Scott wanted everybody’s local gossip
The previous day’s Strictly spoiler had exposed something Scott could no longer deny.
He loved gossip.
Not only celebrity gossip.
He was equally interested in completely local stories involving people he had never met.
Who was arguing with whom?
Who had suddenly moved out?
What suspicious thing was happening down the road?
Chris watched Scott’s eyes light up even when the names meant nothing to either of them.
That made it the perfect day to bring back the man with better gossip than almost anybody.
PI James was watching somebody famous
Private investigator James rejoined the show from his car.
As usual, he could reveal almost nothing about the job he was actually doing.
He did, however, admit he was currently investigating somebody very famous on behalf of that person’s spouse — who was also famous.
Scott and Chris immediately wanted names.
James gave them absolutely none.
They instead tried to deduce his location from the lack of background noise, deciding he must be parked somewhere leafy and expensive with a long camera lens.
James neither confirmed nor properly denied the theory.
A client had hired him to investigate a ghost
The case he *could* discuss was even stranger.
A client believed paranormal activity was happening inside a house.
Things seemed to be moving.
Noises were being heard.
James was hired to investigate.
That meant spending time undercover inside the living room, monitoring what happened and taking regular photographs.
Scott liked the idea that somebody could hire a private investigator for a ghost in the same way somebody else might hire one to expose an affair.
James had actually dealt with potential paranormal activity before.
The ghost investigation ended inconclusively
James did not see anything which persuaded him a ghost was present.
He still had to produce a proper report documenting the hours he spent there and what happened.
Scott joked that a paying client might not be thrilled by the conclusion “nothing happened”, but James explained that the job was to observe and record rather than invent something supernatural.
Chris wondered whether the ghost might simply have been shy and refused to appear while an investigator was sitting in the room.
James remained rather more professional.
The case was inconclusive.
Listeners blew their own trumpets
Tuesday’s Blow Your Own Trumpet returned for listeners who were proud of themselves but did not expect anybody else to care.
Laura had increased online sales for her small business by around 200% during an extremely difficult year.
Charlotte, aged 24, had managed to get a mortgage and buy her own flat between the two lockdowns.
Another caller had finally dealt with an email inbox containing thousands of messages.
The feature treated every achievement with the same fanfare.
That was the point.
If it felt significant to the person who had done it, Radio 1 would supply the trumpet.
Sniffer had eaten the crucial part of Scarlett’s underwear
Listener Scarlett worked in a hotel and was preparing to go onto furlough as England moved back into lockdown.
At home, she had a one-year-old dog called Sniffer.
Sniffer had a very specific hobby.
He stole Scarlett’s underwear from the laundry basket and ate the middle out of it.
The waistband would survive.
The rest would not.
Scarlett could pick up what looked like a normal pair and discover it had effectively become a ring of fabric.
Scott wanted to know whether Sniffer did the same thing to her fiancé’s boxers.
He did not.
The dog had apparently chosen one person’s underwear and one particular section of it.
Other dogs were just as bad
Listeners quickly got in touch with their own stories.
One dog stole underwear from an overnight bag and paraded it around the boyfriend’s family living room like show-and-tell.
Another attacked socks and pants with equal enthusiasm.
Scott, who was considering getting a dog, realised responsible pet ownership might involve several aspects nobody had warned him about.
The show had started the day with professional surveillance.
It ended investigating a much less dignified mystery:
why so many dogs seemed obsessed with people’s underwear.
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