Chris goes directly to Scott’s agent
Chris had decided that Scott was far too quick to dismiss his business and television ideas, so he removed Scott from the process completely. He invented a production company, called it Schafernaker Productions in honour of the show’s favourite weather presenter, adopted the name “Lloyd” and phoned Scott’s agent to pitch programmes in which Scott might appear.
The first was Britain’s Best Bush, a nationwide search for impressive shrubs in which Scott would supposedly co-present with Alan Titchmarsh. Chris proposed everything from bonsai to extravagantly overgrown bushes, with the winning specimen earning a place in Downton Abbey. Scott’s agent did not immediately hang up. Instead, he patiently asked why Scott had been chosen and said he would discuss the idea with him.
Encouraged, “Lloyd” called back with The World’s Whitest Teeth. Scott would become television’s first celebrity dentist and travel around the world examining the teeth of humans and animals in a documentary style loosely inspired by Planet Earth. Even Chris began to think the agent sounded more interested in the bushes.
He therefore tried one final format: Celebrity Pork Pulling. Eight celebrities would live on a farm under the guidance of Dick Strawbridge and compete to sell pulled-pork sandwiches at farmers’ markets. The poorest seller would be eliminated each week. Chris claimed various celebrities were being approached and, when asked why Scott was right for it, could offer only that he had heard Scott liked pork. The agent again promised to speak to Scott, leaving Scott simultaneously impressed by Chris’s nerve and horrified that his actual representative had been dragged into it.
The Innuendo Bingo wish list starts coming true
The show was still enjoying Dev’s particularly wet edition of Innuendo Bingo, but attention had already turned to the wish list of people Scott and Chris most wanted to play. Tomasz Schafernaker had now confirmed for Thursday. Vanessa Feltz was also a yes for a future appearance, while Hugh Grant had apparently said he would like to do it when his diary allowed.
Dick Strawbridge was the outstanding target. For the moment, though, Scott was delighted simply to have secured Tomasz, one of the BBC personalities whose weather clips and on-screen moments had made him a long-running favourite with the programme. Scott and Chris were already joking about taping his hands down before the webcams went live.
Greg survives rugby and hands over a sex-music CD
Greg James’s sofa-surfing journey had moved to Aberdeen, where his host Chris played rugby. Greg arrived blindfolded and quickly found himself surrounded by rugby players who took turns charging into training pads he was holding. The resulting bruises were large enough for Greg to concede that perhaps turning up at a rugby club and inviting the players to tackle a Radio 1 DJ had been asking for trouble.
The night’s thank-you present came from Chris Stark: a homemade compilation called something along the lines of Greg’s Sexy Music Selection. It included deliberately suggestive tracks from Usher, Another Level, Robin Thicke and Marvin Gaye. Greg had to hand the CD to his new housemate while pretending it was his own carefully selected gesture of thanks.
By the following afternoon he was in Edinburgh and waiting to learn where he would sleep next. The sofa-surfing punishment was beginning to take its toll, but the surprise gifts were now just as worrying as the hosts.
Sara Cox considers whether Sue Barker hibernates
Sara Cox returned for Real or No Real and once again spent almost as long inventing stories around the claims as answering them. Barack Obama really had been involved with White House home-brewed beer, complete with a recipe that attracted enough public curiosity for details to be released. The idea that Sue Barker spent every December, January and February at a home in Norway was no real.
Sara preferred the alternative mental image of Barker literally hibernating in a box of straw like a Blue Peter tortoise, waking briefly before returning in time for the summer tennis. Scott’s claim that Danny Howard had recently DJed in Northern Ireland while standing on an upturned beer crate was, however, completely real. Danny had needed the extra height so the crowd could actually see him behind the booth.
The game left Sara in typically expansive form, while Thursday’s weather-themed Innuendo Bingo appointment moved ever closer.
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