Chris’s pizza became a payment crisis
Scott and Chris were still covering Radio 1 Breakfast when Chris explained a problem caused by a power cut in Maidenhead.
He had gone for pizza despite insisting he was trying to eat more healthily.
Only after eating did the practical consequence of the outage become obvious.
The card machine was not working.
The restaurant wanted cash.
Chris went to the nearest cash machine.
That was not working either.
He eventually found another shop willing to give him cashback, but before leaving the restaurant he had to leave his bag behind as evidence that he intended to return.
That started a much bigger question.
What do you leave as a deposit when you have eaten something but suddenly cannot pay?
One family left the grandmother behind
A listener messaged with an extreme example.
A family had finished a meal when the restaurant’s card machines went down.
They did not have enough cash.
The owner agreed that some of them could go and find money, but not everybody could leave in case nobody came back.
The family therefore left the grandmother sitting in the restaurant as collateral.
Scott imagined her waiting at the table while everybody else disappeared to find a working cashpoint.
Then came an even longer story.
Nick left his girlfriend behind
Listener Nick called to explain his own payment failure.
He had taken his girlfriend for a meal as part of a date which was also supposed to include the cinema.
The card did not work.
He tried explaining the problem.
He tried phoning around.
He was directed towards somewhere else which might provide cash.
Eventually the solution involved leaving his girlfriend at the restaurant while he went away to sort out the money.
The actual incident was relatively straightforward.
Nick’s explanation was not.
Every part of the story arrived with another detour, clarification or piece of scene-setting.
Scott repeatedly tried to get him to the point.
At one stage he joked that they needed to email CBeebies because Nick’s pace might qualify him for a Bedtime Story.
The programme effectively turned the call itself into the feature.
By the time Nick finally confirmed that the girlfriend had been left behind, Scott considered it possibly the longest story ever told on Radio 1.
The stars of adverts finally got names
The temporary Breakfast Show also continued its investigation into attractive or familiar people from television adverts.
Listeners knew the faces but often had no idea who they actually were.
Scott and Chris identified several.
The Scottish Widows model was Amber Martinez.
The Secret Escapes actress was Camilla Arfwedson.
The blue-cheese man from the Saint Agur adverts was actor Pascal Langdale.
The Plusnet man was Yorkshire comedian Craig Murray.
The Trivago woman was actress Gabrielle Miller, who also had experience as a puppeteer, clown and mime artist.
Then somebody from an advert actually called.
Sam was one of the dental professionals used in Sensodyne advertising.
Scott initially wanted to know whether the people in those ads were actors dressed as dentists.
Sam confirmed she was a genuine dental hygienist.
The advert was filmed years earlier but still appeared on television, and she continued to be recognised for professionally recommending toothpaste.
Chris, who had recently confessed to avoiding dentists for years, had accidentally put himself on air with exactly the kind of person most qualified to tell him off.
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