The Four Lads in Jeans had become unavoidable
Jamie, Connor, Alex and Kevin had appeared in a photograph from a Birmingham night out in 2019.
The image later became one of Britain’s biggest memes.
Then the sea-shanty trend somehow gave the photograph another wave of attention.
Scott and Chris got all four lads onto Radio 1.
They were no longer simply four friends on a night out.
They were now the Four Lads in Jeans.
The lads became judges of post-lockdown nightlife
Listeners described the ideal night out they would have once restrictions finally ended.
The Four Lads then scored each plan.
People offered pubs, clubs, pre-drinks, takeaway stops and whatever local rituals made their town’s nightlife feel familiar.
The fun came from how ordinary the plans were.
A year earlier, nobody would have treated “a couple of drinks and a nightclub” as a fantasy.
In January 2021 it sounded almost luxurious.
The meme stars were therefore judging dreams about normal life.
Granny Tinder had received the vaccine
Lynette also appeared with a much more important update.
She had received her coronavirus vaccination.
Scott and Chris had spent weeks turning her into one of the show’s regular characters.
Hearing that she had now been vaccinated felt genuinely significant.
The pair celebrated the moment in the same way they had earlier celebrated frontline listener Dan.
Scott had become a puppy parent
Scott’s new dog Teddy was already creating material for the programme.
Listeners had warned Scott that letting Teddy bite or mouth his ears might not be as cute as he thought and could become a behaviour problem.
Scott had therefore booked a puppy-training session.
Because this was lockdown, even dog training was happening on Zoom.
Chris could not understand how a puppy was expected to learn anything through a laptop.
Scott explained that the trainer would actually be instructing him while he worked with Teddy.
The image of a dog politely sitting in front of Microsoft Teams remained much funnier.
Radio 1’s worlds collided perfectly
The episode captured January 2021 in miniature.
A grandmother received a vaccine.
A new dog went to Zoom school.
Four men famous because of a meme discussed nights out nobody could currently have.
And all of it sat comfortably inside the same Scott Mills programme.
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