First broadcast 28th December 2013.
Charlie Brooker
Al Campbell Barry Shitpeas
Diane Morgan Philomena Cunk
Doug Stanhope
Charlie Brooker
Al Campbell Barry Shitpeas
Diane Morgan Philomena Cunk
Doug Stanhope
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Hello, I'm Charlie Brooker and you're watching 2013 Wipe the Craig. I'm all about things
00:26that were happening in 2013. Things like this.
00:30Scintillating entertainment show Britain's Got Talent was immeasurably improved by the
00:34arrival of the second woman this year to willingly donate eggs to Simon Cowell.
00:39I do take painting seriously. It's changed my life and I brought a painting for you.
00:43You did? Yeah.
00:44Cheerful chat show encounters proved George W. Bush has managed to become a painter without
00:48chewing the brushes or bombing the canvas.
00:51Staggering news reports revealed Russia had arrested an alleged spy using a budget Boris
00:55Johnson disguise kit. And following an Asiana Airlines crash, a US news channel fell victim
01:01to a racist prankster by misreporting the names of the pilots.
01:05They are Captain Sum Ting Wong, We Too Low, Ho Lee Phuc, and Bang Dang Al.
01:14That's the kind of thing that occurred. That's where we're headed. But we start with January
01:18because the year did too.
01:21Overflowing with terrorist incidents, abuse allegations, natural disasters, and high-profile
01:26deaths, 2013 was notable for containing many stories that were both stomach-churning and
01:31hard to digest. So it was fitting, really, that it kicked off with an ugly story about
01:35food.
01:36Supermarket scandal. Horse meat found in beef burgers on sale in Britain.
01:41Yes, the nation scarcely finished excreting the last of the turkey leftovers when the
01:45news erupted into a meat-based horror show.
01:47People like to go on diets in the new year and the horse meat scandal certainly helped.
01:51In fact, the way TV screens are immediately filled with red, churning tissue made following
01:54the 5-2 fasting diet not just easy, but almost compulsory.
01:59For Alfie Green, beef lasagna was a tea-time favourite. Not anymore.
02:03So will you be eating any more of these?
02:06No, not no more. We won't. Definitely not.
02:09Also on hand for comic relief, Iceland founder and Bradley Wiggins impersonator Malcolm Walker,
02:13who made reassuring statements like this.
02:16I don't see what more supermarkets can do. They probably wouldn't be testing routinely
02:21for horse DNA. Neither are we testing for hedgehog.
02:25It's easy to test meat for hedgehog. You just scare it and see if it rolls up into a meatball.
02:29Extra fun value was provided by one food expert doing his best to lighten the distressing
02:33news by describing the crisis using the voice of Ronnie Corbett.
02:37What's supposed to happen is that the supermarket checks on your behalf. Supermarkets are experts
02:42in food.
02:43You know what, this guy may sound funny, but he certainly knows the food chain.
02:46We talk about the food chain and at one end meat comes out and cows normally go in, but
02:55somewhere in the food chain horses came in and meat came out.
02:59This guy is good.
03:03Lots of what I like to call events happened in February. Archaeologists found King Richard
03:08III in a car park. He'd actually been there for years, but they thought it was a speed
03:11bump.
03:12More alarmingly, God decided to keep mankind on its toes by lobbing a huge meteor at Russia
03:16in scenes resembling a chilling photorealistic reboot of the Angry Birds franchise.
03:21Meanwhile in Australia, where the weather is so uniform the weather forecast consists
03:25of nothing but a brass plaque with the words bloody, sunny and hot mate engraved on it,
03:29they apparently have to liven up their TV forecasts with live stunt work.
03:33This was illustrated by these unedifying scenes as a weatherman strapped into a stunt plane
03:37for a bit of fun on an otherwise toothless breakfast show began slipping the realm of
03:41consciousness entirely as the G-force built up.
03:44Forces and speed and dynamics. I've been fascinated.
03:49I'm having flashbacks to conversations I had with people in nightclubs in the 90s.
03:54His eventual forecast was a bit confusing, bright at first, slowly fading with some dark
03:59mist rolling in accompanied by light dribble before a sudden and total nightfall.
04:03Oh my God.
04:04G-squeezing, G-squeezing, G-squeezing.
04:07Oh, cut. We don't want to see. All right.
04:10Very good evening from Rome, where Pope Benedict has stunned the Roman Catholic Church by announcing
04:15his resignation today.
04:16Yes, Pope Benedict XVI suddenly decided he'd done quite enough poping for one lifetime,
04:21thank you, and quit using the withdrawal method, i.e. pulling out unexpectedly and leaving
04:26a bit of a mess to clean up. Pope-liking members of the public were so shocked they couldn't
04:30help but say so.
04:34Oh, I'm so shocked.
04:37While others simply refused to believe it was true, going through three of the seven
04:40stages of grief in the space of one soundbite.
04:43You're jogging? The Pope? Oh my God.
04:49The news immediately began guessing who the next Pope would be, profiling the hopefuls
04:53until the screen began to resemble a sticker album dedicated to the oldest, most sexless
04:57boy band in history.
04:59Soon afterwards, in March, the Vatican set about p-p-p-picking that Pope, the only way
05:03it knew how.
05:04Slowly. Since the Pope-pickers were locked somewhere indoors trying to work out who'd
05:08look best in a Pope hat, the news had to train its cameras on the Vatican's spokesman,
05:12who, because the Catholic Church is normal and modern, is a chimney.
05:16And thus the news morphed seamlessly into 24-hour chimney watch.
05:19There is the chimney.
05:21Keeping its gaze trained on a flue, waiting for the right coloured smoke to belch out.
05:24Most of the time nothing was happening, the undisputed high point being this thrilling
05:28moment when a seagull landed on the chimney.
05:30A seagull has no idea that it's part of history.
05:34Yeah, that's how seagulls work, mate.
05:36Jesus, chimney watch just hasn't been the same since Bill Oddie left.
05:39That's white smoke. Is that white smoke?
05:42Finally, after two whole days of furious teasing, the Cardinals made hot white gobbets shoot
05:47from the pipe, just like your mum does.
05:49And then, following the ceremonial handing over of the papal Twitter account password,
05:53out popped the new Pope, captured expertly by Vatican TV, performing his first miracle
05:58by managing to look like Jim Bowen and Woody Allen at the same time.
06:02As you can see, everyone was absolutely frigging delighted, except me,
06:06because I had a bet on that he was going to regenerate as Peter Capaldi.
06:09Old fiddlesticks.
06:11Also in March, having never really recovered from the Saville scandal, the BBC's iconic
06:15TV centre closed down, almost as though it was committing suicide.
06:19The corporation claimed changes in technology had rendered many of TV centres' functions
06:23obsolete. For instance, suspicious old men now largely meet children using the internet.
06:27Incidentally, for legal reasons, we're not allowed to mention some high-profile court
06:31cases which got underway this year, a year marked by a series of startling post-Saville
06:35celebrity arrests which peppered the nation's front pages like depressing croutons.
06:39The cumulative effect made it almost impossible to reminisce about 1970s TV shows
06:43without having to mentally pixelate out half the faces.
06:46There was this new Doctor Who spinoff, sort of like Torchwood, but for adults,
06:50called Broadchurch. It was brilliant and gripping, like a dark reboot of Doctor Who.
06:56It still had Doctor Who in it, but instead of stopping the Cybermen from stealing
07:00the Time Crystal, he was trying to solve the murder of a little boy.
07:04So it was the saddest Doctor Who story ever, apart from the one where he had to leave
07:08Canine behind on Gallifrey.
07:10To save money, they didn't go to space, they went to, like, the seaside.
07:14But not a nice seaside like Eastbourne, more a sort of evil seaside like Plymouth.
07:18It was really intense. The Doctor didn't have any of his powers or his TARDIS,
07:22and his assistant was, like, loads more serious than usual and sort of swore a lot.
07:26Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!
07:30It was a bit more boring than normal Doctor Who, because normal Doctor Who
07:34could just go back in time and catch the murderer before they did it.
07:37But this Doctor Who could only go back in time by talking to people.
07:41When did you last see Daniel Artemis?
