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00:00:00There was this sort of review of the year type thing that was on for a while,
00:00:04hosted by this man who was sad and angry about everything for no reason at all.
00:00:09It started in 2010 when the news made clear the worst things that happened were a lady
00:00:14putting a cat in a bin and another lady being called a bigot by Gordon Brown.
00:00:20That's the only reason Brexit happened by the way.
00:00:23Anyway, the review programme went on for years,
00:00:26not literally, I mean it was on once a year, I'm not stupid.
00:00:30God knows how they kept it going because there was hardly anything happening in the world at the time.
00:00:35The last one was in 2016 when they ran out of material because there was no news that year.
00:00:40And anyway, the grumpy bloke was wasting his time making some other show about
00:00:44how iPhones are a load of bollocks or something.
00:00:47But now to celebrate the end of the decade, the BBC got some sellotape
00:00:51and took some of the bits they can still legally clear and stuck them together
00:00:54and asked me to introduce it by saying this at the start,
00:00:58after which they'll cut to the opening credits, I expect.
00:01:03Any minute now.
00:01:06You'd hope.
00:01:24Hello, I'm Charlie Brooker and you're watching 2010 Wipe,
00:01:31a programme all about things both real and televised that happened this year.
00:01:35And it was a year of confusing and unexpected events.
00:01:38Our bewildered nation experienced a general election which nobody won,
00:01:42had its holiday plans thwarted by an Icelandic volcano,
00:01:45and saw bemusing footage of revered author Salman Rushdie
00:01:48answering showbiz questions while playing ping-pong on The One Show.
00:01:51Strictly or X Factor?
00:01:53X Factor.
00:01:54EastEnders or Coronation Street?
00:01:58EastEnders or Coronation Street?
00:01:59EastEnders.
00:02:00OK.
00:02:00May heralded the general election.
00:02:02Everybody went voting mad.
00:02:04The first debate was staged by ITV on a set resembling a cheap 90s game show.
00:02:08During the debate, the three contestants did their best to appear human,
00:02:12but it was mysterious stranger Nick Clegg who impressed most
00:02:15by referring to members of the audience by name,
00:02:17like a teacher taking morning register.
00:02:19Whether it's on the questions from Alan on care,
00:02:22Jacqueline on crime,
00:02:24Helen on politics,
00:02:25Joel on schooling,
00:02:27Robert on the deficit,
00:02:29I believe we can answer all of those questions.
00:02:32Afterwards, rather than relying on our own silly minds
00:02:35to work out what we thought about the debates,
00:02:36the news had gathered representative viewers
00:02:38and given them handheld widgets that let them register their approval
00:02:41or otherwise on a second-by-second basis.
00:02:44Watch as David Cameron says immigration is too high.
00:02:48These last ten years, and it does need to come down.
00:02:51I think the pressures that we've put on housing and health and education
00:02:54have been too great.
00:02:56All of which effectively turned the whole debate
00:02:58into a sort of reaction-surfing video game.
00:03:00This obsession with the opinion worm
00:03:02marked the point at which the news media finally gave up
00:03:05pretending modern politics is about anything other
00:03:07than how you come across in the immediate moment.
00:03:09And to sledgehammer that point home,
00:03:11on the BBC's flagship political fart kitchen this week,
00:03:14Louis Spence turned up to talk about how the debates had gone.
00:03:17I've never voted in my life,
00:03:18but the one who gives the best performance is Clegg.
00:03:21Come the big night itself,
00:03:22the news crews moved into the biggest, most bombastic spaces available.
00:03:26It was a good night for silly graphics,
00:03:27such as ITV's comedy Xbox Live avatars,
00:03:30shown here depicting the leaders.
00:03:32But no amount of whizzy visuals could disguise the fact
00:03:34that no concrete result was coming at all.
00:03:37It was as though democracy itself was hopelessly constipated.
00:03:41With no clear winner, the news was stuck in an existential limbo,
00:03:44with presenters and reporters left up for days
00:03:47in the political equivalent of a four-day narcotic bender.
00:03:50While Labour and the Tories both tried to woo Clegg behind closed doors outside,
00:03:54everything seemed to be going slightly mad.
00:04:08Finally, after forever, the deal was done.
00:04:10Brown left Downing Street,
00:04:11magically transforming himself into a human as he went,
00:04:14and Clegg and Cameron cosied up
00:04:16and went all Brokeback Mountain in the Rose Garden.
