Scott faces Susanna and Fearne
Scott’s attempt to blame Fearne Cotton for the Susanna Reid awkwardness came back immediately. During the handover, Fearne was present and Susanna was on the phone, leaving Scott with nowhere to redirect responsibility.
He admitted his part, apologised and finally cleared the air without an absent colleague to use as cover. Susanna was friendly and the show reaffirmed its full support for her Strictly run. For Chris, it was close to the scenario he had imagined the previous day: put Scott in front of everybody involved and make him face the conversation.
Roisin Conaty versus the water
Roisin Conaty came in ahead of the final episode of Man Down and was less enthusiastic about Innuendo Bingo than some recent guests. The water was freezing, and once the game began she made her feelings about the experience very clear.
The clips brought back Vanessa Feltz, an onion-related contribution from Coast, a “big job”, right-hand exercises and Monty Don’s reliably dangerous gardening language. Michael Portillo, Tipping Point and a discussion involving balls in hot water added to the damage.
Roisin’s reactions were as entertaining as the clips. She ended thoroughly wet and compared the experience to being assaulted, in the exaggerated language of someone who had just discovered what the feature felt like from inside it rather than on the radio.
Scott’s present for Ron is revealed
Chris had given his dad the mystery birthday present and initially thought Scott had made a clever choice. Ron liked gardening and books, and the parcel contained Alan Titchmarsh’s novel Mr McGregor.
Then Scott explained what the novel was actually about. Its gardener hero becomes involved in a steamy affair with a television newsreader. Scott played passages from Titchmarsh’s own audiobook, including intimate references to a “shadowy bedroom” and meeting in one garden rather than another.
Chris immediately reframed the present as a gardening version of Fifty Shades of Grey. The friendship challenge had technically been completed — Scott had selected and supplied a gift — but Chris was now texting Ron to find out whether he had started reading it and considering asking for it back. The fact it had cost Scott only a few pounds did not help.
Mrs X uses the emergency call
Mrs X was now around eight or nine Tinder dates into her experiment. Her latest man looked different from his photographs and became too intense too quickly, already talking as though future dates were settled despite the pair having little in common.
Mrs X retreated to the toilet and arranged the classic friend emergency phone call so she could escape. Unfortunately, her date recognised the manoeuvre immediately and asked whether this was “one of those things when you get a phone call”. She left anyway.
The wider dating picture was increasingly complicated: other men had reached second, third or fourth dates, kisses had happened and another meeting was imminent. Scott was fascinated by how quickly the anonymous Tinder project had turned into relationship logistics.
Los Angeles next
Scott was about to leave for 1D Day in Los Angeles and was hoping the celebrity traffic around One Direction might include Kendall Jenner, after seeing reports linking her with Harry Styles. Before he went, Chris also revived an old Christmas favourite: the University of Illinois Dial-a-Carol line, where callers could request a carol sung down the phone.
Greg James finished the show with Real or No Real, but the bigger cliff-hangers were elsewhere: Scott had seven live hours of One Direction ahead, and Chris needed to discover whether Ron had got far enough into Mr McGregor to understand what his son had apparently bought him.
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