Back-to-work enthusiasm
The first ordinary working day of 2017 began with Scott and Chris overcompensating for their lack of energy. They encouraged listeners to greet everybody at work with unreasonable enthusiasm, while the studio team progressed from tired grunts to exaggerated cries of “good morning”.
Christmas was officially over, meaning no more chocolate for breakfast, board games in pyjamas or pretending that work could wait. Scott had acquired a smoothie and Chris claimed that drinking milk counted as a health regime, but both recognised that most January resolutions would probably disappear within weeks.
Celebrity Gamble returns
Breakfast listeners were again allowed to choose the next Radio 1 record. They could select Scott’s known song or gamble on one of three mystery celebrity choices, with the programme borrowing a feature usually associated with Grimmy’s show.
One caller was travelling to Hyde Park to dismantle Winter Wonderland, making him an appropriately gloomy representative of the first day back. Scott also mocked BBC weather presenter Thomas Schafernaker’s proud photograph of an old cloth placed across his frozen windscreen, while listeners in parts of the north reported temperatures mild enough to be treated as an unlikely heatwave.
The first Jan Slam
Radio 1 then launched Jan Slam, a month of large daily prizes intended to give listeners something to anticipate. The opening competition offered tickets for the winner and two friends to Wimbledon, together with a behind-the-scenes tour of the All England Club.
Scott and Chris remembered broadcasting from Wimbledon and Chris appearing unexpectedly behind Carol Kirkwood during a BBC Breakfast weather forecast. The prize promised a more legitimate visit, including entry to a match rather than the show’s earlier attempts to persuade people in the queue to stage tennis in the background of a report.
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