Nick Grimshaw prepares for breakfast
Nick Grimshaw joined Scott four days before beginning his own Radio 1 Breakfast Show. He had moved from fear to excitement and wanted the launch to arrive, reasoning that presenting radio every day was already his job even if the scale and history of the new programme made it feel different.
For publicity photographs, Scott had worn a stick-on quiff so he could join “Team Grimmy”. The sign outside Radio 1 looked like primary-school lettering, and a pile of rubbish placed in front of it made the campaign appear even less glamorous. Grimmy revealed that Justin Bieber would be his first major guest, recorded in advance because Bieber was unavailable on Monday.
Grimmy said previous interviews with Bieber could be difficult because he heard the same questions repeatedly. This time Grimmy asked the singer questions about himself instead, which unexpectedly made Bieber attentive and produced the best conversation they had had.
Can Grimmy lie?
Grimmy tested a game based on Would I Lie to You?, receiving statements on paper and trying to convince Scott and Chris that they were true. He began with the genuine story of burning down part of his family home at Christmas after putting a candle under a television. The fire began after everybody had gone out and left considerable smoke damage.
His claim of being attacked by a school of fish was also true, although “attacked” was generous. After drinking on holiday in Ibiza, Grimmy jumped from a high boat, was sick on entering the water and attracted fish which gathered to eat it.
He then successfully invented a Las Vegas marriage to his friend Amy, naming guests and a route back from Coachella. Scott and Chris believed it. By contrast, the true story that he had once been booked to model children’s sunglasses on This Morning sounded false. The appearance never happened because his parents had arranged a holiday in Crete.
A Rubik’s night in 24 Years at the Tap End
The classic Tap End chapter returned to Chris’s second year at Southampton University. Pancake Day began with “ultimate tossing”, an attempt to throw pancakes over the student house. None cleared the building, and one became stuck to a housemate’s window.
The night’s Rubik’s-themed party required everybody to arrive in six colours and swap clothing until dressed entirely in one. Chris aimed for orange, eventually surrendering his jeans to a stranger in exchange for an orange skirt. He could not find matching shoes but left the club dressed almost completely in the chosen colour.
Locked out at 4am, Chris sat at a bus stop in a large orange shirt and skirt. A man dressed as a Smurf joined him until a café opened at seven. They ate a full English with other people returning from nights out, including a shepherd and Harry Potter. Chris’s friend Kieran arrived after waking in the wrong house and being moved on by its occupants.
Gangnam Style translated
A Dear Scott listener had looked up the English translation of “Gangnam Style”. The Posh Radio 4 Lady solemnly read lyrics about a woman who enjoyed the freedom of a cup of coffee and a man who drank his before it cooled. Other lines described people who appeared calm during the day but became passionate when the right time arrived.
Scott decided the translation made the song even more moving. The reading was accompanied by Craig Armstrong’s “Balcony Scene” from Romeo + Juliet, a detail the programme would later identify for another listener.
Psy appoints Scott his British manager
Psy spoke from Los Angeles after “Gangnam Style” reached number 11 on the US Billboard chart. In Britain, Scott had watched it rise from number 16 to number two in the space of a day. Psy jokingly credited Scott and appointed him his British manager, leaving the financial details for a future meeting.
He explained that the dance worked by imagining an invisible horse between the legs. The movements could look silly, but the face had to remain entirely serious. Psy had spent 12 years performing in Korea and regarded this as another of many comic dance routines, even though it was his first to make him globally famous.
Recognition still depended on his sunglasses. Without them, Psy said people often failed to know who he was. He had shown the dance to Usher and spoken to Justin Bieber about learning it, while Britney Spears’s tight dress had prevented her from performing it properly.
Psy promised to fly to Britain if the single became number one. Scott responded by playing it again and considered increasing the day’s total to four broadcasts.
Dan Greaves plays Innuendo Bingo
Paralympic discus silver medallist Dan Greaves joined the week’s Team GB line-up. He described seven years of preparation for London 2012, including a final year with only one week off, and planned a six-week break to reconnect with friends and family. Walking into the stadium with his hood raised had produced a roar even during the warm-up, which he thought unsettled his rivals.
Dan wore pale grey trousers despite having heard the feature before. He started strongly with a Poundland clip about spending all day in the shop, then sprayed Chris during Bake Off instructions to grab, twist and flick.
The dominant material came from a Radio 4 bowls play called The Perfect Wood. It included “You’ve asked for it, Margaret”, a threat to fire wood through a perfect little cluster and detailed instructions about claw and cradle grips. Dan repeatedly broke before the scenes had finished.
Further clips involved a cannon salute, a strudel suffering a haemorrhage, crossing swords and a cricket ball being caught “right on the crown”. Dan’s jeans were soaked by the end, but he said he had loved the game.
Scott breaks his bed
An exhausted Scott admitted becoming clumsy during the breakfast week. He had broken his headphones, fallen from his chair twice and then discovered that three slats in his bed had snapped, forcing him to put the mattress on the floor.
The failure inspired the imagined real-life-magazine headline “I’m so fat I broke my bed”. Sara Cox later suggested rearranging the remaining slats like a jungle-trial bridge so that Scott would not drop through the gaps.
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