A Christmas reunion at the Tap End
Chris returned to his 17th year in 24 Years at the Tap End and remembered the final days before Christmas in Watford. He, Dugsie and Webbo spent their evenings playing FIFA because they were not yet old enough to visit pubs. Their games came with strict rules, including a ban on switching off the console while losing. Chris regarded quitting midway through a defeat as such an act of cowardice that he had once refused to speak to Dugsie for three days.
Money was tight and Chris expected to borrow from his parents so that he could buy their presents. He proposed visiting a Pinner hardware shop for a mop for his mother and screwdrivers for his father, then struggled to understand why Scott and Beccy considered the mop a poor choice. The more important event was Destiny nightclub’s under-18 Christmas party, featuring Raghav and Three of a Kind, whose hit “Baby Cakes” remained one of Chris’s favourites.
After queuing for an hour, Chris noticed a girl in a Santa outfit whom he recognised from his year-eight disco. He called her Gladys for the story and remembered having lost touch with her after their first awkward dance. At midnight, the club staged an early Christmas countdown, released artificial snow and played Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You”. Chris spotted Gladys across what he described as a Mariah Carey mosh pit and finally approached her.
This time he understood that he should place his hands on her waist rather than repeat the shoulder-to-shoulder dance from year eight. Gladys remembered his name, agreed to dance and promised to stay in touch. They did meet again, although Chris had not spoken to her for years and hoped she was doing well. Scott asked him for another festive Tap End story on Christmas Eve, leaving him only a few days to find one.
Unlucky Gary lasts eight and a half minutes
Unlucky Gary McFly’s workmates told him that their Christmas party would be fancy dress. Gary kept his costume a surprise, arrived as an elf and discovered that nobody else had dressed up. He had missed the day when the invitation circulated and had accepted a colleague’s false information without checking it.
The party was still quiet when he arrived, food had not appeared and Ice Age was playing on a projector. Gary sat alone in his elf costume, drank a glass of champagne and watched the children’s film before escaping through a side door. His total attendance was eight and a half minutes. Scott challenged listeners to find anybody who had abandoned a work party even more quickly.
Chris receives his third stage opportunity
Chris still wanted to prove himself after two failed live performances. He had been sick during the chicken-nugget challenge at the Edinburgh Festival, then disconnected his microphone and missed his only line in The Perfect Christmas Single at KOKO. Despite that record, his dream role was Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. He had even tweeted the production asking to be considered and promising that he would smash it, but received no reply.
Scott revealed that he had contacted a West End musical and secured Chris a part for one night. He refused to identify the production, although he said Samantha Barks would visit the following day to help Chris prepare. Since she had starred in Les Misérables on stage and in the new film, Chris concluded that Scott had arranged his ideal role and began talking about learning all of the show’s songs that evening.
Scott carefully avoided confirming the assumption. He promised only that Chris would become a West End performer the following night and that Samantha would offer professional advice beforehand. Chris was too excited to notice the distinction, leaving the programme with absolute confidence that Jean Valjean was within reach.
Real or No Real
Pteronophobia really was the fear of being tickled by feathers, while reindeer were not horses whose heads had become stuck in trees. The second claim led Scott and Chris into an embarrassing discussion about whether antlers were made of wood before The One That Doesn’t Speak established that they were bone.
Research really had identified 19:26 on a Saturday as the time when people were happiest, although Charlie Sloth had read books and the Chuckle Brothers did not write all of his information for QI. Polar bears and grizzly bears could mate, producing offspring known as pizzlies or grolar bears. An attempt to think of other hybrid animals made the team sound little more informed than the antler discussion, particularly when they considered whether a zebra could breed with an elephant.
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