00:04:19It's good, right, having a coalition government,
00:04:21because instead of being run by a load of MPs who all agree with each other,
00:04:25it's like Britain's being run by a sort of supergroup
00:04:28of two totally different musical acts.
00:04:30Like, if Boney M and Razorlight got together.
00:04:33You know, challenging.
00:04:34It's a bit odd now they're together for the good of humankind and that.
00:04:38It's like when two lonely people who've never found love
00:04:41decide they might as well get together as a couple
00:04:44and force themselves to have sex.
00:04:46But, like, the coalition's a laugh, right?
00:04:48They put this little boy in charge of the money.
00:04:51He's called George and he's, like, 14.
00:04:54He's mental, right?
00:04:55It's basically, he's wheeled out this spending review thing,
00:04:58which is like a list of all the things we can't afford anymore.
00:05:01Like, you know, schools made of gold or scroungers or basic human dignity.
00:05:07The politics used to be boring and stable,
00:05:09but the coalition, like, kept you guessing.
00:05:11Like, Clegg said, he'd scrap tuition fees, but completely.
00:05:16And now he's raising them.
00:05:17So you don't know what he's going to do next, which is brilliant.
00:05:20Because he might, like, loot Cardiff.
00:05:22Or, I don't know, like, stick a new potato up his arse on Newsnight.
00:05:25You just don't know.
00:05:26It's genius.
00:05:27He's like Freddie Star or something, you know, mad.
00:05:31The year started well for Britain with the triumph of grandiose nostalgic
00:05:35tongue twister-mup The King's Speech,
00:05:37which starred smouldering Colin Firth as Mr George King,
00:05:40a sovereign whose mouth wouldn't do what it was told,
00:05:42and Helena Bonham Carter as the empire's first quilf.
00:05:45The bulk of the film is a sort of Rocky for stammerers,
00:05:49as George King overcomes several hurdles
00:05:51and gradually learns to smile and speak like a human being
00:05:54instead of an excruciatingly buffering podcast.
00:05:57It all builds towards a glorious finale in which Timothy Spall,
00:06:00playing Baron Greenback, the royals and a shitload of meaningless plebs
00:06:03gather to hear Mr George King deliver a very important speech,
00:06:05during which he absolutely can't drop below 60 words per minute
00:06:08or the bomb on the bus will explode.
00:06:10Something like that, anyway.
00:06:11I nodded off for a bit in the middle section, to be honest.
00:06:13Thing is, since that speech is the one he gave
00:06:16announcing the advent of World War II,
00:06:18it's a bit like a feel-good movie about a doctor
00:06:20who overcomes his fear of x-rays in order to diagnose your death.
00:06:24Come on, King, tell them about the advent of World War II.
00:06:26Come on.
00:06:27Come on, announce their doom.
00:06:28You can do it.
00:06:29Come on.
00:06:29You can do it.
00:06:30With God's help, we shall prevail.
00:06:37Yes, he did it!
00:06:38Yes, he announced the advent of World War II,
00:06:40during which 450,000 Britons lost their lives and millions were butchered worldwide.
00:06:44Hooray!
00:06:44Hooray for George King!
00:06:46Yay!
00:06:47Anyway, in summary, good film.
00:06:48You know, a bit dorky.
00:06:51Meanwhile, in foreign lands, Tunisia was getting a bit fighty.
00:06:55Way back in 2010, the average Briton only knew two things about Tunisia.
00:06:59One, it was where they filmed Star Wars.
00:07:01And two, that was all we knew about Tunisia.
00:07:04As you could see from the footage, Tunisia seemed like a great holiday destination.
00:07:08I mean, look at it.
00:07:09It's got a lovely beach, idyllic sunset, massive bloody fire.
00:07:15Yes, Tunisia's sunspot status had quickly changed
00:07:17when thousands took to the streets in protest
00:07:19after a desperate young vegetable seller set himself on fire,
00:07:23an act of tomatodom that sent shockwaves across the Arab world.
00:07:26Soon, Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali,
00:07:29whose name sounds a bit like a can of springs bouncing down a staircase,
00:07:32was toppled and became merely the first in a cut-out-and-keep series
00:07:35of badly-dyed despots who got the heave-ho this year.
