The home-radio setup was already normal
By the first supplied April transcript, Scott and Chris had settled into the strange new routine.
Scott was in Radio 1.
Chris was broadcasting from home.
Listeners wanted photographs of microphones, headphones and the improvised technology surrounding Chris.
Scott had even bought extra-large latex gloves.
The programme was still adjusting to ordinary things suddenly feeling significant.
A supermarket delivery slot had become an achievement worth celebrating.
Scott said his boyfriend could stay up until midnight refreshing several devices just to find one.
Getting groceries now required the concentration once reserved for major concert tickets.
The Who Game found lockdown material
The Who Game continued, with old references mixed with things which already felt as though they belonged to another life.
Piñatas became one of the arguments.
Chris wondered how hard an adult was supposed to hit one.
A small child could spend several turns gently breaking the paper.
A grown adult could destroy the entire game immediately.
The show’s nostalgia feature had started absorbing the odd practical observations of lockdown too.
Tom from Blossoms was bored but productive
Tom Ogden from Blossoms joined from his back room at home.
He was trying to use the unexpected time to write.
Tom explained that this was not dramatically different from the band’s normal process.
He usually wrote the songs himself and then brought them to the rest of Blossoms to develop in rehearsal.
The difference was that everybody now had far more time apart.
Scott predicted one positive outcome from artists being stuck at home might be an enormous amount of new music.
Tom hoped so too.
Would Blossoms take a listener’s song?
Scott asked what would happen if somebody listening had written an incredible song and sent it to Tom.
Was Blossoms completely closed to outside material?
Tom said a great song was a great song.
If he genuinely loved something, he could imagine trying it.
That was enough for Scott to picture listeners at home suddenly trying to write the next Blossoms single.
Tap End returned to the German exchange
The archive then went back to Chris’s school days.
Chris had been paired with a German exchange student called Andreas.
The pairing logic appeared to be alarmingly thin.
Both boys liked sausage and mash.
Chris pointed out that sharing one food preference did not necessarily mean two teenagers would get on.
The trip began badly.
Other pupils were met at the airport by their exchange families.
Chris and a friend were told to get a train elsewhere.
He already felt slightly unwanted.
Sausage was not enough
The Tap End story developed into exactly the sort of uncomfortable teenage experience Chris’s autobiography specialised in.
He had been sent abroad to live with people he did not know, based partly on a form filled in at school.
The relationship with Andreas did not become the easy international friendship the teachers had presumably imagined.
Scott enjoyed the simplicity of the original matching system.
Favourite food:
sausages.
Result:
send him to Germany.
COMMENTS