The supermarket rush begins before dawn
Scott discovered that families were starting their main Christmas food shop at 5am. Car parks needed high-visibility marshals, turkeys were selling out and listeners compared the vegetable aisles to The Hunger Games.
Chris did not understand the panic because the shops would close for only a short time. Scott was more concerned by customers eating food before reaching the checkout, particularly children working through multipacks that had not yet been paid for.
Their own present shopping remained undone. Chris wanted to preserve the tradition of completing everything on Christmas Eve, while Scott worried that one cancellation would leave him facing the shops alone.
Holiday in Handcuffs becomes required viewing
After recommending I’ll Be Home for Christmas, Scott selected the 2007 television film Holiday in Handcuffs. Melissa Joan Hart played a waitress who kidnapped a customer played by Mario Lopez and forced him to pose as her boyfriend at an isolated family Christmas.
The captor and captive inevitably fell in love. Listeners agreed that the plot holes were enormous, but the combination of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Saved by the Bell and an implausibly cheerful kidnapping made it excellent festive viewing.
Rixton meet an Avenger
Rixton’s appearance had been booked for months. When Robert Downey Jr became available at the last minute to promote The Judge, the show combined the appointments and asked the band to interview him.
They were visibly in awe of the Iron Man star but recovered enough to ask about the film, acting and his career. Downey Jr treated the unusual arrangement seriously and the encounter became one of Scott’s favourite interviews of the year.
Every possible One Direction product
One Direction admitted that the group had not bought one another Christmas presents since 2011. That did not prevent everybody else from buying One Direction presents.
Scott read an extraordinary merchandise list: wrapping paper, baubles, toothbrushes, make-up, jewellery, perfume, pyjamas, bedding, scooters, skates, skipping ropes, curtains and a “Future Mrs Malik” T-shirt. The 54-inch One Direction curtains finally convinced Chris that the range had moved beyond normal pop merchandise.
Felicia’s “Fairytale of New York” lesson was replayed for Breakfast listeners, and the year’s Real or No Real highlights included Liam Payne’s proposed band name “Unique Selling Point”.
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