07:43I told you, the day before he was found.
07:45Anyway, it had this massive twist because it was on ITV, but also,
07:49it was good, it was really quite mind-blowing, you know?
07:52Because it was so good, apparently, they're doing another one,
07:55which would be brilliant, but I hope this time it is in space,
07:59and with Canine in it.
08:01In April, Margaret Thatcher stopped happening.
08:04Thatcher's passing finally allowed the news to hit play on all the
08:07pre-assembled biog packages they'd been quietly collating for years,
08:10and it quickly turned into an 80s nostalgia festival,
08:13with all the greatest hits, footage of Election Day,
08:16the champagne yuppies with giant phones,
08:18the minor strike soundbites from Maggie's fellow former spitting image castmates,
08:22Well, of course, he did more for feminism than any feminist has ever done.
08:25the Falklands War, and catchphrases from iconic adverts.
08:29British gas shares, they come out in November. If you see Sid, tell him.
08:33Back on Earth, even as the Iron Lady was being driven away from the Ritz
08:36in one of those vans they used to take scabs through picket lines in,
08:39battle lines were being drawn.
08:41Because newspapers chiefly exist to spoon-feed the opinions of their readers
08:44back to them, much like an ass-to-mouth hosepipe,
08:46they can cover divisive figures like Margaret Thatcher
08:49with all the obvious bias you can eat.
08:51TV news, however, is supposed to reflect the nation's opinions,
08:54which meant it had to sit on the fence until it got splinters in its soul,
08:57repeating the one thing it could reliably say,
09:00which is that she was divisive.
09:02Margaret Thatcher was a prime minister who divided the country.
09:05Margaret Thatcher profoundly divided opinions.
09:08The flag of the country she divided and transformed
09:11flies at half-mast.
09:14And since she divided opinion, we have to hear from both sides.
09:17In the blue corner, prime ministeroid David Camerotron,
09:20seen here performing his stars-in-their-eyes cover version
09:23of Blair's People's Princess speech.
09:25Margaret Thatcher didn't just lead our country, she saved our country.
09:29By dividing it.
09:31The news also unearthed some Maggie-loving members of the public.
09:34Hello, the Ivansky News. Can you just quickly show us your tribute,
09:37the ultimate tribute, perhaps, to Baroness Thatcher?
09:40There you go, a new tattoo on your leg saying she never turned.
09:43Oh, well, I'm sure that's what she would have wanted.
09:46Meanwhile, in the red corner, Labour droner egghead Minnipeat
09:49did his best to discuss Thatcher for several uninterrupted seconds
09:52without slagging her off.
09:54And to make it even harder, he had to do it while standing in the middle of a lake.
09:57David Cameron, Nick Clegg and myself were all shaped, in a way,
10:01by the politics of Lady Thatcher.
10:04But it soon became apparent there was absolutely no shortage of folk
10:07prepared to vent their anti-Thatcher spleen on camera.
10:10Margaret Thatcher destroyed my hometown. I'm glad she's dead.
10:14Extra-high-strength vitriol flowed from northern mining towns
10:17where Thatcher had closed pits and turned families to stone
10:20with her Medusa-like glare.
10:22Up here, Thatcher was about as popular as puss pie in piss gravy.
10:25She weren't a woman, she was evil.
10:28Yeah, you know, you hear a lot about how Thatcher consigned entire communities
10:31to the scrapheap, but on the plus side, she reinvigorated Britain's
10:34ingrained bitterness industry.
10:36Amidst this febrile atmosphere, it was announced that Baroness Thatcher
10:39would be treated to a whopping great state funeral in scenes
10:42reminiscent of the opening credits of Dad's Army.
10:45But by now, the news was notably preoccupied with an internet attempt
10:48to bump the song Ding Dong the Witch is Dead to the top of those
10:51pop charts, which apparently still exist.
10:54This instantly became a stick to beat the BBC with in case it had to
10:57play the song on Radio 1's official Top 40 show.
11:00The world of current affairs was clearly concerned the lyrics might be
11:03offensive, so it was weird that they couldn't seem to stop reciting them.
11:06Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.
11:07Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.
11:09In the event, the BBC dodged a bullet by broadcasting a snippet of the song
11:12in a news report, and anyway, the number one bid failed, thus depriving
11:15the nation of the first catchy number one in a decade.
11:18Come the day of the funeral, the more extreme wing of the anti-Thatcher camp
11:21organised a series of protests, at which it became clear Thatcher's
11:24savage cuts to arts funding had, rather cunningly, left her opponents
11:27without the skills to make a coherent effigy.
11:30These bizarre anti-funerals were conducted beneath the definitely
11:33not encouraging this in any way gaze of the news media, who were
11:36probably secretly delighted to have stumbled across this 21st century
11:39reimagining of the wicker man, replete with traditional northern
11:42minstrels and touching floral tributes.
11:45One thing's for sure, that Margaret Thatcher certainly was a divisive
11:48figure, and like her or loathe her, the lady's not returning.
11:52It was a good year for natural history, with the BBC unveiling Africa,
11:55a sumptuous exploration of the expansive and diverse continent,
11:59expertly showcasing its incredible variety of picturesque wildlife.
12:02But this was nothing compared to the inspiring sweep of Channel 4's
12:06intensely moving Dogging Tales, a story of everyday folk who have sex
12:10with strangers in car parks.
12:12As well as life-affirming footage of tender acts of physical love
12:15happening somewhere between a tree and some bins, it featured
12:18heart-rending testimony from the people behind the grunts, their
12:21identities disguised but not their tattoos, as they outlined their
12:24ceremonial preparations.
12:26Namely, squirting a bit of lynx around the old armpits.
12:29I can't beat it.
12:31That and juke.
12:34Yeah, juke's pretty good at masking the smell of bracken and semen.
12:37It even says that on the bottle.
12:39Hopefully this coldness, like, you know...
12:44It's getting there. It is getting there.
12:46It takes time because it's cold, doesn't it? Yeah.
12:48It was all visually reminiscent of one of 2013's most popular viral
12:52videos, a quirkily entertaining comic song which posed the question,
12:56what does the fox say?
12:58Yeah, t-t-t-t-t-t-town!
13:00T-t-t-t-t-t-town!
13:02The doggy tells revealed precisely what the fox says
13:05because it asked him.
13:07Do you feel like you're hunting for something?
13:10Yeah, the furry triangle.
13:14Yeah. I wish I'd never asked.
13:16In May, a huge tornado ripped across Oklahoma and,
13:19in the aftermath, CBS News captured a heart-warming moment.
13:22And I hollered for my little dog and he didn't answer.
13:26He didn't answer.
13:28Doug! Hi, puppy! Doug!
13:31Oh!
13:33This being the Bible Belt, many thought this kind of thing
13:36demonstrated faith in action.
13:38Well, I thought God just answered one prayer to let me be OK.
13:41He answered both of them.
13:43But not everyone who survived the hurricane was God-fearing,
13:46as one notably illuminating exchange demonstrated.
13:49I guess you've got to thank the Lord, right? Yeah.
13:52Do you thank the Lord for that split-second decision?
13:55I... I... I'm older. I'm actually an atheist.
13:58No, you are, aren't you?
14:00If you think that didn't take balls, you've never been to Oklahoma.
14:04Saying, I'm an atheist in Oklahoma
14:06is like screaming jihad at airport security.
14:10That took some nuts.
14:12And you watch the footage, all the other victims are on the news
14:15thanking Jesus for only killing their neighbors and not them,
14:19while a crawler is on the screen
14:21telling me where I can text money to help them out.
14:24Fuck them.
14:26I don't want Jesus getting credit for my $50.
14:29I'll help that other girl out.
14:31That CNN's exploiting... Hell, yes.
14:33She ain't got no Jeebus. She gonna need money.
14:36So I did. I started an Indiegogo fundraiser account,
14:40and atheists ended up ponying up over $126,000
14:45just for little old her,
14:47and I couldn't get the smile off of my face for a week.
14:50And I didn't do it because I felt sympathy,
14:53because she got all her shit destroyed by a tornado.
