Chris returns to the Tap End
Scott, Chris and Beccy were back together after two weeks away, although Scott admitted that presenting the show felt strangely unfamiliar. The break had at least renewed their enthusiasm for 24 Years at the Tap End, which returned with a story from Chris’s first year at secondary school.
Chris remembered the occasional non-uniform days his school called “mufti days”. They transformed the atmosphere, with happier pupils and teachers who were more inclined to set poster-making, videos or quizzes. Unfortunately, Chris once reached Pinner station before realising that he had forgotten about the special day. It was too late to return home, so he spent it in blue rugby shorts and a white PE shirt, looking to Scott like an extra from Billy Elliot.
The relaxed day was effectively a reward for pupils who had agreed to return in full uniform on Saturday and guide prospective families around the school’s open day. Younger pupils were encouraged to volunteer with merit cards, although the complicated rewards scheme ultimately offered little more than the possibility of shaking the headteacher’s hand. Before the visitors arrived, Chris and his friends removed anything incriminating from their lockers. His friend Simon’s collection of lingerie pictures cut from catalogues went behind the lockers, a hiding place that later proved less secure than they imagined.
A tour of the wrong building
Chris had attended the school for less than a term and knew little about it, but that did not stop him inventing facts for the eight or ten people assigned to his tour. He claimed the school had stood there since 5AD and suggested William the Conqueror was among its famous former pupils. None of the prospective parents or children challenged him.
After the canteen, sports hall, field, art block and music rooms, Chris entered what he believed was the sixth-form common room. The facilities seemed unusually impressive: there was a kitchen, living area, television and PlayStation. He took the group upstairs, where the presence of several bedrooms became harder to explain.
A shout from below revealed the truth. Chris had walked into the caretaker’s private house and brought the entire tour with him. The angry caretaker confronted the group, a teacher arrived to control the situation and another pupil escorted the visitors away. Chris was relieved of his duties and sent home, which at least allowed him to attend Watford’s afternoon match.
His friends’ catalogue collection was also discovered when staff cleaned behind the lockers. Their merits were withdrawn, ending Chris’s already slim chance of earning a ceremonial handshake from the headteacher. His lessons from the episode were to know where a tour was going, keep spare clothes at school for forgotten mufti days and never assume that putting something behind a locker made it safe.
Loving the Trolls
The team revived Loving the Trolls, using the computer voice Lawrence to take the sting out of abuse posted about them online. A message wished that Scott and his “moron friends” would be sacked and told them to get a life, while another claimed Chris would not sound like a rock presenter even if one were forced into his arm and called him a “Nancy boy”.
Once delivered in Lawrence’s high-pitched voice, the insults sounded more ridiculous than threatening. Beccy wondered whether the supposedly computer-generated performance was actually Scott recording himself in a small bathroom, but Scott insisted Lawrence was real. The feature’s advice remained simple: imagine every hostile stranger speaking in that voice.
Tulisa faces Lawrence
Tulisa joined the show after a late night following The X Factor. She had lost one of her acts and went out with her contestants afterwards. Photographs showed a man holding her arm as she left a club, which Tulisa explained was simply protection from the crowd of photographers. The detail that caught Scott’s attention was a reader’s complaint that she needed to moisturise her knees. Tulisa conceded that they might have a point.
Scott also fed Gary Barlow’s weekend criticism of Tulisa’s “fag-ash breath” through Lawrence. Tulisa said Barlow knew she sometimes used advertising breaks to smoke and had chosen a remark likely to bother her, but she regarded it as a childish response to the point she had made about his act. They were nevertheless on speaking terms.
Tulisa explained that she stayed in close contact with her contestants and was willing to let them enjoy themselves while the competition continued. Acts from other categories had obtained her number too, irritating Louis Walsh because it made him appear less available. Walsh’s own messages were recognisable from their capital letters, rows of dots and the initials “LW”, although he once unnecessarily followed a conversation by identifying himself as “Louis from Dublin”.
She dismissed reports that Lucy Spraggan wanted to leave because she was being made to sing cover versions, saying Lucy was simply unwell. Tulisa also defended Rylan Clark as an entertaining contestant who supplied the programme with fun, and looked ahead to performing at 1Xtra Live. Although she had previously appeared there with N-Dubz, she admitted that taking the stage alone still made her nervous because the audience’s attention could no longer move to the other two members.
Real or No Real with Tulisa
Tulisa joined Scott, Chris and Beccy for Real or No Real. She correctly rejected the idea that Dog the Bounty Hunter and Peter Stringfellow were twins separated at birth, but believed elephants could be trained to play kiss chase, hide-and-seek, water fights, musical statues and “What’s the Time, Mr Wolf?”. That one was invented.
The real claims included plants growing twice as fast when played dubstep rather than silence and Vaseline inventor Robert Chesebrough eating a spoonful of the product each morning. Tulisa had dismissed the latter largely because she found his surname implausible, forcing her to offer the Chesebrough family an apology.
The false stories said a Chilean anteater was the only animal capable of defeating a polar bear and that Miley Cyrus ran a secret society devoted to eating custard slices without making a mess. The custard discussion somehow led Scott to explain that Alan Titchmarsh wrote romantic novels, prompting the suggested title Fifty Shades of Titchmarsh. Tulisa finished on 30 points, ten behind both Chris and Beccy, but still earned a handshake from Scott.
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