“Socially distanced, of course” had worn Scott down
Scott had found another phrase he wanted gone.
By September 2020, almost every invitation, event announcement and harmless social plan seemed to end with:
“socially distanced, of course.”
Scott understood why people said it.
He was simply exhausted by hearing the same reassurance added to everything.
Like “virtual” earlier in the month, the phrase had become linguistic shorthand for a year everybody was tired of living through.
Heather’s second day began with Radio 1 waking her up
Heather was back for day two of the fresher diary.
Scott and Chris had effectively become her alarm clock.
She had decorated the halls room with fairy lights, fake plants and the usual attempts to make an unfamiliar box feel like home.
Chris remembered a rather less decorative student room involving black mould around the sink.
Heather was beginning to understand who she could mix with and how her flat functioned as a household bubble.
The rules were strange, but some of the normal university rhythms were already starting to appear underneath them.
Hannah Reid did not want to hear herself
London Grammar had performed in the Live Lounge.
Scott then asked Hannah Reid to listen back.
This was not something she normally enjoyed doing.
Hannah was the kind of singer who could complete a performance and then move on without sitting at home analysing every note.
Scott regarded that as exactly why the playback would be interesting.
London Grammar reviewed the performance in real time
The group listened as Radio 1 replayed parts of the session.
Hannah instinctively focused on tiny things she would have changed.
Scott concentrated on the fact that the overall performance sounded enormous.
The contrast was familiar from earlier self-review segments.
Artists could deliver something listeners found stunning and still hear only the tiny moments which felt imperfect to them.
The show treated the Live Lounge as a serious performance space rather than simply another promotional stop, and London Grammar’s nerves only reinforced that.
Tuesday meant celebrating small victories
Blow Your Own Trumpet returned with listeners offering achievements that would never make the news.
That was the feature’s strength.
A tiny domestic success, a form finally completed or a job somebody had been putting off could receive exactly the same triumphal fanfare as something genuinely major.
The show had become a place where mundane competence was worth celebrating.
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