Jedward accidentally started a voice-note trend
The previous night, Jedward had appeared unexpectedly in Chris’s Instagram DMs.
Rather than typing a normal message, John and Edward sent a long voice note praising Chris as a national treasure and iconic DJ.
Chris thought it was lovely.
He also thought receiving Jedward whispering encouragement into his phone late at night was slightly strange.
Once the message had been played on air, listeners began copying it.
Chris’s inbox filled with similarly breathy voice notes.
One came from a listener in Buenos Aires who explained that Scott and Chris had kept him company while travelling on buses around Argentina.
A private Jedward message had somehow become a new listener format.
Lockdown made people miss colleagues they used to find annoying
Months of home working had reached the point where listeners were missing people they never expected to miss.
For Chris, the example was Radio 1’s Tony Wood.
Tony was simply one of those people who was always around the building and could fix things.
Working from home had removed that safety net.
If something broke, Chris now had to search the internet rather than shout for Tony.
Listeners nominated colleagues whose dad jokes, loud laughs, nail-biting and other little habits once irritated them but now felt strangely comforting.
One woman missed a colleague with such a distinctive deep laugh that she could imitate it instantly.
The feature captured a side of working from home that had taken months to emerge: people did not only miss close friends.
They missed the background characters of everyday office life.
Don’t Look It Up discovered the history behind Dr Oetker
A frozen-food round produced a surprisingly long diversion into pizza.
Scott and Chris learned that Norway apparently ate more frozen pizza per person than the countries they had guessed.
That led to the name Dr Oetker.
They became fascinated by the fact the company really had been founded by a German figure carrying the title “Dr”, rather than the name simply being a piece of branding invented for frozen pizza.
A question about the first frozen food advertised on British television almost disappeared entirely because Scott became more interested in the company’s history.
The eventual answer was peas.
Jonnie Peacock opened with Lose Yourself
Paralympic champion Jonnie Peacock took over the guest mix.
His first record was Eminem’s *Lose Yourself*, a song he used when he needed to get himself mentally ready.
Jonnie was promoting the documentary *Rising Phoenix*, which told the history and human stories behind the Paralympic movement.
The conversation quickly became much bigger than a normal celebrity DJ slot.
Stoke Mandeville changed sport forever
Jonnie explained the story of Ludwig Guttmann, the Jewish doctor who fled Nazi Germany and later worked at Stoke Mandeville.
Sport was introduced as part of rehabilitation for people with spinal injuries.
What began there would grow into the Paralympic Games.
Jonnie loved that *Rising Phoenix* told both sides of the story.
The Paralympics could provide elite sporting moments capable of making stadiums erupt, but the movement was also about people rebuilding lives after extraordinary circumstances.
He hoped viewers with disabilities might watch and realise that sport — at whatever level — could be available to them too.
The mix moved from Hozier to Public Enemy
Jonnie’s choices included Hozier’s *From Eden* and MGMT’s *Electric Feel*.
He also picked Public Enemy’s *Harder Than You Think*, a track inseparable from the atmosphere of London 2012.
Scott talked about the remarkable position Jonnie now occupied.
A young person could watch him compete or see his story in the documentary and be nudged towards a local athletics or disability-sport club.
Jonnie pointed to the much-improved tools now available for finding accessible sport nearby.
Jonnie had an MBE and his own golden postbox
Scott remained slightly jealous of the formal honours attached to Jonnie’s career.
There was the MBE.
There was also the golden postbox installed after his London 2012 success near the village where his mum lived.
Jonnie passed it whenever he went home but admitted he had never actually posted anything through it.
Scott naturally asked whether he had ever considered climbing inside.
He had not.
A Tuesday karaoke session had become suspiciously big
Before Tap End, Scott noticed footage from Chris’s house which looked rather more energetic than a normal Tuesday night.
Chris had been watching the Champions League, become carried away and ended up doing house karaoke with disco lights.
He insisted it had not been a party.
It had simply developed the emotional atmosphere of a Thursday night on a Tuesday.
Tap End joined the Cubs
The Golden Moment returned to Chris at around ten years old.
He joined the Cubs at his local church.
He skipped Beavers and went straight into a world of uniforms, flags, Akela, vows and the promise to do a good turn every day.
Chris loved the fact Cub achievement was visible.
The more badges somebody had on their uniform, the more accomplished they looked.
He collected badges for things including road safety, map reading, DIY, books and collecting.
Even years later, he remained slightly bothered that he had never completed the full set.
Could adult Chris go back and finish the job?
The conversation quickly became a genuine enquiry into whether Chris could now obtain the badges he missed.
Listeners who were Scout leaders said the criteria were available online and somebody might even be able to arrange a post-lockdown visit.
Chris was extremely interested.
He could still remember the promise.
The idea of a fully grown Radio 1 presenter returning to finish Cub badges he had left incomplete decades earlier suddenly seemed entirely plausible.
Camp songs and bring-and-buy sales shaped Cub life
Chris remembered overnight camps, assault courses, bonfires and songs.
One camp chant about Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut later reappeared in pop culture through the Fast Food Rockers, much to Scott’s surprise.
As Chris progressed, he became a Sixer, giving him responsibility for a small group.
He organised a successful bring-and-buy sale, putting leaflets through neighbours’ doors and collecting unwanted items which the Cubs could turn into money.
Chris regarded this as early entrepreneurial training.
Hyacinth Bucket was the unlikely finale
The Cubs, Brownies and Scouts also staged a variety show.
Chris’s group performed a *Keeping Up Appearances* sketch.
Chris was chosen to play Hyacinth Bucket.
That meant wearing a dress and doing the character’s famous telephone voice in front of parents and elderly members of the audience.
His mum was extremely proud and apparently still had a photograph.
Chris was rather less keen for it to resurface.
He eventually left the Cubs before progressing to Scouts.
Looking back, he preferred to describe it as retiring at the top of his game — with Hyacinth Bucket as the final performance.
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