Only Wolverhampton may enter
A report had labelled Wolverhampton the most miserable place in Britain. Scott dismissed it as another survey created by choosing a town and attaching an extreme claim, then declared the entire programme a Wolverhampton special.
From that point, callers and texters were allowed through only if they came from the city. Scott tried to verify them with questions about the Mander Centre, Banks’s brewery, Bilston Street and local schools. Residents defended the city’s friendliness, complained instead about a supposed excess of men with topknots and taught Chris Black Country phrases including “Yow all right, bab?”
The restriction created immediate practical problems. People elsewhere who had waited months for a shout-out were barred, while callers away at university had to prove their Wolverhampton origins. One listener improvised a local anthem ending “We’re less miserable than the rest”, which was enough to secure admission.
The Wolverhampton gap
Bamboleo Wednesday also became city-only. Scott eventually told listeners elsewhere to lie because he had no way to check every message. Suddenly almost every tractor, car park, office and topless listener claimed to be in Wolverhampton.
The musical gap ran longer than the surrounding section of Bamboleo, creating what Scott called a gap for champions. Local references included cobs, Faces nightclub and the city’s roads, while several obviously false addresses passed without challenge. The restriction had become impossible to administer, but it produced exactly the enthusiastic response needed to contradict the original misery report.
The daddy of Wolverhampton
Geoff Payne, Liam Payne’s dad, joined from the factory where he worked. He was pleased that Radio 1 had devoted an afternoon to defending the city and said the survey did not resemble the places or people he knew.
Scott described Geoff and Liam as two of the happiest people he had met. The call gave the special a genuinely famous Wolverhampton connection without needing to interrupt Liam’s day off.
Alice is removed from her own game
Alice Levine played Real or No Real. A filming location used for the Hogwarts Great Hall really was being converted into luxury homes. The show also calculated that a random follower was roughly twice as likely to receive a follow-back from Justin Bieber as from Scott: Bieber followed one account for about every 324, while Scott’s ratio was roughly one in 777.
During the game, Scott suddenly remembered that Alice came from Nottingham rather than Wolverhampton. He stopped the feature and asked her to leave, despite her protest that Nottingham was at least in the Midlands. Alice had already scored 20 points and was allowed to keep the win, but the final fact was abandoned. Scott promised that everybody would be welcome again the following day, when Rhianna Dhillon was due to play Innuendo Bingo.
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