Hungry Beth had been removed from more than one buffet
The show met listener Beth, whose approach to all-you-can-eat dining was impressively literal.
At a table-service Chinese buffet she deliberately arrived extremely hungry and stayed for around five hours.
Over the course of the session Beth estimated she ordered six, seven or eight crispy ducks.
Eventually a member of staff told her she had been there too long.
Scott and Chris were already delighted by the story when Beth revealed this was not even the only time she had been asked to leave an all-you-can-eat venue.
Two trays of hash browns caused the second incident
On another occasion, Beth arrived at a breakfast buffet badly hungover and in urgent need of carbohydrates.
Rather than taking a few hash browns, she worked her way through roughly two trays.
A manager approached and told her she needed to think about the other guests.
Beth was confused and indignant until he pointed out how much she had eaten and suggested there was a McDonald’s down the road.
She described the experience as a mixture of rage and complete shame.
The show compared it with the classic *Simpsons* episode in which Homer takes an all-you-can-eat promise so seriously that the restaurant eventually cannot cope.
Other listeners had their own buffet disgrace
The subject brought out a collection of stories.
One listener remembered people effectively taking whole trays of food rather than normal portions.
“Unlucky Gary”, a recurring character from the show, had both broken up with a boyfriend at an all-you-can-eat restaurant and later argued about paying a service charge at a self-service buffet.
When he tried to return a week later, staff recognised him and refused to let him back in.
Scott and Chris concluded that the phrase “all you can eat” clearly contains more invisible rules than it first appears.
Davina McCall revisited Big Brother
Davina McCall joined for the guest mix while Channel 4 was broadcasting *Big Brother: Best Shows Ever*.
She had been rewatching old episodes and tweeting along with them.
Davina said the earliest series felt especially pure because contestants had not yet fully realised appearing on reality television could become a career. By the time later series arrived, applicants had a much clearer idea of what fame after the programme might look like.
Rewatching the early years also highlighted how much television had changed. People smoked indoors and the house even had chickens.
Davina and the show remembered Darren’s attachment to Marjorie the chicken and the story that attempts to bring chickens back in later series had run into questions about performance permits.
She would consider hosting it again
Scott asked the obvious question: if Channel 4 brought *Big Brother* back, would Davina host it?
Her answer was yes — or at least she would seriously consider it.
She felt casting would be crucial and said a modern version would need excellent aftercare, reflecting how much the industry had learned.
Davina did not want the format simply remade as another *Love Island*. Part of *Big Brother*’s appeal was the mix of people and the shared, event-television feeling.
Scott argued that after months when audiences had been separated physically, a programme everyone watched and discussed together might have renewed value.
Davina thought a limited return or one-off series could work if the casting captured the spirit of the original.
Her records stretched across generations
One of Davina’s choices was Earth, Wind & Fire’s *Boogie Wonderland*, which Scott treated as an education for any younger Radio 1 listeners hearing it for the first time.
She also chose Sub Focus and Wilkinson, artists connected in her memory with the soundtrack to her 2014 Sport Relief challenge.
The final selection was George Michael, whom Davina said she missed greatly.
The mix therefore moved easily between her personal history, dance music and the television programme most closely associated with her career.
Caroline was technically Chris’s mum’s car
*24 Years at the Tap End* then revisited Chris’s first car.
It was a red Vauxhall Corsa called Caroline.
There was one complication: the car actually belonged to his mum.
Chris was 17 and liked to let friends assume Caroline was his. Before picking people up he would scan the back seat for anything too obviously maternal, such as a copy of *Bella* magazine, which might reveal the truth.
Every modification had to disappear before the car went home
Chris repeatedly customised Caroline while he was borrowing it.
He used a cassette adaptor so he could connect a portable CD or MP3 player, retuned the radio and installed a novelty air freshener shaped like breasts.
His mum allowed him to use the car but expected all of this to be removed when it came back.
Chris also had a hydraulic novelty hand attached to the back window. A passenger could squeeze a control and slowly raise its middle finger at a driver following too closely.
The system was, Chris insisted, about protecting Caroline rather than simply insulting people.
He would drive around with music loud and the windows down even in winter, using the heater to compensate.
The recurring problem was remembering to remove everything afterwards. Sometimes his mum would return to find the novelty breasts hanging from the mirror and the middle finger still fixed to the rear window.
Those, Chris accepted, were useful early lessons in both motoring and borrowing somebody else’s car.
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