00:07:38Before long, the despot-toppling craze was sweeping through the Arab world
00:07:42like the norovirus on a cruise ship.
00:07:44And next up was Egypt, which was run by this man, Hosni Mubarak,
00:07:47played here by the Count from Sesame Street.
00:07:49Mubarak was generally acknowledged by the West to be a bit of a tyrant,
00:07:52whose zany resistance-crushing affectations were tolerated
00:07:55because he brought stability to the region.
00:07:58And as February arrived, we could see just how stable he was making things.
00:08:02In a normal year, a revolution in Egypt would be the biggest story,
00:08:05but 2011 wasn't a normal year,
00:08:07more like an end-of-season finale for all of mankind.
00:08:10And as Mubarak left the stage,
00:08:12Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi began feeling the heat.
00:08:15To millions, Gaddafi was a hilarious cartoon character from the 80s,
00:08:18like Alf or Garfield, only slightly less plausible.
00:08:21The West regarded him as a bad guy on account of his links to very bad events.
00:08:25Then, like many 80s icons, a few decades later,
00:08:28Gaddafi reinvented himself for a new audience with an ironic nice-guy act,
00:08:32which earned him this passionate roadside snog from Tony Blair.
00:08:35But millions of Libyans didn't find him quite so sexy,
00:08:38and suddenly emboldened by what had happened in Tunisia and Egypt,
00:08:40they too rose up to cue a brutal crackdown which led to these tragic scenes.
00:08:45When rumours spread that Gaddafi had fled to Venezuela,
00:08:48he appeared on TV to deny it in a surreal Vic and Bob-style sketch,
00:08:52expertly captured for posterity by Sky News.
00:08:56Rest assured, oh, it's raining.
00:08:58I was going to talk with the youth in Green Square
00:09:00and spend the night with them tonight, but it's raining, and that's a good omen.
00:09:04So I just want to show them that I am in Tripoli and not in Venezuela.
00:09:09Don't believe the broadcasts of those stray dogs.
00:09:12Bye.
00:09:12Yeah, bye, you mad prick.
00:09:15April, and what could be better to take the nation's mind
00:09:18off the background stench of doom than a feel-good royal wedding?
00:09:22The BBC rolled out a glossy advert proving it would be watched
00:09:25by both stars and plebs.
00:09:26They milked the build-up for all it was worth,
00:09:28conducting a series of hard-hitting interviews with royal experts
00:09:31to see what they made of it all.
00:09:32Experts like this.
00:09:34Young Matilda here.
00:09:35Hello, are you excited about this?
00:09:37Yes, I am.
00:09:38Yes?
00:09:38Yes.
00:09:40And do you think Kate will be a nice princess?
00:09:41Yes.
00:09:42Yes?
00:09:42Yes.
00:09:43And she's very pretty, isn't she?
00:09:44Yes, she is.
00:09:45Yes.
00:09:46Well, well done, you.
00:09:47Have a lovely day.
00:09:48Come the day itself, there was wall-to-wall coverage
00:09:50as Kate got out of a hotel into a car which drove down a road
00:09:52and then stopped and then she got out of the car,
00:09:54revealing her dress,
00:09:55which made some crowd members almost spew with joy.
00:09:57Personally, I was glued to my screen throughout the day,
00:09:59not because of the wedding,
00:10:00but because I was playing Portal 2,
00:10:02one of the best video games ever.
00:10:04I mean, why waste my afternoon watching Ben Fogel get married
00:10:07when I could be clambering through teleportation holes
00:10:09I've just shot in the wall?
00:10:10Meanwhile, everyone else seemed to be watching
00:10:12a global rear-of-the-year contest
00:10:14as Kate's sister Pippa stole the show by owning buttocks.
00:10:17You'd have thought she stuck her bum in the font
00:10:19given the amount of coverage it got.
00:10:21And the US networks were even more butt-happy
00:10:23with breathless report after breathless report.
00:10:25There were even sinister features
00:10:27in which viewers were told how to get a booty
00:10:29like Pippa's using surgery.
00:10:32You asked women,
00:10:34would you like a sexier, curvaceous buttock?
00:10:38That'd almost be an overwhelming yes.
00:10:41As July arrived, the phone hacking saga
00:10:43suddenly became a horror story.
00:10:45Throughout the year, the story had been gaining momentum.
