Friday without talking was too much
Radio 1’s Friday experiment had filled the daytime schedule with music and removed the usual presenter chat. For Scott, it was bizarre. He said it was effectively the first working day since he began radio as a child that he had been at a station but not allowed to broadcast normally.
He had repeatedly found himself tempted to switch the microphone on. Instead, while the songs continued upstairs, Scott and Chris found another part of the BBC willing to let them present something: the Weather Centre.
Monday therefore began with the evidence.
Scott Mills, weather presenter
Scott took the forecast surprisingly seriously. Standing in front of the BBC map fulfilled a childhood ambition and he attempted the authoritative voice of a proper weather presenter, warning of colder conditions and showers.
The difficulty was geography. Pointing at the correct part of the country while speaking, facing the camera and interpreting the map was harder than it looked, particularly when Plymouth and Aberdeen did not immediately present themselves to Scott in the right places.
Chris had intended to be a helpful assistant but instead crouched out of shot and suddenly rose into frame beside him. He blocked large areas of the map, pointed vaguely at parts of Britain and forced Scott to push him out of the way while trying to retain BBC Weather seriousness.
Watching it back on Monday, Scott concluded he might genuinely become quite good with practice, provided Chris was nowhere near the map.
Radio 1 launches Talk It Out
The new week also brought Radio 1’s Talk It Out campaign, encouraging listeners not to bottle up problems that felt embarrassing, stressful or confrontational. Online experts were available through a “safe house” and listeners could ask for help anonymously.
The presenters had to practise what the campaign preached. Each day pairs of Radio 1 personalities would take part in a streamed “Confessions Roulette”, spinning a wheel to receive prompts such as “I fear…” or the ominous “You don’t think I know, but I do know…”.
Chris was going first with Scott. He admitted he was genuinely anxious because their friendship did not normally involve sitting down for serious emotional conversations. Scott was equally worried about what Chris might reveal and argued that if he was going to do a major confession interview he would prefer Oprah Winfrey.
Both understood the point, though: anticipation of an awkward conversation was often worse than actually having it. Their own session would stream after the radio show.
The best and worst film soundtracks
Radio 1 film critic Rhianna Dhillon was presenting a Radio 1 Stories programme about how scores, songs and sound design create a film soundtrack. Scott used the premise to raid a collection of movies whose music he considered either brilliant or indefensible.
Crossroads inevitably appeared because Scott remained a committed defender of the Britney Spears film. Hannah Montana: The Movie produced the “Hoedown Throwdown”, while Chad Kroeger’s Spider-Man contribution divided the studio.
Then came Top Gun. “Danger Zone” needed no defence from Scott: it was the sort of track that could make driving any vehicle feel momentarily cinematic, even if Chris was less convinced by hearing the whole thing.
Phil arrives without Dan
Only Phil Lester made it to Real or No Real. Dan had managed to pull the front-door handle off their flat, leaving the door capable of swinging open, and was stuck at home guarding the entrance while waiting for somebody more practical to fix it.
Phil was not entirely surprised. The handle had been loose for some time and neither of them was exactly a handyman. Scott immediately marked it as perfect material for Dan and Phil’s own Talk It Out confession session later in the week, alongside the equally serious offence of eating somebody else’s cereal.
The game covered Manchester United, Dr Seuss and Chessington World of Adventures, where the real claim that certain animal-print clothing had been restricted because it could confuse animals sounded suitably ridiculous.
September therefore ended with several things waiting to be confessed, one broken door and Scott Mills having finally achieved his short-lived second career as a BBC weather presenter.
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