Sarah-Jane Crawford protects her party hair
Sarah-Jane Crawford arrived for Innuendo Bingo on the day of the Radio 1 and 1Xtra Christmas party. She had intended to preserve her hair extensions for the evening and brought a new pink satin shower cap, while Chris wore the jumper he planned to keep on for the party. Both decisions were quickly undermined by a game which left their clothes soaked.
Moira Stuart opened the contest by describing a rude awakening with something exploding in every direction. Greg James, reporting from Afghanistan, found himself upside down with a man on top of him, while a bakery opened its back doors and let visitors in. Jamie Oliver offered to toss some pork and push food around the rim, and Claudia Winkleman considered giving something a whip.
Sarah-Jane became an enthusiastic opponent, firing water directly at Chris and repeatedly retreating when she needed to recover. By the end, her party leggings were stuck to her skin and her expensive shower cap had not kept everything dry. Scott judged the game a draw because both players’ lower halves had taken such a thorough soaking.
A request for a forgotten Christmas song
In Dear Scott, a listener in snowy Germany asked the programme to revive Magnus Carlsson’s “Wrap Myself in Paper”. The team had played it several years earlier, when Chris had hidden in a wrapped box on Fearne Cotton’s desk and emerged before she properly knew who he was. The song’s line about Christmas being “in a week and a day” made 17 December the ideal date for another play.
Scott initially agreed to wait until the lyric was exactly accurate, but hearing the record again made the team too impatient to stop it. They let it continue and promised another appearance on the Monday. The message reminded them that their own new single had not entirely displaced the eccentric festive records they had championed in previous years.
Brian Belo becomes Scott’s replacement
Chris had spent the previous day looking for somebody to sing Scott’s part at KOKO. Several potential substitutes were appearing in pantomime, but one phone call produced a guest whose enthusiasm outweighed his preparation. Brian Belo revealed himself with his familiar laugh and accepted the chance to represent Scott alongside Chris and Frisky and Mannish.
Brian was already near the venue a day early and spoke as though the performance would define his Christmas. Although he had only two lines and part of the chorus, he had repeatedly listened to the recording and wanted to warm up properly. Scott said they were similar enough to be twins, while Chris was simply relieved to have found somebody willing to join him at short notice.
The arrangement also revealed that Chris and Brian had been talking privately. Their conversations had ranged from rehearsal details to Chris giving advice about women, all of which emerged while Scott was listening. Brian promised that the song was in safe hands, but his excitement did little to reassure Scott that either performer would remember what to sing at the correct moment.
Ten million dollars in a metal trunk
Scott shared a spam email which claimed that an approved inheritance or contract payment of $10.5m had been converted into cash. A special agent was supposedly preparing to carry it in a metal trunk disguised as diplomatic film material, without being told what was inside. Scott wondered why the agent planned to leave London when he was already in the correct country and whether Martin Lewis might be the “money expert” packing the box.
The secrecy, confused geography and enormous unexplained payment gradually overcame his optimism. He concluded that the sender probably wanted his card details and accepted that the promised millions were unlikely to arrive at Radio 1 reception.
Real or No Real
Rhianna Dhillon joined Chris for a game which established that “overmorrow” really was a word for the day after tomorrow. Wine could not be used as legal tender or collateral for an Italian bank loan, but Daniel Radcliffe really had been allergic to the glasses he wore as Harry Potter. Rhianna thought the frames should simply have been changed, while Scott enjoyed adding another unlikely fact to the programme’s collection.
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