00:10:47Trouble is, no one really cared
00:10:48if the tabloids were hacking the phones of celebrities.
00:10:51They're not even real people.
00:10:52They're probably a form of animated pate.
00:10:54Even if they'd got stories by waterboarding soap stars,
00:10:56no one would mind.
00:10:57Are you pregnant?
00:10:58Yes or no?
00:10:58Are you pregnant?
00:10:59Are you up the duff?
00:11:00Yeah.
00:11:00Have you got a bun in the oven?
00:11:01Yeah.
00:11:02But then on July the 4th, the story broke,
00:11:04which changed everything.
00:11:06More revelations in the news of the world hacking scandal.
00:11:09It's accused of intercepting Millie Dowler's phone.
00:11:12Never again could the paper be seen
00:11:13as a cheerfully vile bit of crinkly bog roll
00:11:15that was cruel to celebs.
00:11:17Now it was cruel to real people.
00:11:19The incredible thing is the story got worse.
00:11:21The shocking, grim headlines kept coming.
00:11:24It was as if the paper was locked in a deadly game
00:11:26of one-downsmanship with itself.
00:11:28It was actually quicker to list victims of tragedy
00:11:30who weren't involved.
00:11:31I'm surprised the cast of The Poseidon Adventure
00:11:33weren't on the list.
00:11:34Later in the year, the Guardian admitted
00:11:36the Screws probably hadn't deleted Millie's voicemails.
00:11:38Whoopsie-daisy.
00:11:39But they had accessed them,
00:11:40and it's fair to say people weren't impressed.
00:11:42Being a tabloid reporter has never been seen
00:11:44as the most noble of professions, of course,
00:11:46but suddenly it was a career on a par
00:11:48with necrophiliac porn wrangler,
00:11:50and it didn't help that virtually the only person
00:11:52stepping up to defend the Red Tops
00:11:53was former Screws hack and walking ethical vacuum
00:11:56in a shabby jacket, Paul McMullen.
00:11:58I've always said that I've just tried to write articles
00:12:01in a truthful way, and what better source
00:12:03of getting the truth is to listen to someone's messages.
00:12:07Now that might sound frivolous, but...
00:12:09But it's also immoral?
00:12:11I have to say, I think you're a walking PR disaster
00:12:13for the tabloids, because you don't come across
00:12:15in a sympathetic way.
00:12:16You come across as a sort of risible individual.
00:12:19God, that is amazing of Steve Coogan,
00:12:21to be able to play both Alan Partridge
00:12:23and Paul McMullen in the same room at the same time.
00:12:26Because we'll no longer be able to expose silly celebrities
00:12:29for taking coke and cheating on their wives,
00:12:32which, to be honest, I always found a bit of fun.
00:12:35And, you know...
00:12:36Everyone had a go at it.
00:12:37Liverpudlians.
00:12:38You have to ask me who I was before,
00:12:40so you start saying I was exposed,
00:12:41because you didn't even know I was or what I'd done.
00:12:43Former colleagues.
00:12:45Those people who've been thrown out of work
00:12:46because of things like you and previous people
00:12:49and besmirched the name of a good paper.
00:12:52Hugh Grant.
00:12:53Your only motive was profit.
00:12:54You're not journalists, you have no interest in journalism.
00:12:57It's just money, money, money.
00:12:58Now, you should try real journalism,
00:12:59because you're not an idiot, Paul.
00:13:01You could probably do it.
00:13:02He had to eat more shit than David Walliams
00:13:04swimming up the Thames.
00:13:05It was a profoundly depressing sight.
00:13:06You could watch him getting shabbier and shabbier
00:13:08as time wore on, limping from studio to studio,
00:13:11like he was just trying to keep warm
00:13:12until viewers began texting in,
00:13:14desperately trying to vote him off.
00:13:16Although I moved up, so my phone's beeping.
00:13:18So I'll just turn that off.
00:13:20Oh, he's still there.
00:13:22I mean, I'd leave him a voicemail,
00:13:23but I don't know if he'd listen to it.
00:13:25August is traditionally a quiet month in terms of events,
00:13:28but 2011 had other plans.
00:13:30Following the shooting of Mark Duggan by police,
00:13:32feelings were running high in Tottenham, North London.
