Access All Areas headcam day
Radio 1’s Access All Areas month placed a large head-mounted camera inside the show. The equipment looked like something Doc Brown might wear in Back to the Future, with flashing electronics, a camera pointing outwards and another trained on the wearer’s face. It allowed online viewers to see both what was happening in the office and the wearer’s reaction.
Before Scott’s show took control, the feed followed Tyler James after his Live Lounge. He remained in the building eating lunch rather than leaving immediately, which Scott insisted was already an inaccurate picture of normal pop-star behaviour. Once the camera reached Chris, the team prepared new plastic sheeting and fitted him with the equipment for a first-person edition of Innuendo Bingo.
Donkeys in the living room
Scott had discovered Britain on Film, a collection of cinema shorts from the early 1960s. One programme examined British pets in the formal commentary style of the period, announcing the budgerigar as the country’s most popular animal and explaining that donkeys were making a comeback.
The film showed a woman eating biscuits and drinking tea in her living room with a donkey, as though it were an ordinary house pet. Another owner took a donkey to the shops, with the narrator predicting that the animals might solve transport problems as cars disappeared from town centres. Scott became fascinated by the idea that donkeys had once moved so casually through British homes.
A listener from Wootton Bassett confirmed that his parents really had kept a donkey in their house. That was enough for Scott to predict a new revival and request one for his birthday, complete with an imagined donkey flap in the front door and evenings together watching Coronation Street.
Sara Cox plays Innuendo Bingo
Sara Cox arrived in a scarf intended to protect her hair, while Chris changed into his special waterproof trousers. The headcam gave viewers an unusually close view of Sara as the pair sat opposite one another, filled their mouths with water and attempted to maintain eye contact.
The opening archive clip came from Sara herself and immediately sent water across the studio. Radio 4 introduced a juggler’s balls as George and Oliver, the Hairy Bikers packed a mixture into a ring and Kevin McCloud explained that a timber frame fitted steelwork like a Dutch boy’s finger in a leaky dyke. Mr Selfridge supplied the line that he had come by himself, and another programme involved going to work on a bag before washing up.
Further clips brought Fanny Cradock, a tight tuck and tight entry from Tom Daley, and one of Sara’s own emphatic repetitions of “one more”. Chris’s headcam lens became covered in water and had to be wiped during the game, while Sara’s scarf and makeup offered less protection than she had hoped. Both players finished soaked, giving Access All Areas exactly the point-of-view footage it had promised.
Dear Scott
Listeners returned to the question of whether stored data made a device heavier. One explained that an e-reader containing books held more electrons than a blank one and therefore did gain an immeasurably small amount of weight. Chris’s friend had been technically correct about a phone loaded with music, although no human could have noticed the difference by holding it.
Another listener had found additions to Chris’s Wikipedia page claiming that 24 Years at the Tap End was fictional and that he was launching a fashion collection at London Fashion Week. Chris denied both statements, but the audience quickly agreed that any future clothing line should be called “Starkers”. The galoshes Alice Levine wore on Tuesday also produced an offer from an overshoe company, giving Chris a possible first product.
Beccy sent an email asking whether Scott liked peas with baked beans and requesting a greeting for her friend Heather. The return of the Posh Radio 4 Lady’s voice made the deliberately random question sound suitably formal. Scott said he liked both foods, but considered serving them together a culinary crime.
Alex the trolley man
The headcam then followed Alex, who pushed the BBC office’s trolley of sweets and snacks. Viewers watched staff approach him, inspect the selection and decide whether their New Year diets could survive the afternoon visit. Scott and Chris wondered whether Alex worked for the BBC or had simply developed an extremely effective independent business inside Broadcasting House.
The ordinary ritual became strangely compelling when seen from Alex’s perspective. People grew self-conscious as they realised the audience could watch their choices, while the women in the office appeared particularly pleased to see him. Scott concluded that anyone trying to become popular at work needed only a trolley full of biscuits.
Greg James plays Real or No Real
Greg knew that Newsbeat’s Chris Smith really had been sampled on George Michael’s “Outside”, because Chris once made him download the track in a pub to prove it. Annie Nightingale had not taken part in the world’s longest game of conkers, Gemma Cairney had not attended a party dressed as the Space Shuttle Endeavour and Zane Lowe did not prepare for each show with a Dairylea Dunker.
The strongest true fact concerned 1Xtra DJ Crissy Criss: his stepfather was also a DJ and performed under the name Kenny Ken. Scott and Greg enjoyed the idea of Crissy Criss and Kenny Ken appearing together almost as much as the possibility of Chris Stark’s father becoming “Alan on 1Xtra”. Annie Mac had not dated DJ Sammy around the release of “Heaven”, despite the neat prospect of her becoming Annie Sammy.
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