Richard refers to Ravel's Boléro as "the Torvill and Dean music". British ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won the gold medal at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics skating to this music. Their success brought the music into the public consciousness in the UK.
Sheila mentions she is borrowing a book from the library titled "The Wincey Willis Book of Wholemeal Pasta". This (fictional) book references Wincey Willis, well-known at the time of this episode's original broadcast as a television presenter. Willis first found fame presenting the weather report on TV-am and subsequently appeared on a range of television shows in the 1980s.
This second episode fell to 35th place in the charts with 11.03 million viewers.