Tuesday began with suspicious spellings
Scott announced a new and completely unscientific theory.
He was not sure he trusted names which normally ended in Y when somebody chose to spell them with I instead.
Tony becoming Toni.
Vicky becoming Vicki.
Harry becoming Harri.
Scott repeatedly stressed that he was not saying these people were bad.
He was simply advising listeners to remain alert.
The number of offended messages suggested he had accidentally targeted a significant part of the audience.
The rat campaign moved towards a decision
Verity’s nameless rat had now generated weeks of stories about bad exes and unreliable partners.
Scott and Chris replayed some of the strongest examples and discussed which name genuinely deserved to become permanent.
The animal-naming idea had worked because listeners were not merely supplying insults.
They were telling full stories about people who had lied, cheated or treated them badly.
The final decision was getting close.
The shortest relationships got even shorter
Monday’s Love Island-inspired feature continued.
Listeners described relationships lasting hours, minutes or, in school, almost no time at all.
One person had somebody else ask a boy out for her.
That reminded Scott and Chris of a lost school role:
the romantic go-between.
Instead of speaking directly to the person someone fancied, a trusted friend carried the message.
“Do you like her?”
“Would you go out with him?”
The entire relationship could be negotiated by two intermediaries before the supposed couple had actually spoken.
Listeners began naming the people who had done their romantic dirty work at school.
Scott loved how often everybody remembered the go-between by full first and surname decades later.
5 Seconds of Summer requested the game themselves
5 Seconds of Summer joined the programme and surprised the producers by asking to play Music Video or Adult Video.
The show normally had to explain the game carefully to guests.
This time the band already wanted it.
Scott read comments taken either from ordinary music videos or from adult-video websites.
The band had to identify which was which.
Comments about a video ending too soon, somebody being “perfection” and viewers enjoying what they had just watched could plausibly belong to either world.
That ambiguity was the entire point.
The band threw themselves into it.
Scott and Chris also reflected on having supported 5SOS early in their Radio 1 career and watching the group become much bigger internationally.
Their accents had changed slightly after years of living and working abroad.
The show replayed older clips to prove it.
Glastonbury traffic started appearing
The end of June also meant the annual stream of listeners travelling to Glastonbury.
Cars full of tents, food and festival gear began checking in with Radio 1.
Scott recognised the same pattern every year.
By Tuesday, people were already on the road.
By Friday, the whole BBC would seem to be in a field.
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