Friday Extra Show: the things listeners normally never heard
Extra podcast edition
Chris returned with the Friday behind-the-scenes podcast and used the episode to open up several parts of Radio 1 life which normally stayed off air.
The previous day’s London Eye programme had required emergency links to be recorded in advance.
If the connection from the pod failed, Radio 1 could not simply go silent.
Scott and Chris had therefore pre-recorded links which somebody at Broadcasting House could play until the outside broadcast recovered.
Nothing went wrong.
The emergency audio was never needed.
That made it perfect Friday Extra Show material.
Chris played the abandoned links and explained how much contingency planning sat behind something which sounded spontaneous on air.
Scott was Chris’s personal shopping guide
The show then reached one of Chris’s more specific anxieties.
He did not enjoy clothes shopping.
Chris said he could feel immediately intimidated in a shop and wanted to know where the exit was as soon as he walked in.
Scott had effectively become his guide.
They would often decide to buy something together, cancel the trip several times and eventually go when Scott could take him through the process.
Chris said Scott made shops much easier because he broke the experience down, kept it quick and pointed out the way out like cabin crew identifying an emergency exit.
The same system had been used for Chris’s wedding suit fittings.
Scott joked that he had taught Chris that shopping did not have to be terrifying.
Chris still did not want to do it alone.
Intern Layla’s first week involved being professionally sniffed
Chris also caught up with Layla, the Radio 1 intern whose first week had been unusually eventful.
On her first day, she had been placed in front of professional fragrance expert François the Nose.
François had been invited in as part of the show’s perfume project.
Scott and Chris naturally decided the new intern should be one of the people he smelled.
Layla had barely begun working at Radio 1 before a French fragrance specialist was sniffing her on national radio.
Chris asked whether the experience had put her off the job.
It had not.
She was even prepared to be sniffed again.
“Always available for sniffing” became the phrase which gave the Extra Show its title.
Chris described the nearest thing to a real argument with Scott
A listener asked whether Scott and Chris had ever had a serious falling-out and then been forced to present the show together.
Chris said proper rows were extremely rare.
There was one Edinburgh incident he still remembered.
Radio 1 had rented flats during the Edinburgh Festival because hotels were so expensive.
Chris shared a flat with Scott and Scott’s boyfriend at the time.
After a night out, Chris returned to his room and could hear the pair talking.
They were saying that spending the evening with Chris had been annoying and that he had effectively been a third wheel.
Chris was hurt.
The next day, instead of silently carrying the irritation, he told Scott he had heard the conversation.
Scott did not properly remember what had been said after the night out and apologised.
Chris said that was probably the closest they had come to a genuine argument.
Even then, it did not turn into a long-running feud.
They spoke about it and moved on.
For a podcast designed to expose the parts of the show listeners normally never heard, it was an unusually honest answer.
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