14:56I did it simply to be a prick to her oaky Christian neighbors,
15:00hoping that they were still eating off of FEMA trucks
15:03when someone drove up and presented Rebecca
15:06with a giant cardboard check.
15:09It's funny how hate can make you do real nice things every now and then.
15:13Also in May, the Same Sex Couples Act was passed.
15:16Gay people were now equal in marriage,
15:18able to do gay washing up, gay hoovering,
15:20go to gay home base to buy gay roll plugs
15:22and put up gay shelves at the gay weekend.
15:24But not everyone was this happy.
15:26In an eye-opening interview with the Huffington Post,
15:28beardy actor Jeremy Irons voiced his concerns
15:30about the financial implications of gay marriage.
15:33Tax-wise is an interesting one because...
15:38..you see...
15:40..could a father not marry his son?
15:45Well, there are laws against incest.
15:47It's not incest between men.
15:49Someone's in for a shock when they check Wikipedia later.
15:52Irons also saw father-son marriage as a potential money spinner.
15:55Then if I wanted to pass on my estate without death duties,
15:59I could marry my son...
16:02..and pass on my estate to him.
16:05No, that sounds like a total red herring.
16:07I'm sure that incest law would still cover same-sex marriages.
16:10Really? Why? Yeah.
16:12Cos it's incest!
16:14I just wish everybody who's living with one other person
16:17the best of luck in the world.
16:19Because it's fantastic.
16:23Spoken like a happily married man.
16:25Yeah, and also a man who has a dog that he loves.
16:29Well, at least that's not incest.
16:32Politics is languishing in a stale funk,
16:34a bit like a soap in its 86th year,
16:36one that's run out of ideas and is stuck with a cast list
16:39everyone's sick of.
16:40Nick Clegg's a phone-in host, moonlighting as deputy PM.
16:43David Cameron looks like Angela Lansbury
16:45wearing a fleshy man suit.
16:46And Ed Miliband has thus far failed to inspire the population,
16:49as anyone who saw Channel 4's coverage of his campaigning in Crawley
16:52can vouch for.
16:53He wants to be Prime Minister. Oh, does he? Of Crawley?
16:56No, no, Prime Minister of the country.
16:58Oh, Jesus!
16:59Little wonder people embrace almost any alternative
17:02cue footage of Nigel Farage.
17:04Guffawing Admiral Akbar look-alike, pint-magnet and man-of-the-people
17:07impersonator Nigel Farage impressed a sizeable chunk
17:10of the voting population with his non-racist, un-racist,
17:13racist-less, absolutely not racist party UKIP,
17:16whose members, when interviewed, routinely describe themselves
17:19as not racist.
17:20Totally unprompted, they brought up the issue of race.
17:23We are not, was it, racist? We're not racist at all.
17:26As do their supporters.
17:28We've got some good policies, I think. Such as?
17:31Immigration.
17:32I'm not being racist, but, you know.
17:34Why do they keep having to say they're not racist?
17:36Maybe they're defensive because, as the coverage made clear,
17:39even casual passers-by keep accusing them of being racist.
17:42Oh, and homophobes.
17:44Homophobes?
17:46That man says racist and homophobes.
17:48Does he? Well, there we are. I don't think we're homophobes.
17:51Despite such hiccups, UKIP did well in May's local elections,
17:54winning 150 seats and seriously spooking the other parties.
17:57But with startling speed, Operation UKIP started to look a bit wobbly.
18:01During a tour of Edinburgh, which looked exactly the way
18:04he always imagined it did, Farage learned his everyman charm
18:07didn't function north of the border, as depicted in uncomfortable
18:10scenes on Channel 4 News, when a group of ill-wishers
18:13serenaded him with some traditional folk-off songs.
18:21Sensing change in the air, the media began subjecting the party
18:24to more scrutiny, even asking UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom
18:27to defend Farage's trademark lifestyle.
18:30Perhaps he smokes and drinks too much as well.
18:34Well, he's never pretended to be a priest,
18:36and if you don't mind me suggesting that,
18:38I regard that as a rather impertinent remark.
18:41How dare you suggest he should smoke or drink?
18:44What the hell has it got to do with you?
18:46A robust defence there, although it soon transpired that Bloom,
18:49a sort of blustering sitcom colonel from a previous century
18:52who'd fallen through time, wound up here and was furious about it,
18:55was the very last person Farage needed speaking up on his behalf.
18:59Soon, Bloom had whammed his ruddy foot in it when news cameras
19:02caught him referring to a colourful imaginary kingdom
19:04that lives in his head and steals his money.
19:06And how we can possibly be giving a billion pounds a month
19:09when we're in this sort of debt to Bongo Bongo Land is completely ridiculous.
19:14And you can see more of Godfrey Bloom's hilarious non-PC routines
19:18on his official stand-up DVD.
19:20Apparently bemused to discover the phrase
19:22Bongo Bongo Land was offensive in the future,
19:25Bloom popped up in an illuminating interview on Channel 4 News
19:28to apologise in the most unapologetic way imaginable.
19:31Nigel Farage clearly thinks Bongo Bongo Land is a racist phrase,
19:34doesn't he?
19:35I think he does, and, again, it's a generation thing.
19:38You know, I'm an older man and I don't see it that way.
19:41But if he tells me so, it must be so.
19:43And so you still don't understand why it is?
19:48No.
19:49But impossibly, even worse was to come.
19:51By now, Farage was doing his best to reinvigorate interest in Ukip
19:55with a grand conference in front of impressed news cameras,
19:58including an inspiring star turn from Neil Hamilton.
20:01So, shoulders to the wheel, noses to the grindstone,
20:04let's go forward to victory!
20:07But this stirring scene was overshadowed by Naughty Boots Godfrey again,
20:11who was recorded using the word sluts at a Ukip meeting,
20:14which then dominated the news coverage.
20:16I, too, have never cleaned behind my feet.
20:19LAUGHTER
20:23Bloom later explained that, once again,
20:25he'd misplaced his past-to-present translation dictionary
20:28and had fallen victim to the language barrier.
20:30He explained to the BBC's Newsnight
20:32that he meant the very old-fashioned meaning of the word slut.
20:35It means, you know, you're untidy, you leave your kit lying around.
20:38Has your mother never called you a slut?
20:40No, I don't think she has. Perhaps you're very tidy.
20:43By now, it was clear Bloom was box office gold for the news,
20:46but box office poison for Ukip,
20:48and when Channel 4's hilarious professional goader Michael Crick
20:51followed him up the street to ask why there were no black faces
20:54on the Ukip manifesto, Bloom went full Hulk.
20:56You, sir, are a racist.
20:58Why am I a racist for saying there aren't any black people?
21:01And you've checked out the colour of people's faces?
21:04Disgraceful! You're disgraceful!
21:06Of course, he was actually thwacking Crick
21:08in the traditional old-fashioned sense of a thwacking,
21:10the kind of playful admonishment you'd dish out to a slut
21:13from Bongo Bongo Land.
21:15By now, as the news impassively recorded,
21:17Bloom's boss, Farage, had to sadly acknowledge
21:19his conference had been spoiled while playing an invisible bongo.
21:23We cannot have any one individual destroying Ukip's national conference.
21:28And with that, Godfrey was finally cast out into the dark,
21:32or Bongo Bongo Land, as he probably calls it.
21:35There was this programme called Broken Bad,
21:38sort of like a chemistry programme,
21:40but with acting in it to keep the science interesting.
21:43It was really good, like, really atmospheric,
21:46and it was presented by this bloke,
21:49who was sort of clever but, like, a bit ill.
21:51Like, I think he had a cold or something.
21:53HE COUGHS
21:55Sometimes he'd be coughing, and you'd think,
21:58shouldn't they just wait to film this when he's better?
22:01HE COUGHS
22:03It was a bit like Top Gear, but for drugs.
22:05And so he was like Jeremy Clarkson,
22:07and he had this funny little sidekick who was like his Richard Hammond,
22:11but who got all depressed because of some relationship problem or something,
22:15where his girlfriend got a stomach bug and then just lay around in bed.
22:18The main bloke kept making crystals,
22:20a bit like my auntie who had this shop in Stafford
22:23selling crystals and dreamcatchers and things.
