Scarves and love bites
Scott noticed a friend wearing a scarf indoors while trying to conceal a love bite. He admitted that his own supposedly fashionable scarf phase at Radio 1 had once served the same purpose. Chris doubted that love bites remained common beyond the age of 15, but listeners immediately reported marks on their necks and chests.
Laura came into the studio wearing a scarf and objected that the conversation had made innocent knitwear suspicious. She insisted that she always dressed that way and had nothing to hide, before using her visit to give a shout-out to the fiancé she was due to marry in four months. Other scarf wearers found themselves exposing their necks at work to prove Scott wrong.
Unlucky Gary joins Tinder
The programme revisited the history of Unlucky Gary, legally renamed Gary McFly after a listener vote. Previous accidents included his mother shaving a chunk from his hair, a stranger collapsing onto him when asked for directions, toilet water splashing into his mouth, a cockroach entering his trousers in Thailand and an innocent sightseeing trip which trapped him inside a student protest kettle for five hours.
His latest problem came from Tinder. After drinking wine, Gary confused left and right and repeatedly swiped in the opposite direction to the one he intended. The app then announced around two matches a day with people he had meant to reject. His unusually wide distance and age settings made the consequences worse, with one match aged about 60 and others potentially hundreds of miles away.
Chris wrote a polite standard response: “Dear sir/madam, I regret to inform you I misswiped. I had a couple of wines and struggle with my left and right. Dry your eyes, mate, there’s plenty more fish in the sea. Yours, Unlucky Gary.” Gary copied it to around 20 people, retaining the impersonal “sir/madam” instead of inserting names.
The replies ranged from laughter and abuse to somebody pointing out that she had never intended to speak to him anyway. Gary had at least stopped leaving matches waiting, although the formal rejection created more awkwardness than silent inaction.
Bamboleo Wednesday
The Gipsy Kings ritual grew into Bamboleo Wednesday. Listeners added phone reminders and ringtones, while a producer filmed Scott suddenly dancing in different parts of the Radio 1 office whenever the chorus played. He wanted other workplaces to do the same and upload their own midweek celebrations.
The cheerfulness was briefly undermined when A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera’s “Say Something” left Scott and Chris feeling as though they had broken up, despite neither being in a relationship with the other. Bamboleo soon restored the necessary tone.
Japan’s true-love bra
Sara Cox supplied a woman’s opinion on an internet advert for a Japanese “love tester” bra. A heart-rate sensor sent data to an app by Bluetooth and kept the front clasp locked until the wearer’s excitement exceeded a calculated “true love rate”. The demonstration showed the garment springing open once the threshold was reached.
Sara thought it patronising and impractical. Running for a bus could raise a heart rate, the bra carried several pieces of electronic equipment and a wearer should not need an app to decide when she wanted to remove it. Scott and Chris also predicted remote controls and hacking, leaving all three impressed by the invention only for the wrong reasons.
Sara Cox plays Real or No Real
Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s “Telephone” really had first been offered to Britney Spears. Scott played her demo, which sounded uncomfortably high after years of knowing the released version. Adele had not secretly written lengthy posts on an online forum for the BBC drama Doctors, although Scott had once found her watching the programme while preparing backstage at the Brit Awards.
Scientists really had described chimpanzees’ memories as “advanced level”, the same phrase applied to Sherlock Holmes, although Chris maintained that he would still employ a human detective. A US version of Splash! featuring Queen Latifah was invented. Sara achieved a 40–0 victory and left Scott wondering how he had missed every question.
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