Easter had not felt like a bank holiday
Scott and Chris returned after the Easter weekend still covering Radio 1 Breakfast.
Neither thought the break had felt normal.
The usual distinction between weekday and bank holiday had largely disappeared.
Scott had noticed barbecues around his area.
Chris teased him because barbecues had become one of Scott’s recurring obsessions.
The show was now explicitly trying to manufacture routine where the calendar no longer provided much.
Scott had found a lockdown present for his mum
Scott suggested a gift for anybody missing a family member.
Choose a favourite photograph together and turn it into a 200-piece personalised jigsaw.
He had ordered one for his own mum.
Chris pointed out that giving somebody a puzzle containing your own face was slightly egotistical.
Scott defended it.
His mum was probably missing him.
The gift allowed her to spend several hours literally reconstructing her son.
Chris’s dad had been caught by Street View
Chris then discovered his dad Ron had appeared on Google Street View while washing the car.
His face was blurred.
The pose remained unmistakably dad-like.
Sponge in hand.
Car-washing clothes.
Completely unaware of the camera.
Listeners supplied their own accidental Street View appearances, including grandparents at bus stops, somebody walking through a supermarket car park after a night out and people captured during house moves.
Scott liked the idea that a completely ordinary moment could sit online for years.
Mariah was replaced by Beyoncé
The successful Mariah challenge created an obvious problem.
Radio 1 needed something harder.
The next target became Beyoncé’s “Love On Top.”
The final section repeatedly rises through key changes.
Scott and Chris attempted it themselves.
Both knew immediately when their voices had reached the limit.
Listeners were invited to keep going where the presenters could not.
The challenge was not one impossible whistle note.
It was surviving the repeated climb.
One Direction reunion theories returned
Fans had noticed Liam, Harry, Niall and Louis apparently following Zayn again on social media.
Scott and Chris knew how closely One Direction fans monitored every online move.
With the tenth anniversary approaching, even a follow could become evidence of a reunion.
Scott remembered being one of relatively few people Zayn followed on Instagram because he had effectively made Zayn do it live on the radio.
The show also asked listeners to choose favourite old One Direction X Factor moments.
Lockdown had become ideal conditions for fandom detective work.
Tap End revisited Chris at 19
The archive moved back to Chris’s first year at university and his 19th birthday.
He travelled home from Southampton to celebrate with his old friends despite having new university friends around him too.
The story sat inside a longer collection of early adult adventures which now sounded particularly distant.
Packed trains.
Birthday nights.
Friends gathering without planning around distance.
Scott and Chris were replaying a life everybody temporarily could not have.
Dina Asher-Smith supplied the mix
The final part of the programme belonged to Dina Asher-Smith, introduced as the fastest woman in British history.
Dina admitted DJing was not what people normally associated with her.
Lockdown was producing unpredictable new roles.
She chose upbeat music, including tracks reflecting her Caribbean heritage from Jamaica and Trinidad.
Scott and Chris loved the contrast.
One of the world’s fastest sprinters was at home like everybody else, remotely selecting songs for Radio 1 Breakfast.
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