22:26But he made loads of money out of it,
22:28whereas my auntie had to close her shop in 2009
22:31because it never really caught on.
22:33He was mental, this presenter.
22:34Like, you never knew what he was going to do next, you know?
22:37Like, one minute he'd be running around in his pants
22:39and then he'd cut all his hair off,
22:41or, like, turn up in a sort of silly hat,
22:43or in a sort of plastic dungarees.
22:45He was proper bonkers.
22:46A lot of Chris Hems used to be on The Big Breakfast.
22:48You had to watch it because everyone was watching it.
22:51So if you weren't watching it, people who were watching it
22:54kept saying, are you watching it?
22:56And you'd have to say, no, I'm not watching it.
22:59But you'd think, I should be watching it.
23:01So then you'd start watching it and then you'd be like,
23:03why am I watching this?
23:05Because for a chemistry show, it's really sad.
23:07What was weird was it wasn't on real television.
23:10Like, you had to watch it on this sort of computer television thing.
23:14But it was really well done, like, better than it used to be.
23:17Like, when they used to use computers to do the telly in the olden days,
23:20like, in that entertaining Dire Straits music video thing,
23:23if you looked closely, you could sort of tell it wasn't real
23:26because they weren't quite right.
23:28Like, their knees weren't quite right.
23:30But in Breaking Bad, it was so well done,
23:33you'd never think it was all computer people at all.
23:36Like, their knees were spot on. It was amazing.
23:38Thing is, everyone said it was brilliant and the best programme ever,
23:42but it can't be that good because it finished
23:45and apparently it's never coming back.
23:48Help me, I'm Amanda Berry.
23:50When Amanda Berry escaped from the house
23:52where she'd been held captive for a decade,
23:54along with Georgina de Jesus and Michel Knight,
23:56the news had a dilemma.
23:58Here was a feel-good rescue narrative, but it was inexorably tethered
24:01to an unimaginably grim tale of rape and imprisonment
24:04almost too depressing to contemplate.
24:06But fortunately, it came with a side order of light relief
24:09in the form of one of the rescuers.
24:11I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl
24:14ran into a black man's arms.
24:16Something is wrong here.
24:18Dare give away. Dare give away.
24:20This was Charles Ramsey, a local character and born performer
24:23who was soon amusing viewers with his distinctive ghetto-speak soundbites.
24:27You got some big testicles to pull this off, bro,
24:30cos we see this dude every day.
24:32Inevitably, broadcasters seized on this one bright spark
24:35in an otherwise dark story and Ramsey became an overnight star,
24:38according to the ultimate tribute modern society has to offer,
24:41an amusing auto-tuned internet tribute of his own.
24:44I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl
24:47ran into a black man's arms.
24:49Dare give away. Dare give away.
24:51My neighbour got big testicles cos we see this dude every day.
24:55But with the women thankfully recovering in private,
24:57Ramsey had become the focus of the story,
24:59dragged from interview to interview,
25:01in which hosts repeatedly hailed him as a hero,
25:03despite him constantly trying to say he wasn't.
25:05If you keep saying I'm a hero, let me tell you something.
25:08I'm American and I'm a human being. I'm just like you.
25:11Soon he was appearing bleary-eyed on Good Morning America,
25:14not quite performing as well as expected,
25:16and viewers began to wonder what he was doing in the spotlight.
25:19How are you feeling? I'm happy, you know. I'm...you know.
25:23At which point the media apparently turned on him,
25:25trying to disprove his story.
25:27Not everyone agrees with Charles Ramsey's account of what happened
25:30last Monday night, some neighbours telling on the record
25:32the rescue went down differently.
25:34One said he was uncovering unsavoury information about his past.
25:37You have been in jail.
25:40You got that right, Sherry.
25:42So there was a domestic violence?
25:44Who, my wife? Oh, yeah.
25:46Basically, Charles Ramsey went through the trad celebrity career
25:50trajectory, fame, worship, disappointment and then backlash,
25:54in record time.
25:55Ramseymania was all but extinguished after four days.
25:58We're getting more efficient at dismissing people, basically.
26:01How is it possible to do it in just four hours?
26:04In June, humanoids worldwide began dancing and wanking
26:07to the toe-tapping sound of Blurred Lines,
26:10a song which came with an eye-popping video
26:12starring Simon Cowell doppelganger Robin Thicke.
26:15I mean, I say he looks like Simon Cowell.
26:17Actually, he looks more like what the offspring would look like
26:20if Simon Cowell had sex with Ricky Martin,
26:22which hasn't happened and never will.
26:24It was hard to notice at first, but if you looked carefully,
26:27you might have spotted the video also contained fleeting glimpses
26:30of women not totally naked.
26:31Obviously, that would be gratuitous.
26:33No, they've got pants on,
26:34so you don't get to see any of the really biological stuff
26:36they used to put in special magazines before the internet,
26:39which is why all the women in the video
26:41get to retain their innate feminine dignity.
26:43The cheery objectification was interspersed by screen-sized hashtags
26:47so viewers would know what to tweet
26:48the moment they'd finished masturbating.
26:50Trouble is, the sight of dancing nude women
26:52made it tricky to even notice the writing was there
26:54because you sort of stared right past it,
26:56turning the writing itself into just a load of blurred lines,
26:59which is sort of mind-blowing.
27:01This groundbreaking combination of tits and arse
27:03racked up a phenomenal amount of hits on YouTube.
27:06There was also a clean version where the women had clothes on.
27:09Apparently, no-one's ever actually clicked on it to check.
27:12Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was an abrupt backlash
27:14as people complained about the video and some of the lyrics,
27:17which sounded a bit suspect.
27:24In illuminating scenes, clever Thicke brightened populist US talk shows
27:28by explaining how pure his motives have been.
27:30We were just trying to make a funny, silly song
27:32and some of the lyrics are very easy to think that we're trying to say something negative,
27:36but the other lyrics are saying that man is not your maker
27:39and we're empowering women.
27:40Yes, it turned out everyone who was offended was wrong and stupid
27:43and this was actually about empowering women,
27:45specifically naked women, and quite right too.
27:48Why shouldn't a naked woman be allowed to do anything a fully-clothed man can?
27:51For too long, naked women have been afraid to walk around with their mouths shut
27:55while loads of men they can't see look at them and masturbate.
27:57But this brave pioneering statement said,
28:00hey, it's okay. It's okay for naked women to do that.
28:03In fact, this is the way things should be.
28:06This is exactly how a truly just society would look.
28:09Anyway, by releasing a novelty single,
28:11maybe Robin Thicke was merely following in the footsteps of his dad, Alan Thicke,
28:15who also was a dab hand at peddling cheesy pop shit,
28:18as this illuminating footage of his bracing performance of Sweaty and Hot
28:22from the remarkable 1988 National Aerobic Championships
28:25amply demonstrates.
28:47Now a cynic might suggest the sudden increase in intensely titillating music videos
28:51is somehow related to the news that YouTube views
28:53now count towards a single's US chart position.
28:55Anyway, it may not have escaped your attention
28:57that we've sort of had our cake and eaten it here
28:59by showing gratuitous nudie lady imagery while also sort of decrying it.
29:02So to balance it out, here's a screen full of dicks.
29:04Also in June, the BBC newsroom got its very own 3D holographic news queen.
29:09Today, a unique moment with a very special royal guest.
29:18Yes, Her Majesty the Woman visited the BBC's flashy new broadcasting house
29:22to check the corporation had been thoroughly de-savelled.
29:25And as part of that tour, she got to visit Radio 1
29:27and be sung at by her favourite singer ever, Danny, from the script.
29:39It was unclear how much the Queen enjoyed the performance.
29:43No, it wasn't.
29:44Tennis now, and there was a lot of come on Andy this summer.
29:47Don't know how he coped with all that on his back.
29:50Yes, in a nail-biting final broadcast in exhilarating detail live on TV,
29:54Andy Murray put an end to years of Britons not winning Wimbledon
29:57by winning Wimbledon, thereby allowing millions of Britons
30:00who haven't won Wimbledon to feel a bit like they'd somehow won Wimbledon.
