The Easiest Quiz: Shona wins the week
Shona from Marlow loved travelling and lived with two Bengal cats, Missy and Stormy. Her ten-year-old son Jude persuaded her to apply and had been training her with homemade quizzes.
James’s ten points were the score to beat. Shona moved through questions about badminton, Sydney Opera House, spelling “apple”, scuba diving, ice hockey, the alphabet, five-a-side football, the DeLorean and ice-cream parlours.
She continued through Leo, roast dinners, Van Gogh, suitcases, elephants, grandparents, football nets, sandwich fillings, cricket, proverbs and Home and Away. Her answer “Alf from Home and Away” as a famous Australian took her to 23 and secured Streak of the Week.
The next question asked her to name an inventor. Shona answered Einstein, but the quiz ruled that he was a physicist rather than the expected kind of inventor and also said the answer had come too late.
Listeners argued that Einstein had contributed to inventions and held patents, but the result stood. Shona won the week’s egg cup with 23 points.
Richard E. Grant
Richard E. Grant joined Scott to discuss Death of a Unicorn, describing it as an eco-comedy-horror with Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega. He played a dying oligarch restored by unicorn blood.
Richard explained that the wealthy family in the film drew inspiration from dynasties associated with the American opioid scandal. The fantastical plot therefore sat on top of a recognisable story about wealth, exploitation and attempts to turn everything into a product.
Scott was surprised to learn that Richard regularly travelled by London bus and was rarely recognised because almost everybody looked at a phone. Richard said he used the number 65 from Richmond “practically every day”.
A listener asked about his habit of smelling everything. Richard replied: “I don’t understand why everybody doesn’t,” explaining that scent provided the shortest route between the brain and memory.
He had already smelled the chair, desk, microphone and his own hand after shaking Scott’s. Richard then removed his headphones to sniff the padded studio wall, concluding that it smelled clean and “not fusty at all”.
Before leaving, he confirmed that he was involved in the film adaptation of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club, although he did not know whether his part would survive the final edit.
Sharleen Spiteri
Sharleen Spiteri joined Richard and Scott for Big Guest Friday, bringing a second major career conversation into the hour.
She discussed Texas’s continuing live schedule and the relationship the band had maintained with audiences across several decades.
Scott asked about returning to songs that had become part of listeners’ lives while still wanting the band to create new material.
Sharleen supplied the hour’s second exclusive by confirming that Texas were actively recording a new album.
She also joined the less formal parts of the conversation, reacting to Richard’s studio sniffing and the possibility that Ed Sheeran’s bus might pass nearby.
Ed Sheeran’s pink bus
Ed Sheeran spent the morning travelling around London on a pink bus to promote his new single Azizam. Scott repeatedly checked the bus’s location and hoped to connect with him live.
The unpredictable journey became a parallel story running underneath Big Guest Friday, with Richard and Sharleen warned that Ed might suddenly appear on the programme from elsewhere in the city.
The Wonder Years
The Wonder Years began in 1980 with Liquid Gold’s Dance Yourself Dizzy before moving to 1981 and Duran Duran’s Planet Earth. Listeners connected the sequence with school days, old nightclubs and signed records.
4 April 2025: Vernon Kay
Scott warned Vernon that Richard E. Grant might sniff him later during The One Show. Vernon said he did not mind because he was always fresh.
The conversation then became an argument about deodorant. Vernon revealed that he used a dry-powder roll-on, while Scott said he had tried roll-ons and could not accept them.
Both eventually agreed that the subject belonged in the BBC canteen rather than on air, although not before Scott had developed “strong opinions” about Vernon’s choice.
COMMENTS