A birthday night in Manchester
Beccy returned as Chris took 24 Years at the Tap End back to his 23rd year and a joint birthday party for his friends Chaz and Banksy. Previous birthdays had produced the Prague trip immortalised in Olly Butler’s “Bish Bash Bosh”, a song Beccy now considered awful but brilliant. She requested that Olly apply the same production style to “Fairytale of New York” for Christmas.
Banksy was living in Manchester, so the group drove north, stopping twice for fried chicken and trying to take a photograph at the toll bridge. At his home in Moss Side, everybody changed into smart clothes. Chaz unveiled a birthday blazer which the others privately thought looked dreadful, although he was certain it would attract what Chris called a “Manchester lovely”.
At Revolution on Deansgate Locks, Chris had reserved a small table with balloons. A group of women were already there, but the evening initially resembled a school disco with neither group willing to speak. Chris tried to break the ice by writing the number seven on his phone, asking one woman to choose a number between one and ten and hoping she would make him look psychic. She chose three.
His friend Broadly attempted a more dramatic intervention. Unhappy with the subdued atmosphere, he pulled his trousers down, performed his party trick and sang “Happy Birthday”. He was promptly removed. Chris and a few others left with him, while Chaz stayed behind with his blazer and a more favourable ratio of men to women.
An unexpected arrival on Canal Street
Chris, Broadly and Dugsy continued through Manchester with two of them walking shirtless despite the November weather. They turned onto a busy street and noticed the atmosphere changing before seeing the Canal Street sign. They had arrived in the city’s gay village.
Broadly responded by performing his party trick again. Two police officers approached, but he assumed their uniforms meant they were club representatives or performers and continued shouting towards them. Chris calmed the situation, helped with Broadly’s belt and accepted the instruction to move on.
The group bought kebabs and returned towards Moss Side with no romantic success but several lessons. Chris concluded that pretending to be Derren Brown was a poor opening line if the trick did not work, dropping one’s trousers was best avoided, and somebody dressed as a police officer on Canal Street might simply be a police officer.
Scott learns how pulled pork works
The previous day’s visit from Adam Richman led the team to discuss which food they would share with him. Scott chose pulled pork, only to reveal that he had never tried it. The one that did not speak explained that packaged pulled pork still needed to be pulled apart at home.
Scott could not understand why it was called pulled pork if the pulling had not already been completed. He repeatedly asked whether it was a special kind of meat or simply an ordinary pork joint supplied with instructions. The circular conversation became one of the day’s main jokes and was replayed later in the week for a count of how often they had said “pork”.
Real or No Real
Trials of a crow scarer using Kesha’s voice had not been abandoned after birds began killing themselves. Most people genuinely could not hum while holding their nose, although Beccy appeared able to do it and attempted The Archers theme as proof.
South Korea was not developing biological weapons from bath-mat bacteria. That claim led to the discovery that Scott did not deliberately wash between his toes in the shower, while Chris and Beccy treated it as an obvious part of cleaning themselves. Greg James had never written jokes for Christmas crackers, despite Beccy initially thinking it might still be his second job.
The surprising final fact was true: before entering politics, Margaret Thatcher had worked as a food scientist on the development of soft-serve ice cream. Beccy knew it from a Heston Blumenthal programme, while Scott struggled to connect the future prime minister with Mr Whippy.
BBC Radio Lincolnshire misses a goal
A listener sent in commentary from a Lincoln City match on BBC Radio Lincolnshire. The commentator discussed a free kick, an offside decision and the final seconds of the match before his colleague quietly pointed out that a goal had been scored.
The surprised commentator asked for confirmation, admitted he had not seen it and then tried to recover. For a team who had just been discussing whether football commentary looked easy, the clip demonstrated how quickly an entire goal could be missed.
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