[fatboydave73]

Hi all,

Over the years, Chris has had a number of stand ins / holiday cover; who do you feel is/was the best?

Currently, we have Toby Tarrant, and to be honest, I quite enjoy the times he stands in. He is fairly light hearted, there is a fair balance of music and banter, and with the added dimension he is dating Pippa it makes for some real good radio. Over the past couple of days it has also been different having more music; some very good stuff before 7pm has given me more of a wake up call than when Chris is in charge.

In the older days, I enjoyed the times Scott Mills took over the reigns; when possible I listened to his show anyway and it always seemed a bit of a shame he never got the Breakfast slot full time at any stage.

[diychap]

Terrible Toby, OK as a guest at start of the show but I can't listen to a whole show.

[Nicola_Red]

I never listen when Chris is off, I switch back to Radio 1. I love Scott Mills' show now but didn't like him back in the day so I never heard him cover for Chris - I think I used to listen to what was Rock Radio Manchester.

[hdsport82]

Could never get into any of the stand in hosts on R1 or X so never tune in either. I just listen instead to a combination of music, podcasts, Today on R4 (and TMS if there's any cricket on). I do this even when Chris is on some days e.g. when there's a guest I'm not interested in (99% of them), or when they are flogging a joke/feature to death (the fart sound effects being the current one).

On Toby specifically he's fine to listen to normally for a few minutes before Chris starts if I tune in early or as an extra voice in the studio but I'm not sure I could endure 3.5 hours of him (even with the rest of the TCMS team).

[fish heads]

There are two types of cover – with the Moyles crew and without. The ones without the Moyles crew tend to be better as they are existing shows just on at a different hour, eg Scott or in recent times Johnny Vaughn. If you like that show or not is personal preference. Interesting they have opted for Toby more often now as cover rather than Johnny, I guess for a commercial station you don’t want to disrupt both of your biggest shows at once.

Toby has actually worked with the Moyles team rather well, he gets the balance right of handling links by himself and letting the team join in, whereas Vernon leaned on the team far too much and his style and theirs never particularly gelled, either at Radio X or Radio 1. It’s never going to be must listen radio but I think the current cover situation is as good as it’s likely to get at Radio X.

[Trigger]

Holiday cover??

I'd rather watch a live-stream of Edd the feckin duck!

[Randomisation20]

I much rather watch Captain Pugwash !

[Leverest]

Regarding the time at R1
Did Scott ever cover with the full team or was he only used when the whole team were off
I note an odd show where CM got stuck in the USA by the ash cloud and Scott covered but the only other member there was Tina and she did news and sport
Comedy Dave had the day off ! why didnt he come in to work with Scott?

[swaddon1903]

I think Scott only did the show on his own. I know that Sara Cox did it with the whole team for a couple of days when Chris split with his partner in 2009 or 2010.

[Nicola_Red]

Yeah, I think when Scott covered he did it with his own team at the time, so Beccy, Laura or whoever it was.

[Leverest]

There was one show i know of which is archived on unofficial Mills where Scott covered at short notice, with Becky, and Tina was doing news when Chris got stuck in the USA with the Ashcloud, dom also got stranded by it but strangely Dave was at home but didnt come to work, it was mentioned that something to do with his contract he couldnt come in unless CM was there

[Leverest]

One question - does anyone know who the breakfast show covers were before Scott Mills? was it Moyles? did he used to cover for Zoe Ball and the likes in the day?

[hdsport82]

One question - does anyone know who the breakfast show covers were before Scott Mills? was it Moyles? did he used to cover for Zoe Ball and the likes in the day?

Yeah they (Chris and Dave) did do some cover...

http://chrismoyles.net/soundvault/sound ... fileid=550

I'm sure there's other clips including one of a handover with Simon Mayo whilst doing 'c o c k n e y accents' but can't find it.

If you fancy wasting some time you can see the old schedules on the BBC Genome site, here's one day with Chris filling in

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/ra ... 1998-08-03

EDIT didn't realise the word before accents would fall foul of the swear filter.