30:04Proving there was no end to his heroism,
30:06he then immediately went on The One Show and saved Alex Jones from a bee.
30:09Oh, you've got a bee there. Oh, I don't like bees. It's all right.
30:12And that wasn't the end of July's nice news.
30:15Apparently, for some reason, most people think babies are nice.
30:20When the Duchess of Cambridge went into labour,
30:22it prompted an instant media siege outside the hospital.
30:25But the news wasn't going to just plop effortlessly into the reporter's laps.
30:28Even though apparently that is exactly how childbirth works.
30:31For hours, nothing was happening.
30:33On the hottest day in seven years, creating a vacuum of desperation
30:36akin to watching suited dogs die in a hot car.
30:40So far, here at the Lindo Wing in St Mary's Hospital in Panyton,
30:44there is no news.
30:45And what do we know? Well, not much.
30:47What news? No, really, no further news.
30:50Hundreds of the world's media here to report the news that there is no news.
30:55Man of the match was the BBC's Simon McCoy,
30:57whose obvious irritation at having to stand around doing shit all for hours
31:01in the name of regal deference
31:02made him a beacon of cool sanity in a river of white-hot bibble.
31:06I can tell you what all the media are talking about,
31:08and that's what time they think they can get lunch in.
31:10Never have so many people gathered together in one place
31:13with absolutely nothing to say.
31:15When not blasting us with his own bracing straight talk,
31:18he was sharing messages of goodwill from excited viewers.
31:21Come on, BBC, people do have babies.
31:24Stop saying the same thing over and over.
31:26Give us the rest of the news.
31:28And then another one.
31:29What a load of sycophantic rubbish.
31:31Another royal for the public to support.
31:33Later in the year, McCoy cemented his reputation
31:36as Britain's foremost situationist newsman
31:38by appearing live on air clutching a ream of paper for no apparent reason.
31:42Apparently, he'd mistaken that huge block of paper for an iPad,
31:45which is an easy mistake to make if, like him,
31:47you've never physically touched or lifted an object before.
31:50Meanwhile, back at the world's hottest door,
31:52Sky's resident fun-fueller Kay Burley
31:54gamely tried to maintain the bubbly mood
31:56but instead exhibited the feverish desperation
31:58of someone trying to keep a kid's birthday party going during a hostage crisis.
32:02What do your friends think?
32:03They think I'm crazy.
32:07And then finally, putting us all out of an agony
32:09that frankly dwarfs labour, Kate made a boy.
32:12It's a son born at 4.24pm.
32:15Yes, after standing in the street all day
32:17talking about nothing until their minds turned to wax,
32:19the global news media had to read the news off the internet like we all did.
32:23Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cambridge
32:25was safely delivered of a son at 4.24pm.
32:29Their ordeal over an immediate outpouring of relief
32:32disguised as emotion exploded
32:34and Kay Burley went crowd surfing,
32:35triumphantly breaking the news to delighted onlookers.
32:38Hi, congratulations, we've got fantastic news.
32:41Did you hear the news?
32:42You haven't heard the news?
32:43She can't speak English.
32:45She can't speak English.
32:46We are Brazilian.
32:47Thanks to Twitter and human mouths,
32:49everyone Kay spoke to already knew
32:51which meant rather than breaking news,
32:53she was merely reiterating it to some slightly odd people.
32:57Very exciting.
32:58Very, very exciting.
33:00I was hoping for a boy.
33:02You know, I had a boy.
33:04The news said black boy.
33:06Reporters were also stalking Kate's hometown of Bucklebury,
33:09a tax-funded fictional location based on Midsomer
33:12where they managed to break the news to a woman
33:14who apparently found the very concept of gender incredible.
33:17It's a boy.
33:18No way.
33:19Really?
33:20Yeah.
33:21You're lying.
33:22No, it's true.
33:23What's your reaction?
33:24I think it's absolutely amazing.
33:26Really?
33:27You're just saying that.
33:28No, it's true.
33:29Really?
33:30It's a boy.
33:31Everyone crowded into Bucklebury's local to join the celebrations.
33:34And when I say everyone, I'm including, obviously, David White's horse.
33:37We had a horse in earlier, you know, celebrating.
33:39He heard it was a baby boy.
33:41In he came and we had David White's horse in there.
33:44We couldn't believe it.
33:45I hope you asked him why the long face.
33:48The following day, the Duke and Duchess granted the world
33:50an exciting glimpse of Prince George's head,
33:52then got in a big car and sodded off,
33:54with some reporters apparently impressed
33:56that a qualified search and rescue helicopter pilot
33:58can manage a baby seat.
34:00There was some fiddling with the straps
34:02and then William was satisfied.
34:04Radical cleric and hairy Dex's Midnight Runners frontman,
34:07Abu Qatada, was finally deported from the UK
34:10following more than a decade of terror allegations.
34:12The process had taken 12 years,
34:14during which time he'd not been allowed to shave
34:16in the hope he'd eventually imprison himself in his own beard.
34:18Of course, if he'd wanted to stay in Britain,
34:20he'd have had to prove there were no British terrorists
34:22who could do his job equally well.
34:24But he couldn't do that, so he was instead led to a plane
34:26without apparently bothering to pack any hand luggage.
34:28You know, if he'd been Abu Hamza,
34:30I could have made a joke here about hook luggage,
34:32but he isn't the bastard.
34:34Actually, hang on, don't put him on a plane.
34:36That's like giving him a gun, you maniacs!
34:38There was this news night programme
34:41which used to be all boring and serious,
34:43but now it's like Rude Tube with Alex Zane,
34:46except without Alex Zane and a little bit more news than he does.
34:50Be careful out there. Good night.
34:57You never knew what they were going to do next.
34:59Like, they put all these comedy things in,
35:01like doing Michael Jacksons or talking to puppets, like crazy stuff.
35:05We're fortunate enough to have been joined by him now
35:08from our studio at BBC Westminster.
35:10Cookie Monster, why Britain? Why the BBC?
35:12Cookie!
35:14Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen was on Newsnight, right,
35:17and he was speaking to this Jeremy man
35:19who looked sort of like a modern Father Christmas and everything,
35:22and Lawrence was telling him all about politics, you know,
35:25coming out of all these really interesting theories
35:27that you could tell Jeremy hadn't thought of before.
35:30Anyway, it was unpredictable because the pirate one would be really chirpy
35:34and then suddenly go all serious.
35:36So I'm a person with crazy hair, quite a good sense of humour,
35:39don't know much about politics, I'm ideal.
35:41But is it true you don't even vote?
35:43Yeah, no, I don't vote.
35:45He was good because I've always thought I should get more interested in politics,
35:48but now I know I don't have to.
35:50You've never ever voted? No. Do you think that's really bad?
35:53I don't vote either.
35:55I might if it was someone proper like Bono or Sherlock Holmes or something,
35:59but the one time I went to vote,
36:01it's just all these names of local people,
36:03like Colin whatever or Shabner something,
36:06and you've not heard of him.
36:08So how do you know he was good?
36:10What's good about him is that even though he made millions of pounds
36:13doing changing rooms, he still cares enough to go on TV
36:16and call for a revolution.
36:18There's going to be a revolution. It's totally going to happen.
36:21I ain't got a flicker of doubt. This is the end.
36:24People were like, oh, he shouldn't say that, revolutions are bad
36:27because they get all sort of gun-fiery and thousands die.
36:30But he meant revolution of the mind,
36:32which is better than a real revolution because nothing actually happens.
36:36Quite often when you see who the guest is on This Morning,
36:39you mutter Jesus Christ.
36:41Well, for one brief moment this summer, you'd have been right.
36:44That man there controversially claims that he is Jesus Christ
36:47and that 2,000 years after the crucifixion he's come back to Earth.
36:51Not only that, have a look at this.
36:53The lady who's with him, that's his other half, she is Mary Magdalene.
36:57She says that's who she is. She says she remembers watching in horror
37:01as Jesus was nailed to the cross.
37:03We're talking 2,000 years ago.
37:05They believe it. Will you believe it?
37:08I don't even believe in the real made-up Jesus, Eamon,
37:11let alone your weird made-up, made-up Jesus.
37:14And if you could put a question to Jesus, what would it be?
