Radio 1 rejected Blue Monday
The third Monday of January arrived with brands and headlines describing it as Blue Monday, supposedly the most depressing day of the year.
Scott and Chris were sceptical.
They did not want listeners being told they should feel miserable simply because the calendar said so.
Instead, the show deliberately played upbeat clips and treated the day as something to resist.
The timing still worked perfectly for one feature.
Britain’s Biggest Mug was finally getting a winner.
Kev’s mug story began at a Cyprus airport
Kev had been travelling alone through an airport in Cyprus when he noticed a woman struggling with luggage.
He helped her.
The gesture was genuinely polite.
Kev admitted there was also a romantic motive.
He thought she was attractive and hoped helping might lead to conversation.
Then came an extraordinary coincidence.
The woman was on the same flight.
Even better, she was sitting directly behind him.
Kev spent a large part of the journey twisting around in his seat to keep talking.
They exchanged numbers.
She mentioned visiting somewhere near Kev’s home.
Everything appeared to be going extremely well.
The bombshell was a long-term boyfriend
Only later did Kev learn the important missing detail.
The woman had a boyfriend.
Not a new or ambiguous one.
A long-standing relationship.
Kev had spent the airport and much of the flight believing he was creating the beginning of something romantic.
Listeners judged that enough to earn him the giant mug.
Scott announced him as Britain’s Biggest Mug.
Kev sounded strangely proud.
He promised to use the enormous prize for tea, coffee and perhaps beer.
Scott objected to drinking beer from a mug.
Chris thought if anybody had earned the right to do it, Kev had.
Ask Me Anything went backwards
The mystery guest was Shantel, a Guinness World Record holder in backwards running.
She explained that she had originally taken it up around six years earlier as a form of injury rehabilitation and prevention.
The unusual training then became a competitive pursuit.
People regularly shouted that she was going the wrong way.
Shantel was well aware.
Scott asked whether running backwards made falling more likely.
Shantel said the opposite could happen because runners became intensely aware of the risk and adjusted accordingly.
She still needed to look behind and understand the course.
A marathon was possible in reverse
The feature’s “marathon runner with a difference” was literal.
Shantel had developed the technique far beyond a short novelty sprint.
Scott and Chris were impressed by the balance and concentration required.
Ask Me Anything had once again taken something which sounded initially silly and revealed genuine skill underneath it.
Instagram was listening again
The programme also returned to its suspicion that social-media advertising somehow knew too much.
Scott and Chris had discussed products or interests and then felt they appeared in adverts almost immediately.
They knew ordinary tracking and browsing behaviour could explain much of it.
That did not stop the unnerving feeling that Instagram was listening.
Blue Monday had ended successfully.
Kev had the mug.
Shantel could run backwards.
The algorithm was still under suspicion.
COMMENTS