00:13:35And when a Saturday afternoon protest demonstration
00:13:37turned violent, TV quickly filled with disturbing scenes
00:13:40of wanton destruction and furious crowds.
00:13:42You know, just like it does at the start of a zombie film.
00:13:45At other times, it resembled one of the thrilling
00:13:47bonus stages from Street Fighter II.
00:13:50Nothing was safe, and that included the camera crews.
00:13:54There are no riot police officers around at the moment.
00:13:57They are further down the road,
00:13:59dealing with somebody just attacked our camera.
00:14:05The following morning, TV screens were full
00:14:07of depressing images of burnt out buildings and a dead bus.
00:14:10But it was far from over.
00:14:11Over the next few days, trouble broke out in other areas,
00:14:14and alongside the window smashing
00:14:16came more and more footage of looting.
00:14:18The violence and hysteria seemed to be spreading
00:14:20in an almost viral manner.
00:14:22Again, just like in a zombie film.
00:14:24In fact, at times, things look more like a zombie film
00:14:26than most zombie films.
00:14:28The unreal apocalyptic feel carried through
00:14:30into the endless helicopter coverage,
00:14:32which was starting to resemble
00:14:33the most depressing Command and Conquer level ever designed.
00:14:36Even from this vulture's perspective,
00:14:38the brazen lack of respect some of the rioters
00:14:40were showing the police was startling to watch live.
00:14:42In fact, it wasn't just violent, it was downright cheeky.
00:14:46That incident actually led to one of the most bizarre
00:14:48identity parades in British criminal history.
00:14:51Just take your time.
00:14:53Anything unfamiliar?
00:14:57Maybe number three?
00:14:59Number three.
00:15:02As time wore on, the trouble spread even further.
00:15:04It was as if some kind of lawlessness gas had been released.
00:15:07Disturbing footage showed Croydon was now twinned
00:15:09with the eye of Sauron,
00:15:11while in Clapham Junction, Sky reporter Mark Stone
00:15:13was busy capturing unprecedented scenes
00:15:15of pixelated anarchy on his smartphone.
00:15:18Mind you, you've got to hand it to whoever fitted
00:15:19that bracket to the wall.
00:15:20They did a heck of a job.
00:15:22He also held impromptu interviews with alleged looters
00:15:24with their faces covered.
00:15:26These are a couple of people who appear to have been at it.
00:15:28What, um, what's up?
00:15:31No, I'm just, I live here.
00:15:32I'm just astounded at what you're doing.
00:15:35You're getting your taxes back.
00:15:37Fair enough.
00:15:37They probably will need taxes back
00:15:39considering how much stuff they carry.
00:15:41Trouble was, much of the live coverage
00:15:42depicted shops being looted,
00:15:44with no one apparently coming to stop it.
00:15:46It was almost like a commercial
00:15:47advertising the ultimate giveaway sale.
00:15:49Kicking off now, it's Britain's most terrifying sale.
00:15:52Yes, it's August Monday madness.
00:15:54Thousands of prices and windows smashed.
00:15:56Get your hands on Top Name Brands
00:15:58or anything else that's lying around.
00:15:59Plasma screens were £750, now no pounds.
00:16:03Trainers were £79, now no pounds.
00:16:06Basmati rice was £8.99, now no 99.
00:16:10First come, first served.
00:16:11If you can get it off the wall, it's yours.
00:16:13Get this TV now and receive an increased sentence absolutely free.
00:16:16Branches in Hackney, Ealing, Croydon, Clapham Junction
00:16:19and coming soon to Manchester.
00:16:21See Rolling News for details.
00:16:22Must end soon.
00:16:23Please, God, let it end soon.
00:16:25Over the following weeks,
00:16:26the media went into a full-blown hand-wringing exercise
00:16:29trying to work out why the giddy heck the riots had happened.
00:16:32Thing is, it seemed to me the riots actually just hardened
00:16:34whatever opinion you'd had beforehand.
00:16:36Masked youths blamed anger and anger.
00:16:39What do you think drove the people
00:16:40that smashed this place up last night?
00:16:42What was in their minds?
00:16:43Anger, innit? Anger as well.
00:16:46Grown men blamed the big society.
00:16:48It's a big society.
00:16:49It's a load of crap.
00:16:50What we say.
00:16:52The big society's not worth ten bob.
00:16:54On civilised Sky News,
00:16:56posh people blamed people from the estates.
