Greg James teases coverage of Long Boi’s memorial live on BBC Radio 1

This weekend, Greg James once again mentioned the beloved Long Boi on his early BBC Radio 1 Breakfast show.

The radio presenter questioned his producer about a potential outdoor broadcast of the upcoming memorial and statue unveiling of the late duck.

Greg was heard asking his producer, Tom: “Do we have any information on whether we’re going to be able to cover the memorial and sculpture unveiling live on the breakfast show?”

Teasing a possible segment on the famous duck, Tom replied “I can’t tell you too much about it, yet, but things are happening”, making the presenter gasp loudly.

via @longboiyork

Greg explained that it would be a dream to cover a Long Boi memorial service segment, explaining: “If we manage to do an outside broadcast of this breakfast show from the memorial service for a dead duck, that will be more than I ever dreamed of. I’ll have done more in my life than I ever thought I would accomplish.”

No date has currently been set for the statue unveiling, but its location has been marked by the campus lake by Derwent College. The students’ union posted a clip of the radio show to their Instagram, writing that the secret was finally out.

They added: “We’re still very much in the planning stages right now, as soon as we know more you’ll be the first to know!”

Supposed location of the Long Boi memorial statue on Campus West

References to Long Boi on Radio 1 trace back to 2021, when Greg James first pledged his love for the long necked duck. Long Boi later appeared on the show through a phone call, quacking down the phone live on air. Only months later, the University of York confirmed that Long Boi had passed away after two months of no confirmed sightings.

Later, a life-size statue of the duck was confirmed to be built on campus after a fundraising campaign by the students’ union raised £5,500. An initial target of £1,000 was blown out of the water, upgrading the original plan of a bench in his honour. Now, the bronze statue will be true to size, a whole 70cm tall to showcase the true length of Long Boi.

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