Lockdown had turned adverts into memorised scripts
Ella Eyre had spent enough time at home that television advertising had started entering her brain in full.
Rather than merely recognising jingles, she could repeat entire pieces of copy.
Scott and Chris discovered she was not alone.
Listeners had absorbed adverts for medicines, food and household products simply through hearing the same lines over and over again.
One caller performed a surprisingly sinister antibiotic-awareness advert almost word for word.
The show concluded that months at home had turned everybody into unwilling voiceover artists.
Kate Thistleton had the same problem
Radio 1 colleague Kate Thistleton also admitted to learning adverts.
That made Scott feel slightly better about the whole thing.
The behaviour was clearly not just Ella sitting at home with too much time.
The repeated rhythms and jingles were designed to stick.
Lockdown had simply given them far more opportunity to succeed.
Blow Your Own Trumpet returned
Listeners were again invited to celebrate whatever small thing had gone right.
Assignments completed.
Jobs finished.
Pieces of life admin finally dealt with.
The bar did not need to be high.
After another month of restrictions, Scott and Chris were happy to award a fanfare for anything which made somebody feel even slightly accomplished.
Cocktail or Wrestling Move made its debut
Don’t Look It Up introduced Cocktail or Wrestling Move.
The names sounded implausible enough for either category.
A Short Trip to Hell was one of the first examples.
Scott and Chris had to decide whether it belonged on a drinks menu or in a wrestling ring.
The round worked for the same reason as Racehorse or Drag Queen.
Once removed from context, specialist names from two completely different worlds could sound almost identical.
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