The morning after Wheel Pants
Chris passed the Wheel of Liverpool and found himself looking at it differently after the previous day’s stunt. More than £60,000 had been raised for Comic Relief, making the embarrassment worthwhile, but the memories of standing in a cold glass pod in his pants remained vivid.
He denied stuffing socks into his underwear, despite Scott remembering him leaving with suspiciously missing socks. Chris maintained that any movement had been entirely natural and that the confined pod had merely made everything look stranger.
Stephen Fry on dancing, films and spuffles
Stephen Fry joined the programme before hosting the BAFTA Film Awards. He admitted that even after years of meeting major film stars, figures such as Martin Scorsese could still leave him flustered. During one lift journey, he had gradually crouched because he felt embarrassed about towering over the director.
He also introduced Scott and Chris to “spuffle”, a word he had helped invent for the foam cover on a microphone. After using it during a recording, he later heard somebody else request a spuffle in a different studio and took pride in seeing the term spread.
Scott confronted Stephen with an old recording in which he described dancing as a pointless public display of windmilling, vibrating and thrashing. Stephen had not softened his opinion, but accepted that Scott touring arenas dressed as a crab gave the activity a more distinctive purpose. He concluded that “Mills” might be a verb rather than a noun.
The Taylor Swift proposal
Stephen had met Taylor Swift and found her charming, while surprising her with his knowledge of American country singers. Scott used that connection to propose an appearance at Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Norwich.
The initial idea was a general collaboration, but listener Alex improved it by suggesting Stephen perform the spoken bridge from “Shake It Off”. Scott and Chris immediately imagined his voice delivering the lines before Taylor returned to the chorus. Stephen would be back from filming by May and agreed to think about the invitation.
The show treated the prospective performance as the festival’s next unexpected landmark, comparing it with Chris Martin joining Kings of Leon. Scott began trying to reach Stephen’s representatives before the interview had properly faded from the programme.
Comic Relief in Uganda
Greg James continued Radio 1’s Comic Relief reporting from Uganda and visited local station Rock Mambo FM. Its presenter Stony hosted a late-night programme called Caravan of Love, combining ballads from Westlife, Celine Dion and Michael Bolton with advice and matchmaking.
In Real or No Real, Delia Smith did not make a special quiche for fellow Norwich City board member Stephen Fry before every home match. Richard Hammond really did own cats called Rucksack, Handbag, Broccoli and Twiglet, while Jack Dee really had spent Red Nose Day 2003 standing on a pole outside BBC Television Centre and complaining about the cold.
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