Back-to-school week begins
Scott opened September by acknowledging the strange mixture of excitement and nerves surrounding the first week back at school.
Parents, teachers and pupils were invited to keep the programme on all the way to the school gates and describe how everybody in the house was feeling.
One headteacher said that after 20 years in education, the butterflies still returned at the start of a new term. Tina Daheley was also preparing for her daughter Athena’s first days at school and explained why she needed to be present for the initial drop-offs.
The stationery people
Scott admitted that the return-to-school displays still made him want a new notebook, pencil case and set of pens even though most of his work now happened on computers.
He, Tina and Ellie compared their ideal pen for life. Tina chose a good biro, Ellie revealed that she had once been interested in calligraphy, and Scott selected a flex-nib fountain pen in black ink.
Listeners sent voice notes defending favourite notebooks, pens and pencil cases with the level of passion Scott had hoped to hear.
The Easiest Quiz
The week’s first contestant established the opening score under the usual instant-answer rules.
Scott continued to argue against rulings that punished contestants for wording rather than knowledge, while the quiz insisted that hesitation remained enough to end a run.
The Birthday Game: Paul
Paul joined from Portugal, where he was celebrating his birthday on holiday. He revealed that he had previously worked as a DJ and possessed enough chart knowledge to recognise one of the songs as the number one on the day he was born.
His first choice was Taio Cruz’s Dynamite, number one in 2010. Paul liked the energy but said he had heard it repeatedly while walking around the old town and did not want it at nine in the morning.
The second was Elvis Presley’s The Wonder of You, number one in 1970. Paul loved Elvis and knew it was his birth-date chart-topper, but still decided it was not the right song for that moment.
The third and compulsory selection was Lou Bega’s Mambo No. 5, which had spent four weeks at number one in the UK and 20 weeks at the top in France.
Paul accepted the result enthusiastically, while Scott warned him to stay away from the more chaotic holiday strip.
1 September 2025: Vernon Kay
The handover returned to the first-day nerves, Tina’s school-run plans and the excitement that new stationery still created long after leaving education.
COMMENTS