody should cut their hair to darts strategy, Brexit and Fifth Harmony splitting up.
Martin came on the programme and explained that he had started giving out the account because busy or disrupted trains could make it difficult for him to walk through the carriages, so Twitter gave passengers another way to contact him.
He finished by delivering his usual train announcement, including the line Scott had become obsessed with: the buffet offered drinks, snacks and “of course, my personal favourite, chocolate”.
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