A card for somebody nobody knows
Scott wanted to test what happened when a leaving card circulated through a large workplace. The Radio 1 team therefore bought a standard “congratulations on your new job” card for Steve, an employee who did not exist.
Fiona from the Breakfast Show invited colleagues to sign it. Anyone who asked received vague clues: Steve sat near the press team, wore glasses, was quiet and had secured a big new job. Those details were generally enough to make people abandon their doubts and write something friendly.
Nobody wants to admit it
Some staff asked who Steve was, but most still signed after being assured they would recognise him. Generic good wishes accumulated beside warmer messages copied from other people.
Listeners recognised the situation from their own offices, especially when a collection envelope demanded money for a departing manager they had never met. The experiment confirmed that appearing rude or uninformed was often more frightening than congratulating a fictional colleague.
Judge Rinder enters Paolo Nutini
A listener noticed that the spoken passage in Paolo Nutini’s “Iron Sky” created a space for another authoritative voice. Scott replaced it with some of Judge Rinder’s sharpest courtroom remarks, including his review of Scott’s Strictly waistcoat.
The result turned a serious track into an extended South London judgement. Scott asked listeners to choose between the original and the Rinder mix; enough voted for the altered version that he played it again.
Hot Tub Britain is the wrong programme
Scott had expected ITV’s Hot Tub Britain to be a study of uninhibited parties. Instead, it followed people manufacturing, selling and purchasing hot tubs.
He was amazed by customers spending thousands more after sitting in a slightly larger model, and by a public-relations list proposing Samantha Womack, Jennifer Ellison, Sinitta and others as potential celebrity faces of the business. It was not the television he had imagined, but it still gave him plenty to investigate.
Clara Amfo joined from 1Xtra for Real or No Real. Scott’s dancing had left him visibly flushed and aching through the hips, although Clara decided the glow was real rather than another layer of Strictly tan.
COMMENTS