Back from the summer break
Scott returned after two weeks away and was relieved to discover that he still had a programme. He had expected the usual jokes about his tan and possible holiday surgery, but Chris had barely begun before Scott complained that the material was too predictable.
Chris had a more immediate problem. He arrived in the same shirt and suit trousers he had worn to a family party the previous day and asked Scott to bring him a clean T-shirt. The reunion therefore began with Scott looking unusually fresh and Chris attempting to recover from a gathering that had lasted much longer than planned.
Scott had missed One Direction’s surprise release of Drag Me Down while he was in Greece. After hearing Liam Payne explain how the group recorded in hotel rooms with mattresses against the walls, Scott and Chris decided that two men could attend the London date of the tour together, provided they committed to banners and matching shirts.
Sam Smith mode
A listener initially used a squeaky mouse voice because she did not want colleagues to recognise her. She was leaving to travel around the world with her boyfriend and needed advice about his birthday. He had told her not to spend money, but his history of ignoring agreed Christmas budgets made her suspect that he did not really mean it.
Scott lowered her voice electronically and suggested an inexpensive novelty lighter disguised as an iPhone, the sort of holiday souvenir that looked much more expensive from a distance. The alteration made the caller sound unexpectedly like Sam Smith. A comparison with his recorded introduction for Disclosure’s Omen convinced the studio to rename the voice setting “Sam Smith mode”.
The experiment also prompted Chris to consider replacing his distinctive sneeze. Scott offered the noise made by a viral Pomeranian puppy, although neither of them could work out how a person could reproduce it deliberately.
Aftershave on the turn
Scott had spent five hours in an extremely hot airport and bought a large bottle of a favourite aftershave. He applied it generously before work, only to discover that it smelled more like a wet dog than the fragrance he remembered.
Listeners confirmed that perfume could deteriorate, particularly after being stored in heat or sunlight. Scott was advised to look for a 12- or 24-month symbol on the bottle, while Chris realised that his own emergency bottle of The Voice-branded scent was probably far beyond its useful life.
Everybody is doing a photoshoot
Holiday pictures had also changed during Scott’s absence. Instead of quick snapshots, he had watched people repeatedly pose against walls and statues while friends conducted full fashion shoots. Listeners reported the same behaviour in Venice and Manchester’s Northern Quarter, and recalled a couple who accidentally uploaded an entire collection of posed photographs to a TripAdvisor review.
Greg James joined Real or No Real, where Birdie’s remarkably long birth name proved genuine. Scott finished his first day back feeling that he had tried to fit two weeks of unused conversation into one programme.
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