Chris finally books the holiday
Scott congratulated Chris on completing a piece of administration at the age of 25: the Tenerife trip was finally booked. The £100 apartment would accommodate four people for a week, requiring two of them to share a sofa bed. At £25 each, Chris remained convinced that he had found an extraordinary bargain through a voucher promotion.
Confirmation brought the small print. Construction work was taking place on land beside the resort and cranes were visible from some apartments. The complex itself was being refurbished, so construction vehicles, noise and disturbance could appear during the stay. Rubbish and waste collections could happen from 2.00am, although Scott acknowledged that regular collection was at least preferable to the alternative.
Only 25 per cent of the rooms had air conditioning. Chris briefly interpreted this as though a quarter of every apartment might be cool before realising that he faced a one-in-four chance of receiving it at all. He remained cheerful and imagined retreating to whichever corner was cold. Scott looked forward to the messages which would arrive once four people, a sofa bed, overnight bin lorries and building work occupied the same £100 holiday.
Must I swallow them whole?
The phrasebook collection expanded beyond the Spanish book which had started the feature. A Hawaiian guide from 1906 taught travellers to report that somebody had remarked on their greedy eating, ask the combined price of razors, scissors, knives, horseshoes and yokes, or explain that they had eaten yams and fish for two days before moving on to fern roots.
An old Gaelic book supplied the request “Hand me that hatbox”, while a Polish guide offered “I will X-ray your teeth”. A Polish listener did not recognise the latter phrase, which Scott attributed to the age of the book rather than the possibility that its contents were unreliable. Russian travellers were equipped to demand a urine specimen, and the Portuguese section supplied the episode’s most memorable question: “Must I swallow them whole?”
None of the sentences was likely to help Chris locate his apartment, navigate the construction site or discover whether his room had air conditioning. They did, however, continue the show’s fascination with perfectly translated language which nobody could imagine needing in an ordinary holiday conversation.
Dear Scott and a Eurovision plan
A 14-year-old listener wrote to Dear Scott about listening to the Danny Howard podcast in the school gym. Loving the Trolls made her laugh on a cross-trainer, and an attempt to suppress it ended with a moving handle hitting her in the face. This joined a collection of gym mishaps which already included walking backwards on a treadmill while singing a song from High School Musical and having a shoelace caught during a spin class.
The email became increasingly long and ended with several postscripts, one of which specifically requested that it be read so the writer could hear it during another gym session. Scott suggested some self-editing in future, although the rambling structure had been the reason it worked on air.
Another listener returned to the idea of Chris entering Eurovision for another country. British performers had appeared in previous Romanian and Azerbaijani entries, and there was apparently still time to submit something for Romania. Chris considered involving his friend S-Dosser or reworking the song which had already served as a Skyfall theme, Beccy tribute and Christmas single. He worried that the project might damage S-Dosser’s carefully maintained coolness, but nationality did not appear to be the main obstacle.
Fernando’s system attracts a convert
The previous day’s Fernando appearance had inspired listeners to consider logging their partners’ mistakes. Heather had not yet added anything to the notes on her phone because her boyfriend had behaved himself for the past 24 hours, but she intended to begin at the next opportunity. She often forgot the evidence she needed during an argument while he seemed able to remember everything.
Chris had imagined Fernando’s system as a tool for men and was alarmed to discover that women could adopt it too. If both partners kept lists, every disagreement risked turning into an exchange of competing records. He asked Heather to report back with her first entry, while continuing to speak about Fernando as an entirely separate person whose strategy he merely happened to understand in great detail.
Greg James prepares for the Zambezi
Greg James visited before leaving for his Comic Relief challenge on the Zambezi. The group, including Mel C, Jack Dee, Dara Ó Briain, Chelsee Healey and Olympic athlete Phillips Idowu, would spend long days canoeing and rafting before camping on the riverbank. Money raised would support education in Zambia, and the team would visit schools to see how it was used.
Greg had trained to use the satellite equipment for his daily calls but was less reassured by the paddling practice. Chelsee had struggled with her oar and drifted away from the group, while videos of rafting accidents and warnings about insects, snakes and other wildlife had reached him just before departure. What might have been enjoyable for an hour looked much more intimidating for eight hours a day.
A Zambezi edition of Real or No Real confirmed that hippos killed more people than lions, elephants, leopards, buffalo and rhinos combined. Three British scout leaders really had been stranded for five days after a hippo capsized their canoe, a fact which made Greg’s mixture of solo canoes, pairs and six-person rafts considerably less comforting. Scott promised to speak to him throughout the challenge, although the final preparation had mostly ensured that Greg left knowing exactly how many things could go wrong.
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