Who did you know before they were famous?
The programme asked listeners whether they had gone to school or worked with somebody who later became famous.
The answers quickly moved beyond minor local celebrities.
One caller said Romesh Ranganathan had been his maths teacher.
He remembered Romesh as a good teacher on some days and a stressed teacher on others.
The caller had later spotted him in Leicester Square and been disappointed when Romesh did not immediately recognise a former pupil.
Scott pointed out that teachers rarely wanted to socialise with pupils outside school even before becoming television stars.
Then came Barry Obama
Listener Caitlin supplied the story everybody found harder to believe.
Her mum had attended school in Hawaii with Barack Obama.
He was known there as Barry Obama.
Scott had never heard the former US president referred to as Barry and immediately became suspicious.
The caller insisted it was true.
Her mum had been a few years older and did not claim they were close friends.
They simply attended the same large school.
The show decided the only proper solution was to get the mother on the phone the following day.
“I went to school with…” became surprisingly addictive
More listeners supplied stories about celebrities from before fame.
The appeal was not necessarily that the caller had been best friends with them.
It was hearing ordinary details about people who later became recognisable everywhere.
Former teachers, classmates and people from buses suddenly acquired retrospective importance.
Scott began to wonder which apparently ordinary person in a school today would become the story everybody told in 15 years.
Westlife had a hotline
Westlife’s reunion provided the programme with a dedicated telephone line.
Scott and Chris could hardly resist calling it.
The idea of a pop group maintaining a hotline felt pleasingly old-fashioned in a world of Instagram and streaming.
The show treated it with the same excitement people once reserved for premium-rate fan numbers.
The show’s perfume was still alive
Scott also checked in on Love You By Scott, the fragrance created with François the Nose before Christmas.
The project had survived into the new year and listeners still asked about it.
Scott wanted updates on who had the bottle and how it was being used.
A silly 2018 feature had become an object with its own afterlife.
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