The final afternoon before Christmas
The programme treated its last afternoon show of 2013 as the final day of term. Offices and schools were closing, listeners were reporting end-of-year discos, and the studio had acquired board games including Operation. Scott and Chris were due back the following week on Breakfast from 6.30am, but the usual afternoon routine had already begun to dissolve.
Chris received a Psy calendar after failing to secure the Hollyoaks Babes calendar he wanted, while a One Direction annual added to the collection of deliberately unsuitable presents. Even the word “disco” became a subject of debate, with Scott wondering whether anyone young still used it.
Keith Lemon, a mannequin and weird crushes
A friend of Scott’s had developed a serious crush on Keith Lemon and felt jealous when Scott met him at the Live Lounge. Some of the conversation’s participants were surprised to discover that Keith was a character played by Leigh Francis. The attraction extended beyond the costume: Scott’s friend imagined Keith delivering the same insults and mischief seen on Celebrity Juice.
Another friend had once become transfixed by an attractive shop mannequin and could not stop thinking about it. Scott mischievously suggested that mannequins sometimes appeared to turn their heads, while Chris firmly rejected the idea. The discussion confirmed that the last-day atmosphere had moved well beyond normal celebrity crushes.
Preparing to forget JLS
JLS were three days away from their final concert, but their farewell had already lasted long enough for Scott and Chris to compare it with the Streets’ apparently endless run of final gigs. The programme proposed that, after Sunday, everybody should respond with “who?” whenever JLS were mentioned.
They quickly wondered whether that would be too cruel. The band’s retirement was real, but the prolonged goodbye had turned it into a running joke before the last show had even taken place.
A Christmas Eve cautionary tale
One of Chris’s friends had disgraced himself after going out on the previous Christmas Eve. His family had almost disowned him, he could not face Christmas dinner, and his mother had witnessed something on the stairs that the programme carefully declined to describe.
His parents were understandably worried about a repeat, but he insisted he had changed while still planning another night out. Because Scott and Chris would be on air on Christmas morning, they expected to receive a live update. The story also encouraged Scott to suggest a festive instalment of 24 Years at the Tap End, potentially written by Chris on Christmas Eve.
Listeners create office Bingo
Some workplaces had improvised their own Innuendo Bingo on the final day before Christmas. The programme supplied suitable clips, including John Torode’s decent stuffing, a reference to putting pork inside her, a sorting-office worker relieved of a heavy sack and Wilf Buck’s observation that somebody’s right hand was well exercised.
The listeners’ low-tech versions captured the spirit of the game without requiring a Radio 1 studio. It was a fitting way for one of the year’s biggest features to escape into Christmas parties around the country.
Gary Lucy joins Real or No Real
Gary Lucy took part in a final round of Real or No Real. Keith Lemon really was based on a Leeds machine operator of the same name. A Bulgarian Boxing Day tradition involving a hog roast followed by a screening of Babe: Pig in the City was no real.
Cliff Richard really did end his first serious relationship by letter, while the claim that Michael Ball had bought 200 Norfolk turkeys to save them from a grim Christmas fate was no real. Scott and Gary finished level on 20 points each, an appropriately unresolved result for a show that had abandoned most signs of normal term-time order.
COMMENTS