37:17Which is worse, crucifixion or This Morning?
37:20Yes, in a hypnotic and potentially world-changing interview,
37:23it transpired Christ is a cross between Pat Cash and Cliff Richard
37:27and has returned to Earth in the form of an annoying Australian.
37:30What do I call you? Do I call you Jesus, my Lord?
37:33What do I call... Oh, AJ?
37:35Definitely not my Lord. I'm nobody's Lord.
37:38Just call me AJ or, like, my name is Jesus, obviously,
37:41but most people don't feel comfortable calling me Jesus.
37:44I'm comfortable calling you f***ing deluded.
37:46How does it feel, though, Jesus talking to us today
37:50and everybody watching at home and knowing that 99.9% of that audience
37:56are mocking you, are laughing at you, are saying,
38:00this man is bonkers?
38:02I don't know, Eamon, how does that feel?
38:04Is the second coming more difficult than the first coming?
38:08In my experience, yes, it is.
38:10August, that's the time of year, isn't it, August?
38:13What happened in August? Have a look.
38:15ITV continued its ongoing campaign to redefine horror for the 21st century
38:19with the nightmarish Your Face Sounds Familiar,
38:21a body-swap talent-rejecting contest in which celebrities donned
38:24prosthetics and wigs, pretended to be way more famous pop stars,
38:27then slaughtered their biggest hits in perhaps the single most depressing
38:30event to hit the world of traditional light entertainment
38:33since Operation U-Tree.
38:35Here, for instance, we see Bobby D'Avro getting into Tammy Wynette,
38:38thankfully not in an internet sex tape kind of way.
38:41Sometimes it's hard to be a woman.
38:49Actually, this did inspire me to work on my Kurt Cobain impression.
38:52It's nearly there, just need to work up a bit more courage
38:56or watch this bullshit for two more minutes.
38:58As you can see, the show would cross gender boundaries
39:01with hilarious results, here transforming Alexander Armstrong
39:04into Susan Boyle.
39:06I had a dream that love would never die.
39:12Which is hilarious because, well, just because it is.
39:15Go on, laugh. Laugh. Laugh at it. It's funny.
39:18Laugh at the funny thing. Laugh. Come on.
39:20That's what you're given. Laugh!
39:22Despite thinking nothing of leaping the gender divide,
39:24the show was way more squeamish about racial differences,
39:27meaning Denise Lewis was permanently trapped
39:29inside the body of a black woman.
39:32You could be any of them.
39:34The show's dark delicacies marked the Greek version of the show,
39:37as you can see from this startling scene,
39:39in which a blonde celeb who's probably famous for eating potatoes
39:42or something, I can't be arsed to Google it,
39:44is transmogrified into Stevie Wonder.
39:46A one, a two, a one, two, three, four.
39:54Racist, you type into Twitter like a rat trained to jab phones,
39:57but which is more racist, the programme for making that woman black up
40:00or the entire British version for keeping the races apart
40:03is like apartheid, eh? Think about it.
40:05Yeah, put that in your noggin and give it a little think-around for Christmas.
40:08And then give us a kiss.
40:11The great British bake-off once again somehow managed to pummel drama
40:14into a programme revolving around the correct use of leavening agents
40:17beneath the chummy-raised eyebrows of Lady Ant and Dec
40:20and the judgemental gaze of national matriarch Mary Berry,
40:23played here by Glenn Close, and laser-eyed barn owl Paul Hollywood,
40:26who often looked like he was about to start line dancing.
40:29Although, disappointingly, he never did.
40:31The final was a tense battle of crusts
40:33between self-flagellating philosophy student Ruby Kimberley,
40:36who had three facial settings, concentrating, smiley and very smiley,
40:39and Frances, whose artistically elaborate offerings
40:42often tasted as good as a Damien Hirst.
40:44Mary's right, the rhubarb's useless. What's it going to do with the ginger?
40:47There was minor controversy when some viewers complained
40:49that Ruby was only being put through each week on the basis of her looks,
40:52which is really unfair, because Glenn was the best-looking one.
40:55It wasn't the only elimination contest.
40:57Steel-hearted, ostensible business simulator and solid gold prat farm,
41:00The Apprentice, also returned for the 300th year running.
41:03This year's male contingent of prospective sugar lovers
41:06included curious George, Tony Blair, a Jimmy Carr sex doll,
41:10Russell Crowe, Gok Wan, and a photo in a barber's window.
41:13The final boiled down to a face-off between two presentable young ladies,
41:17prompting yet more accusations that pretty women were being treated favourably,
41:20which is wrong, rather than like haunches of beef in a music video,
41:24which is right.
41:26In a triumph of irony, famously wrinkled, testicular-faced Lord Sugar
41:29ended up picking Dr Leah Totten's plan for a chain of walk-in cosmetic surgery clinics.
41:34Leah, you're going to be my business partner.
41:38She immediately booked Lord Sugar in for a Botox treatment
41:41starting Monday 9am until the end of time.
41:44In August, former saccharine teen idol Miley Cyrus
41:47made headlines with a provocative performance at the VMA Awards,
41:50in which she attempted to seduce a zebra disguised as Robin Thicke
41:53by rubbing her bum up and down it and marking it with scent.
41:56Thicke later claimed he hadn't been turned on by this,
41:58although I'd just like to point out vertical stripes do hide erections.
42:01This seminal moment cemented the notion of twerking in the public's imagination.
42:05Twerking means offering your backside up for inspection,
42:08like someone auditioning for a lead role in Proctology the Musical.
42:11When someone twerks at you, they're either giving you a sexy come-on
42:14or inviting you to check to see if they've wiped properly.
42:17Anyway, twerking's hard work and it was hot under those VMA lights,
42:20as you could tell because Cyrus kept panting with her tongue out
42:23and scratching herself where the costume was apparently getting itchy.
42:26Miley's appearance was brilliant fodder for 24-hour rolling hypocrisy generators,
42:30which could pay idiots to decry her performance
42:32while simultaneously repeating it on a loop at fucking lunchtime.
42:36I watched her performance last night like I watched the most horror film,
42:39with my hands over my eyes.
42:41It also dismayed the inventor of the foam finger,
42:44a man who is very much the Nelson Mandela of the novelty shit world,
42:47as revealed in this tragic and heart-rending interview.
42:50What went through your mind when you saw what Miley was doing with it
42:53on a national stage?
42:56I... As I've stated, I thought it was degrading.
43:00Christ, if you think Miley Cyrus' use of the foam finger's degrading,
43:03I hate to think what you'd make of the things I've done with a rubber thumb.
43:06Technology was threaded through the year like, well, like a tangled Ethernet cable.
43:10Do you remember Ethernet cables? We used them 100 years ago,
43:13back in 2009, before everything went wireless, even this leg of lamb.
43:16In a gloriously boring launch event,
43:18Apple unveiled plans to replace their best-selling Rectangle 5.
43:22And we're going to replace it with not one, but two new designs.
43:28No, that's one design, but twice.
43:30Actually, it looks a bit like what happens to breasts when you turn 80.
43:33The slick promo revealed the two new rectangles came in an expensive version
43:37and a really expensive version,
43:39finally giving iPhone users the one feature they hadn't been yearning for,
43:42fingerprint recognition.
43:43Your fingerprint is one of the best passwords in the world.
43:46It's always with you, and no two are exactly alike.
43:48Just like arseholes, really.
43:50Although, come to think of it, every arsehole with an iPhone is exactly alike.
43:53But then everyone uses smartphones these days. They're ubiquitous.
43:56As you can see from this creepy selection of Apple ads,
43:59human beings apparently now spend more time
44:01disconnectedly documenting their world
44:03for the benefit of cloud-based photo streams
44:05than they do by being consciously present in the moment.
44:08Of course, sometimes you don't want to be in the moment,
44:10which is why it's perhaps understandable
44:12that people seem to have been snapping and filming
44:14more traumatic incidents than ever before.
44:16Footage the news eagerly hoovers up and flings back at us.
