Working from home had become very comfortable
Scott was still isolating at home and beginning to enjoy the low-effort side of broadcasting remotely.
He had showered, brushed his teeth and put on a favourite free T-shirt, which represented a noticeable improvement on the first day.
The positive test line was getting fainter, but he was still separated from Chris and the studio.
Rachel had booked the final show off work
Listener Rachel, who worked for the NHS, called with a confession.
Because she normally finished work at 4pm and listened later on BBC Sounds, she had booked 25 August as annual leave so she could hear Scott and Chris’s final Radio 1 show live.
Her workplace required a reason for leave.
Rachel had written “family time”.
Scott and Chris fully approved.
They joked that perhaps the final show should be marked with the kind of rituals used for major national moments, including a minute’s silence, clapping and banging pots and pans.
Rachel admitted she already expected to cry through the programme.
For Scott and Chris, the fact listeners were genuinely rearranging work to be there made the approaching ending feel much more real.
Brother or Lover became Sister Or Kisster
Tuesday normally meant Brother or Lover, but the show gave the format one of its variations and turned it into Sister or Kester.
The basic idea remained the same.
Grace and Sarah, both working in care in Kent, came on air and Scott, Chris and the team had to work out whether they were sisters or whether Sarah had “kissed her”.
Clues about borrowing clothes, sharing tents at festivals, cooking together and who was boss in the relationship split the team.
The reveal was that they were lovers, had been together for almost three years and were engaged.
By now the format was so established that changing the labels was enough to make the whole thing feel new again.
It also fitted the mood of the final month, where old ideas were being revisited, twisted and given one more outing.
Love Island acoustic covers became a quiz category
The quiz leaned heavily into Love Island.
One round tested strange islands from around the world, while another used the dramatic acoustic cover versions which had become part of the programme’s soundtrack.
Scott and Chris had to identify familiar songs after they had been slowed down and emotionally reworked into the kind of version designed to accompany a tense villa montage.
The combination of a listener using annual leave for the final show, a renamed relationship game and Love Island covers made the countdown feel less like a formal farewell and more like the show emptying its cupboard of every idea it still wanted to use.
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