Chris eats an imaginary meal
Scott began the first regular show after Beccy’s departure feeling extremely hungry. Chris offered an unusual solution: he could close his eyes, imagine a meal and mentally eat every mouthful in real time. Rather than thinking vaguely about food, he pictured the fork, tasted each bite and worked through the whole plate. Lasagne was a favourite, although he sometimes spent a train journey on an imaginary sausage sandwich.
The process could take 20 minutes and even included waiting for food to cool if it was too hot. Chris believed that concentrating properly kept hunger away without any calories, while Scott struggled to imagine receiving the same satisfaction from food which did not exist. Listeners soon reported their own imaginary tubs of ice cream and complete dinners, suggesting that Chris’s supposed special power was not entirely unique.
A birthday at the hotel
In 24 Years at the Tap End, Chris returned to the joint birthday trip he and Scott had taken to Torquay. Their destination was the hotel featured in Channel 4’s The Hotel, where manager Mark and the rest of the staff proved every bit as eccentric as they appeared on television. Chris organised “Lads on Torquay” shirts, ate chips and ice cream, lost food to aggressive seagulls and persuaded Scott to play crazy golf. Scott had expected to dislike it but turned out to be surprisingly good.
The real spectacle came during the hotel’s party night. Mark had apparently told guests that Radio 1’s Danny Howard and Charli XCX would be attending, so the bar was packed with people waiting for celebrities who were not there. Chris worried that his own arrival was a disappointment, while Scott hoped to sit quietly without drawing attention to himself.
Mark placed them in the centre of the room and wheeled out a huge birthday cake as the entire bar sang. The top then burst open and a drag queen emerged before grabbing Chris. It was Chris’s first close encounter with a drag act and he found it substantially more alarming than Scott, whose calmer reaction suggested considerably more experience. The trip had begun as a modest birthday weekend and ended with the pair accidentally promoted as the hotel’s main entertainment.
Loving the Trolls
Lawrence’s soothing voice returned to read the latest criticism in Loving the Trolls. One viewer objected to Gemma Cairney appearing so often on Innuendo Bingo, describing her distinctive laugh as “barbaric” and unattractive. Scott defended Gemma as one of the feature’s best guests and said her laugh was precisely why listeners enjoyed her appearances.
Another complaint contrasted Beccy’s Korean performance of “Gangnam Style” with Chris’s much simpler farewell song, which had repeated her name. Chris accepted that the structure was not entirely original but maintained that Beccy had liked it. The computer voice drained the messages of much of their aggression, allowing the show to answer the criticism without giving the writers the confrontation they appeared to want.
Unlucky Gary meets Jay-Z
Chris’s friend Unlucky Gary had personalised his new bank card with a photograph of himself and Jay-Z. The picture came from an event after Beyoncé’s Glastonbury performance, where Chris and Gary had somehow entered an area containing Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Adele. Gary had offered Beyoncé a drink, interpreted her refusal as evidence that she was pregnant and then approached Jay-Z for a photograph despite Chris shouting at him to stop.
The resulting image showed Gary flushed with excitement and Jay-Z looking uncomfortable. Scott thought it was a poor choice for something Gary would have to produce every time he paid, particularly because his card also carried the surname McFly, selected by listeners after Gary changed his original surname. Every cashier would now be presented with two obvious questions and Gary would have to retell the whole story.
The team were reluctant to show the actual bank card because of its security details, but put the original photograph online so listeners could judge it. Other people explained that their banks had rejected several proposed images, including one listener who eventually settled for a picture of a cat. Gary had successfully personalised his card, although he had also guaranteed that even the smallest purchase could become a conversation about the night Jay-Z did not particularly want to meet him.
Dan and Phil play Real or No Real
Dan and Phil discussed the second edition of their new Sunday-night Radio 1 show, which combined conventional requests with videos created by listeners. A conversation about imaginary hybrid pets had sent “animal splicing” to the top of the worldwide trends, producing creations such as a shark crossed with an eagle and an “elephamingo”. They promised an online highlights package containing more of the programme’s deliberately internet-heavy chaos.
They then played Real or No Real. Marvin from the Hoosiers had not become one of Britain’s richest men by inventing boil-in-the-bag chicken. Abraham Lincoln really was the first cat owner to become US president, and one person in 20 did have an extra rib, prompting everybody in the studio to start feeling their own sides. Doctor Who fans did not call themselves “the Hovers”, while Ellie Goulding’s pink patch of hair had not resulted from a baking accident involving red food colouring.
The recently introduced score of 10.3 points per answer made the final totals needlessly difficult. Dan received 20.6, while the larger score required enough arithmetic that everybody agreed the inflation-adjusted system should probably be abandoned. The afternoon ended with Chris revealing another questionable decision: he had found a Tenerife apartment for four people at £100 for the week. With no negative reviews and photographs which looked remarkably similar to the hotel’s publicity images, Chris saw an irresistible bargain. Scott saw the beginning of a disaster.
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