44:19Terrorists can use this to their advantage,
44:21committing atrocities in the knowledge that harrowing footage of their exploits
44:24will be repeated worldwide on the news for weeks,
44:27as happened with the Kenyan mall massacre
44:29and in the aftermath of the murder of Lee Rigby in Woolwich this year.
44:33The man with the bloodied hands is not talking to a professional cameraman.
44:37He has deliberately sought out a passerby
44:39who was filming with a phone camera.
44:41Terrorists exploiting camera phones, high-tech drones, waging wars.
44:45This is the stuff of dystopian sci-fi,
44:47and not just military drones, no.
44:49In a dispiriting promo, Amazon unveiled plans to launch their own unmanned drones
44:53so the Taliban won't know if they're about to die or get a box set delivered.
44:57Then they used their glossy Kindle Fire promos
44:59to unveil a nightmare vision of a now
45:01as a prick unexpectedly chat roulettes a worker ant.
45:04Oh, hello. I've pressed the Mayday button
45:07because I need a hand with my Kindle Fire.
45:09Yeah, great. How can I help?
45:10Teach him how to put it down and f*** off.
45:12Instead, Eerie Amy shows the horrid man
45:14how to beam a shit film onto his irritating television
45:16so he can bore his disgusting friends.
45:18Brilliant. Thanks for the rescue.
45:21Not at all. Now get back to your friends.
45:23Don't tell me what to do, you disgusting machine.
45:26Creepily, it seems Amazon are growing multiple Amy's in Petri dishes
45:29because the American version of the advert also features a familiar-ish face.
45:33Mayday.
45:37Thank you for pressing the Mayday button. How can I help you?
45:40Whoa, who are you?
45:41I'm Amy, a tech advisor for your new Kindle Fire.
45:43I didn't realise I get a live person.
45:45Oh, don't worry. I'm sure she's dead on the inside.
45:48Amy, I like you.
45:50Aw.
45:51Yeah, bad news, mate. You can't f*** her. She's a rectangle.
45:54Terrifyingly, Tosshair here seems to be enjoying
45:56the most meaningful relationship he's ever had with a human.
45:59Thanks for pressing Mayday. How can I help?
46:01Yeah, I was just wondering if the Kindle has a left-handed mode.
46:04The big mystery here is why would anyone want a device
46:07some anonymous stranger can remotely control?
46:09It seems some people actively welcome intrusion
46:12or are at least weirdly relaxed about it.
46:14Perhaps that's why no-one seemed to give too much of a toss
46:17about the snooping revelations of one Edward Snowden.
46:20Here was a privacy bombshell that made the news-of-the-world phone-hacking scandal
46:24look about as significant as half a grain of couscous.
46:27Whistleblower Edward Snowden, seen here droning on in footage resembling a glasses advert,
46:31revealed the existence of a secret scheme called PRISM,
46:34which sounds like a bad 80s Spectrum game complete with a logo to match.
46:38Incidentally, why does a secret plan need a logo?
46:41PRISM apparently allowed America's National Security Agency
46:44to spy on almost everything human beings shared on phones or the internet.
46:48There hadn't been a more sinister Big Brother programme
46:50since the one where Nasty Nick hid a pencil.
46:52And yet the public largely shrugged.
46:54I mean, I shrugged because I'd always assumed some computer somewhere
46:58was logging everything we do, making a little animated paperclip
47:01pop up on some CIA guy's screen to warn him
47:04it looked like you were buying stuff to make a pipe bomb
47:07or that you were just a bit of a rongan.
47:09Thanks to Edward Snowden, now we know the government's listening
47:13to all your cell phone calls and reading all your emails.
47:16And for that reason alone, I'd be surprised if the NSA doesn't have
47:20the highest suicide rate of any occupation anywhere on this planet.
47:26I can't even go through my own emails.
47:28Imagine the poor NSA worker who has to sift through
47:32all that nonsense bullshit you send each other.
47:35Ooh, forward. Here's ten reasons a cucumber's better than a man.
47:40Hee hee hee. I knew you'd get a kick out of it.
47:43Someone's going to spend their days reading that shit?
47:46Listening to your cell phone calls?
47:48I have to listen to your cell phone conversations,
47:51just sitting in an airport bar and listening to you drone on at top volume.
47:56Yes, well, the doctor said that the warmer climate
48:01might be good for my fibromyalgia.
48:05Hello? Can you hear me?
48:07God help the poor bastard who has to eavesdrop on those conversations
48:12day in and day out.
48:14Keep that man away from sharp objects when he gets off the job.
48:19In October, Britain was briefly sent into a tailspin
48:22as lurid headlines warned terrified civilians
48:24about the evil false widow spider,
48:26which was said to be crawling across Britain,
48:28sinking its venomous fangs into any fucker it could find.
48:31A school was closed, apparently infested with the death beasts,
48:34and there were reports of false widow victims hovering at death's door.
48:37Even though false widow spiders have been commonplace in Britain
48:40for over 140 years, an excited media had only just discovered
48:43how amazingly dangerous they are.
48:45A terrible oversight, but fortunately all the stations
48:48had spider experts on hand to tell us just how grave
48:51the false widow threat was.
48:53It's very slow moving, it's not aggressive,
48:56and if you got bitten by it, then you'd be very unlucky.
48:59OK, yeah, you say that, but presumably we should eradicate them anyway
49:02because they're dangerous to man.
49:04There's no need to eradicate them.
49:06These spiders are getting everywhere. They're not dangerous to man.
49:09OK, so not dangerous, but they do cause terrible agony, yeah?
49:12Most people when bitten by a noble false widow,
49:14even the most venomous one, will only feel a pinprick.
49:18Oh, right, but they're almost impossible to get rid of?
49:21If you want to get rid of it, put a glass over it,
49:23put a card underneath and just take it outside and release it.
49:26It's basically just a spider, isn't it?
49:28Yes, the papers had mischievously turned false widow spiders
49:31into a false scare out of sheer boredom during a slow news week.
49:34Ironically, the suspected reason why there's more false widows around,
49:37climate change, really is scary,
49:39but the reports kind of only mention that in passing.
49:41But never mind, I'm sure our grandchildren are going to chuckle to themselves
49:44thinking about how silly their ancestors were,
49:46worrying about tiny non-threatening spiders
49:48when they're not knifing each other to death
49:51Ed Miliband's dad, right, hated Britain,
49:54but no-one knew because most of the things he did suggested he didn't.
49:59But then the Daily Mail found out he did hate Britain,
50:02so they did this big dramatic news story about it
50:05with all massive headlines and everything,
50:07and then Ed Miliband got all upset
50:09and went on the news to say they were out of order.
50:12That is a lie, and I'm not willing to let it stand.
50:16Most people love or hate different bits of Britain.
50:19Like, I hate the M6, but Ralph Miliband hated all of Britain.
50:23He hated London, he hated Manchester, he hated Leeds, he hated Glasgow,
50:28he hated South Wales, he hated North Wales,
50:30he hated the Lake District and the Peak District and all the shires.
50:34If it was in Britain and it was a place, he hated it.
50:37But he also hated things in Britain as well,
50:40so he hated British people, he hated British wildlife,
50:43he hated all the coins and the stamps and the phone boxes,
50:47and, like, even down to stuff like shoelaces and things like that
50:50that aren't even worth hating, he hated them anyway.
50:53He hated Paddington Bear and Made in Chelsea
50:56and Tom Daley and Dawn French.
50:59He hated QI and all those British shops like Zara and Aldi
51:04and KFC and Delice de France.
51:07He hated the British Museum and British Gas and British Airways
51:12and British Sea Power, British Rail.
51:14Even after they changed their name to Rail Track, he never forgave them.
51:17He hated Leon Britain, Fern Britain, Brittany Ferries and Brittany Spears.
51:22He even hated British Air, that's why he stopped breathing it.
51:25And he hated British children, so when Ed Miliband was on TV defending him,
51:30he'd have hated it because Ed Miliband's British
51:33and Ralph Miliband hated Britain.
51:36And all the mail did was point that out.
51:39Also in October, Channel 4 confronted the one issue
51:42it simply never had the guts to face before, sex.
51:45In a few minutes, a couple will enter this box, they'll have sex,
51:49and then immediately afterwards come out and talk frankly about what they did.
