Birthday songs that take too long
Chris’s birthday pushed him firmly into the X Factor overs category. Scott congratulated his friend and insisted that Friday’s Lebanese meal had always been planned as the present, rather than a convenient substitute devised after forgetting the date.
Listeners shared alternatives to “Happy Birthday to You”. Some families used Stevie Wonder’s much longer song, producing a lengthy wait in darkness while the candles burned and the chorus took more than two minutes to arrive. One listener played it down the phone to both parents, creating an even more awkward delay.
Restaurants had their own elaborate performances, often imposed on friends who hated public birthday attention. Scott appreciated the efficiency of the familiar song: everybody knew the words, it began immediately and the celebration could finish before the cake became a fire hazard.
The student-election compilation
The collection of university campaign songs continued with “Vote Jason”, a manifesto set to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s “Thrift Shop”. Jason’s video turned the ordinary work of a student-union candidate into a polished music promo and joined Irish Brian and Loughborough’s “LSU, LSU” in the show’s growing archive.
Scott assembled the songs into a mock compilation. The attraction was not simply bad singing; candidates had to squeeze welfare, transport, societies, facilities and elections into recognisable pop lyrics while dancing around campuses. He wondered how long it would be before a mainstream politician attempted the same technique.
Jay-Z, chocolate spread and a broken camera
Scott described a stress dream in which Jay-Z appeared during the official chart. Scott saw a career-making opportunity and asked him to announce the number one, but his phone remained trapped in photo mode. However frantically he pressed the screen, it would not record video for the bosses to see.
The dream ended with Scott reaching for chocolate spread. The anxiety was less about interviewing a global star than failing to make the encounter visual, a sign that even his sleeping brain had absorbed the demands of modern radio.
Alice Levine arrived with a caterpillar-shaped birthday cake and played Real or No Real. A person wearing elaborate clothing in the 16th century really could be called a “prick-me-dainty”. Jedward had not taken themselves on a tandem cycling holiday, while another unlikely claim proved true. Alice scored twenty points before returning to her evening programme, having once again been introduced as Barbara Windsor.
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