A service for single people at Christmas
Leanne was the only single sibling in her family, making her love life a recurring source of jokes at Christmas. Her sisters arrived with partners while relatives recommended eligible men, bought single-themed presents and treated her empty place as entertainment.
Chris proposed a boyfriend service. He would telephone Leanne’s relatives as “James”, creating enough evidence of a relationship to stop the questions, while explaining that work prevented him attending Christmas dinner. If successful, he could eventually offer the service to other single listeners.
Building an orphanage in Botswana
Chris first called Leanne’s mother Jackie and pretended to have reached the wrong number while looking for his girlfriend. Jackie was working as a courier during her busiest season and repeatedly tried to end the conversation.
Desperate to sound impressive before she hung up, “James” explained that he could not attend Christmas because he was building an orphanage for injured birds in Botswana. The detail did not land, and Jackie left without clearly accepting that her daughter had a boyfriend.
They tried Leanne’s sister Katrina instead. Chris claimed to have her number because the family regularly shared phones and attempted to establish the relationship through greater familiarity. Every extra detail made the lie harder to maintain, but the call gave Leanne a story sufficiently complicated to replace the usual jokes about being single.
The Christmas relationship window
The show announced that Relationship Transfer Deadline Day would fall on Wednesday 16 December. Once the window closed, couples were not allowed to dump or be dumped until the programme reopened it in the new year, protecting presents, family plans and festive peace.
Scott acknowledged that the late deadline could cause frantic activity beforehand, while Chris welcomed the extra time to assemble reporters and contact Biffy Clyro. Listeners were told to enter the date in their diaries and warn their partners.
Dev played Real or No Real. Snail caviar genuinely existed, could take three years to produce and cost about £65 for a 30g jar. Busted did not have to rename themselves “Bust” in the Netherlands, leaving the band’s reunion less complicated than Scott’s old promise to buy Britain wine.
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