Chris tested positive
Scott arrived without Chris in the studio.
Chris had gone for a run that morning and then taken a COVID test.
Positive.
He was apparently feeling reasonably well.
For the moment, however, he was staying home.
Listeners had already seen the update on Chris’s Instagram and were asking what happened.
One message said Chris had “got the vid”, which another listener momentarily interpreted as sounding like an entirely different type of medical diagnosis.
Scott reassured everybody.
It meant COVID.
Jan Slam had the first Big Weekend tickets
The next Jan Slam prize was also significant.
Two tickets to Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Coventry.
Not simply any tickets.
The first two being made available to the public.
Radio 1 would also provide accommodation.
Scott joked about the way hotel prices can appear to multiply whenever a major event arrives in town.
Producer Amy joined an improvised role-play where a normal room cost roughly £40 until somebody mentioned the Big Weekend dates, at which point the fictional price became £4,000.
The actual accommodation being included suddenly sounded extremely useful.
Instagram was quietly functioning as a dating app
The previous day’s Hook-up Higher or Lower had revealed that people were meeting partners through Instagram more often than Scott realised.
So the show investigated.
Sophie had followed a man because they shared an interest in running and documented their running journeys online.
Both did extreme races and endurance events.
One Instagram story gave Sophie an excuse to send a message.
She hesitated over the send button.
Then did it.
They met the following day.
Within around a month he had effectively moved in.
By the time Sophie spoke to Radio 1, they had a one-year-old son.
A spontaneous DM had become a family.
Lisa almost ignored the DM because she had pizza
Listener Lisa had another version.
She came home from a night out at around two in the morning and sat in bed with pizza.
Her phone flashed.
Instagram DM.
She ignored it.
The pizza was more important.
The next morning she looked again.
The message simply said:
“Wow.”
Lisa replied with something like:
“Excuse me?”
The conversation continued.
It turned out they had known each other from school.
Eventually there was a date.
Scott realised Instagram had become a relationship platform even for people who would never describe themselves as using it for dating.
Ted Hastings reopened the Live Laugh Love investigation
The Golden Moment went back to the mystery of Scott’s missing Live Laugh Love sign from the BBC toilets.
Scott had suspected Matt Edmondson.
Rather than question Matt normally, the show recruited impressionist Luke Kempner as *Line of Duty*’s Ted Hastings.
Luke phoned Matt in full interrogation mode.
“Mother of God.”
“Fella.”
The missing sign became a major anti-corruption investigation.
Matt denied stealing it.
Ted reminded him of his previous history of taking a television somebody had left outside.
The entire call treated a piece of cheap toilet décor like key evidence in an organised-crime case.
Reece Parkinson joined for bad woodwind
With Chris absent, Reece Parkinson from 1Xtra joined Scott and Amy for the quiz.
One round asked whether bizarre celebrity merchandise was real.
Another used bad woodwind covers of pop songs.
Familiar records were performed so poorly that recognising them became genuinely difficult.
Scott also mentioned Reece’s running documentary and immediately thought about connecting him with Chris, who was considering his own marathon challenge.
Chris had COVID.
The networking could wait.
The show had carried on without him — but not without mentioning him constantly.
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