The Book of LOL went on tour
Comic Relief’s LOLathon was only days away.
Radio 1 had created a giant red Book of LOL and decided it should not simply sit in the studio waiting for jokes.
Chris took it on the road.
The route had one important requirement.
The place names needed to be funny before Chris even arrived.
Listeners were encouraged to meet him with jokes which could be written into the book and eventually used during the 24-hour broadcast.
Pennis Lane started the day
One of the early stops was a road whose name the transcript renders as Pennis Lane.
Chris treated every sign like a tourist attraction.
People turned up for photographs and jokes.
The road trip was deliberately childish.
That was exactly the point.
Comic Relief needed hundreds of jokes.
A place name capable of making people laugh without any setup was useful.
Tom Titt Lane produced the topless photograph
At Tom Titt Lane, Chris became even more committed to the visual joke.
He took his top off for a photograph beside the sign.
The pictures were being shared online as the route progressed, turning the Book of LOL into both a physical joke collection and a social-media treasure hunt.
Scott watched from the studio and repeatedly questioned how much dignity Chris was planning to sacrifice before reaching the final stop.
The answer appeared to be all of it.
Dancing Dick’s Lane needed actual dancing Richards
Then came Dancing Dick’s Lane.
Chris wanted people named Richard, Dick or anything close enough to turn up and dance beside the sign.
He also performed another of his deliberately overblown Stark History of Britain guides.
The “history” mixed real-sounding narration with obvious jokes and completely invented connections.
One gag claimed the road had inspired Olly Murs’s “Dance With Me Tonight”.
Nobody was supposed to believe this was scholarship.
Chris delivered it as though he were narrating a BBC historical documentary anyway.
Louis Spence appeared unexpectedly
The route became even stranger when Louis Spence appeared.
Chris could hardly believe that a road trip based around dancing and rude place names had somehow produced an actual professional dancer.
Louis’s presence made Dancing Dick’s Lane feel briefly like the most appropriate location in Britain.
The police stopped them at Manwood
Later, around Manwood, a police officer approached.
For a moment Chris thought the road trip might finally have caused a real problem.
Instead, PC Smith joined in.
He supplied a joke about fireworks and batteries: one had been charged and the other let off.
The officer’s contribution went into the Book of LOL.
Chris considered this proof the project had official support, or at least that one police officer had a decent dad joke.
The road would continue into Ireland the following day.
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