Max and Jay bring The Wanted Life to Radio 1
Max George and Jay McGuiness returned to see Scott with their new reality series The Wanted Life beginning in Britain. Scott remembered sharing a Chinese meal with the band much earlier in their career and joked that their subsequent international success was probably connected. Messages were already arriving from listeners around the world who were waiting for the much simpler spectacle of Max and Jay spitting water at Chris.
Scott had watched some of the reality show and thought both came across well, particularly Max, whose press image as the bad lad of the group was softened by seeing more of his ordinary personality. Jay explained that the cameras had been present for most of their time in America. The first week had felt awkward, especially when producers asked them to repeat things the cameras had missed. Trying to reconstruct spontaneous conversations sounded so unnatural that the production eventually backed away from doing it too often.
There was already talk of another series, although the band knew that would depend on viewing figures. For the moment they were heading to a London launch party, and Max gave Scott a verbal invitation on air before anybody could establish whether he actually controlled the guest list.
A three-way Innuendo Bingo gets very wet
Scott had asked in advance which members of The Wanted would be most likely to spray water furthest, and Max and Jay were apparently the answer. Chris joined them for a three-way Innuendo Bingo, with listeners encouraged to watch the mess live. Max in particular began the game determined to hold his nerve, but the clips steadily broke him down.
Match of the Day supplied players “pulling off each other”, a Radio 4 documentary had Benjamin Britten banging away to his heart’s content and Bargain Hunt found two women keen on somebody’s lovely ring. An athletics discussion asked how difficult it was with a man on the inside, the Today programme once again could not get something up, and Nana McQueen’s cleaning job destroyed Max before the clip had even reached its actual punchline.
Old favourites returned from Women’s Hour, the National Lottery and Cliff Richard, while a radio discussion of camping produced another phrase nobody could hear innocently once it had been isolated. By the end Max was drenched, Jay was laughing and the whole studio looked as though the three-player format had done exactly what Scott hoped. All three survived, although dignity and dry clothing had been lost much earlier.
Chris decides celebrity mouth-water might be valuable
The worldwide reaction to the game immediately revived one of Chris’s stranger business ideas. If fans loved seeing celebrities play Innuendo Bingo, perhaps they would pay for the water which had actually been in those celebrities’ mouths. He had gathered some of the liquid from the protective sheets after the game and proudly showed Scott a small bottle of what he called Wanted water.
The concept quickly became more elaborate. Different celebrities would require different prices: water from a global superstar could command pounds, while somebody with a smaller profile might be a budget option. A listener claimed she would pay a small fortune for water which had been in Max’s mouth, encouragement Chris treated as proof of a market.
The practical problem was collection. Scraping or squeezing water from sheets was inefficient, so Chris imagined some form of cup or chin attachment which guests could wear to catch it. Scott suggested Deborah Meaden would need to hear the business case. After the tuxedo T-shirt disaster, Chris was delighted to have another possible route to his millions almost immediately.
A school trip to the kebab shop
Chris had also spotted a thank-you display in a local kebab shop showing a group of children on a school visit. The pupils had eaten kebab rolls and chips, seen homemade doner kebabs in the freezer room and learned how the food was made. To Scott and Chris it sounded considerably more entertaining than many of the school trips they remembered.
Listeners began supplying equally odd educational outings. There had been visits to banks, local butchers, supermarkets, cheese factories, a meat-processing plant and even repeat trips to a Chinese restaurant. Scott suspected some of the destinations had been chosen because the teachers themselves wanted a look around.
The conversation also revived the annual university ritual of squeezing an entire room into one family car and driving home for summer. Between kebab shops and overloaded cars, it was exactly the kind of ordinary listener detail which allowed the show to wander a long way from the celebrity guests who had started the afternoon.
Being Danny Howard’s friend gets Chris nowhere
Monday’s fascination with Cara Delevingne’s “Rihanna’s friend” pass became a real experiment. Chris made a far less professional lanyard using one of Danny Howard’s DJ cards, wrote “friend of Danny Howard” across it and wore it around the streets near Radio 1. The theory was simple: if association with Rihanna opened doors for Cara, perhaps being Danny’s friend could at least earn lunch.
It did not. A food outlet declined to offer a discount, despite Chris presenting the pass as though it were a recognised scheme. He then tried to buy his favourite hazelnut steamer at a coffee shop and asked whether the lanyard came with any privileges. The answer was another firm no. Finally he telephoned a very posh hotel and attempted to secure a discounted or free room. The employee was polite but equally unimpressed.
Danny concluded that the experiment had two weaknesses: Rihanna was considerably more famous than he was, and Cara’s privileges probably worked best when Rihanna was actually present. Chris had still enjoyed marching around London with his homemade accreditation, even though it had failed to save him a penny.
Charlie Sloth brings his own podcast to Real or No Real
Charlie Sloth arrived for Real or No Real, bringing back the mock argument in which Scott accused him of unhealthy eating and Charlie accused Scott of being “fatist”. Charlie had chosen a substantial sandwich rather than his usual burger, which he presented as evidence of moderation before the facts began.
A claim that a kebab shop opened opposite the health retreat used for Celebrity Fit Club was false. Birmingham band Peace really had asked for a billboard featuring their faces near their homes after signing a record deal so their mothers could see it. The US Navy really had spent more than a century using block capitals for official communications before changing the rule, while a story about Tom Jones pretending a television interview was being conducted over a delayed line because he was tired in the room next door was false.
Charlie used the end of the round to promote his own weekly podcast, the SlothPod, which he freely admitted had been inspired by seeing Scott receive a daily podcast. He had demanded one of his own and was now annoyed that it was not easier to find on the 1Xtra website. It was an appropriately radio ending to a show which had started with The Wanted’s reality television life and somehow travelled through celebrity mouth-water, kebab-shop school trips and a completely useless Danny Howard friendship pass.
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