51:53Sex Box was a groundbreaking televisual landmark
51:56in which volunteers rutted like hounds in a terrifying pillbox
51:59for reasons beyond the realm of normal human comprehension.
52:02In the show, ostensibly ordinary couples entered Mariella's box and then did it.
52:06Basically, it was just like Big Brother, i.e. a load of pointless f***s in a box,
52:10but crucially, it was also better than Big Brother because there weren't any cameras in there.
52:14There are no cameras in the sex box, it's your private, intimate space
52:18to do whatever it is you fancy doing. Have a great time.
52:21See you later.
52:22This being a Channel 4 show, the couples were excitingly diverse.
52:25There were straight ones, gay ones, weird ones, ethnic ones.
52:29In fact, the only minority not represented was necrophiles,
52:32which is ironic because they're always having sex in boxes.
52:35The brave f***splorers went in two by two, a bit like the animals on Noah's Ark,
52:39which was fitting since, given the lack of obvious air holes or any kind of cleaning rotor,
52:43by the end of the day, under studio lights, that box must have stunk like a biblical zoo.
52:48They could do a follow-up show called Surviving the Sex Box,
52:50in which you just have to sit in there and eat a corned beef sandwich without being sick.
52:54While they were in there, stinking the place out,
52:56the sexpert sat outside like accounting execs,
52:59killing time in a brothel waiting room, swapping bullshit anecdotes about sticking it in.
53:03Sex up the bum, it's butt sex, it's ass f***ing.
53:06Once the rutting was complete, the freshly glazed couples had to do the walk of shame back outside
53:11and then try and talk about the sex they'd just done,
53:13ideally without picking pubes from their teeth or weeping openly on camera.
53:17And the result was as mutually enlightening as listening to some random tit on a train platform
53:21describing a recent sneeze.
53:23Our experience in the box show, we started doing one thing,
53:26we talked about it, that's where we were going.
53:28We rimmed, we had anal sex, we then 69ed.
53:32We tried everything.
53:36We're very grateful.
53:372013 was a landmark birthday for everyone's favourite time traveller
53:41and the BBC paid tribute with a raft of exciting celebratory specials,
53:45including a nail-biting live reveal of the next Doctor.
53:48Doctor Who was like 50 this year,
53:51so the BBC celebrated by killing him
53:54and getting a new one who looked more like he actually was 50.
53:57Peter Capaldi!
54:00It's good they've got an older Doctor Who,
54:02because an older actor's going to know more about how time works
54:05because he's experienced more of it, you know, in his life.
54:08Just from being older, he's already travelled through loads more time than, say, Rick Edwards.
54:13If there's a story set in 1910,
54:16he doesn't have to look 1910 up on Wikipedia like a normal actor.
54:20He can go there in his head because he remembers it from when he was a teenager.
54:24In December, millions of people were enjoying an inspiring episode
54:28of Mrs Brown's Boys, the uplifting tale of a man in a dress
54:31hitting another man with a tin tray.
54:35But there was a sad and unexpected twist.
54:38Now on BBC One, we interrupt Mrs Brown's Boys
54:41to join President Zuma for a statement.
54:45But we don't have a President Zuma,
54:47unless we've been invaded by the Zumatrons.
54:49It was actually South Africa's President Zuma
54:52telling the world that Nelson Mandela was dead.
54:54The coverage of Mandela's death
54:56was essentially a mirror image of the coverage of Thatcher's death.
54:59The news had wanged on and on about how divisive she was,
55:02whereas Mandela, they told us, was universally admired.
55:05Mandela was a hugely significant and widely beloved figure
55:08and with his passing, it felt rather as though the very concept
55:11of likeable political figures had become extinct.
55:14Now we were just left behind on the planet with the rest of them.
55:17Maybe that's why politicians fell over themselves to pay gooey tribute,
55:20blurping on about how much they admired it,
55:23presumably hoping a little Mandela magic might rub off on them too.
55:26Notable freedom fighter, champion of the oppressed
55:28and admirer of political prisoners, David Cameron,
55:31once again took to his special little podium
55:33to explain how Nelson embodied almost Thatcher-like greatness.
55:36Tonight, one of the brightest lights of our world has gone out.
55:40Still, at least he didn't black up in tribute.
55:42Not to be outdone, effortless charisma engine
55:44and Prime Minister of Crawley, Ed Miliband,
55:46sat before those lamps he's often sat before
55:48to explain how much he'd been influenced
55:50by the famously dynamic leader.
55:52The world will miss him very deeply.
55:56He was the inspirational figure of our age.
55:59Do you think he hated Britain?
56:00Meanwhile, in fictional London, the BBC's EastEnders
56:03also paid its own moving tribute to an inspirational man
56:06none of its characters had ever mentioned before.
56:08Do you know, when they let him out,
56:10he was just sat in front of the television all day and cried.
56:14That must have been a boring f***ing episode.
56:17Still, not everyone was a fan,
56:18such as notorious Fox News blowhard Bill O'Reilly,
56:21who tempered his praise with a warning.
56:23He was a great man, but he was a communist.
56:27Black and red? That's the worst.
56:29A few days later, world leaders jetted into South Africa
56:32to appear at Mandela's memorial service.
56:34Highlights included shots of Tony Blair
56:36sitting awkwardly like a spare prick at a wedding.
56:38The Danish PM and star of Borgen was clearly worried
56:41that sitting next to the US president at the memorial service
56:44of one of the most important figures of the 20th century,
56:47nobody might take any pictures,
56:49so she instigated a selfie that became instantly notorious.
56:52The three of them obviously had no idea how bad that might look,
56:55sensationally splashed across the front pages,
56:58so it's lucky they took a photo to check.
57:00But even that gaffe was overshadowed by the sign language debacle
57:03when it transpired this sign language translator
57:05was spouting meaningless gibberish,
57:07sort of free-form sign jazz.
57:09To be fair, it wasn't really his fault.
57:11When they'd asked him if he could do sign language,
57:13he had given them a very clear no.
57:15Finally, in moving scenes, the man himself was laid to rest,
57:18leaving behind a gaping void and the chilling realisation
57:21that with Mandela gone, the world's most popular political figure
57:24is currently Russell Brand.
57:26Did you know there once was an animal that had never seen Christmas?
57:30Not a Jewish bat, but a bear.
57:34Once again, John Lewis attempted to tug your heartstrings so hard
57:37your wallet fell out of your pocket,
57:39with this finely-tuned, sentimental cartoon bullshit story
57:42of woodland creatures celebrating Christmas just like animals don't.
57:46It's basically about a bear that has its hibernation routine
57:49ruined by a selfish rabbit.
57:51He'll die now, his metabolism's fucked.
57:53And as many pointed out, it was visually reminiscent of Watership Town,
57:56although not quite reminiscent enough for my liking,
57:59because Watership Town is actually one of the most brutal depictions
58:02of nature's godless cruelty it's possible to imagine.
58:05And if only their advert had ended like this,
58:07it would have made for the best Christmas campaign ever.
58:10Supermarkets, meanwhile, tried using domestic nostalgia
58:13to wash away the lingering taste of horse meat,
58:15either with actual home movies, as in Sainsbury's documentary-style offering,
58:19or simulated home movies, as in this depressing Tesco mini-epic,
58:22which is supposed to be uplifting,
58:24although really, whizzing through a couple's life in 30 seconds
58:27actually only makes you contemplate the fleeting, transient pointlessness
58:30of all life on Earth.
58:32Mind you, I suppose reducing a human life to a commercial is a slight improvement
58:35on reducing a horse's life to a burger.
58:38It's all very well, all this feel-good chumminess,
58:41but I'll tell you whose Christmas home movies with the family I'd rather see.
58:44Kim Jong-un's.
58:46Anyway, that was 2013. We got through it together, didn't we?
58:49Anyway, I hope you'll join me again in January
58:52for Weekly Wife, you will, won't you?
58:54Until then, get out!
59:08This programme contains strong language and adult humour
59:11which is not suitable for young viewers.
59:14Adult humour is not suitable for young viewers.
59:17Adult humour is not suitable for young viewers.
59:20Adult humour is not suitable for young viewers.