00:16:58I think it's just people from local estates.
00:17:01And arseholes on horrible US shitcasts blamed immigrants.
00:17:04Many of them are immigrants.
00:17:06Many of them can't speak the language.
00:17:08Of course they're going to be unemployed.
00:17:10In an unusually angry news night,
00:17:12which had even had its windows kicked out,
00:17:14David Starkey seemed to join in, blaming race.
00:17:17The whites have become black.
00:17:19A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic,
00:17:24gangster culture has become the fashion.
00:17:27Yeah, black people, it's all your fault,
00:17:29even when you're trying to fool us by not being black.
00:17:32I mean, look at this white black bastard.
00:17:34How dare he?
00:17:35White as the ace of spades.
00:17:36Boo, go back to Africa or Surrey.
00:17:39Throughout the year, things had been somewhat hairy down Gaddafi way.
00:17:43A sort of world leader supergroup had launched Operation Odyssey Dawn,
00:17:46a prog-rock military campaign supporting the Libyan rebels.
00:17:49Interesting fact, Berlusconi only took part
00:17:51because he thought it was a plan to invade Labia.
00:17:53Now with NATO assistance,
00:17:55the Libyan rebels played a sort of tug-of-war
00:17:57with Gaddafi's forces along a thousand-mile stretch
00:17:59between Tripoli and Benghazi.
00:18:01What this meant was that despite hours of nail-biting footage
00:18:04of reporters dodging bullets...
00:18:06They were rebel vehicles.
00:18:11For the average viewer, it all got a bit confusing.
00:18:14I mean, I know I'm broadly meant to be on the side of the rebels,
00:18:17but in terms of narrative, this is all over the place.
00:18:20It's all map this and map that,
00:18:23different flags, different place names.
00:18:25I mean, keep it simple, for God's sake.
00:18:28And the amount of ammo they're getting through is just mental.
00:18:30I wouldn't be surprised if they caused a global lead shortage.
00:18:33Look, the news just showed them shooting everything.
00:18:35It was bloody chaos.
00:18:39They even seem to have declared war on the sky.
00:18:43Seriously, the average lifespan of a Libyan sparrow
00:18:45must have plummeted to about 15 seconds.
00:18:48It was fun for the onlookers, though,
00:18:49who could be seen taking photos of everything
00:18:51like they were at Alton Towers.
00:18:52Eventually, in September,
00:18:53the rebels made a final advance into Tripoli.
00:18:55And Sky News's Alex Crawford,
00:18:57who'd got a heck of a scoop broadcasting live
00:18:59from the back of a rebel vehicle,
00:19:00was first on the scene as Gaddafi's compound was overrun.
00:19:03She even conducted a fun interview
00:19:05with a guy who'd swiped Gaddafi's hat
00:19:06and some of the bling from his bedroom.
00:19:08I was like, oh, my God, I'm in Gaddafi's room.
00:19:12Oh, my God.
00:19:13But even as Gaddafi's compound was being turned
00:19:16into a sort of adventure playground
00:19:17and people dissed his image in the streets,
00:19:20there was no sign of Gaddafi himself.
00:19:22And as September became October,
00:19:23it looked like he might never be seen again until he was.
00:19:27Yes, when his convoy was intercepted,
00:19:29Gaddafi sought shelter in a tunnel under the road
00:19:31and might not have been caught
00:19:32if only he hadn't started bloody tweeting about it.
00:19:35What happened next was one of the most nightmarish images
00:19:38of the year and things only got worse.
00:19:41We show these pictures with a warning
00:19:42that the video contains images of Gaddafi's dead,
00:19:46bloodied body from the start.
00:19:48The pictures are graphic and may be distressing to watch.
00:19:51Come on, how bad can it be?
00:19:53So this is how it ended,
00:19:54the body of Muammar Gaddafi lying in a freezer.
00:19:57There was no respite down the newsagents the following day.
00:20:00It's odd that newspapers won't print nipples on the front cover,
00:20:02but a triumphant photo of a dead man, that's okay.
00:20:05So many people wanted to have a Facebook snap of Gaddafi's body,
00:20:08it was kept in cold storage till it started to go off.
00:20:11Still, let's not judge, if he died in Britain,
00:20:13they'd have put him on a slab
00:20:14in the middle of the Westfield shopping centre.
00:20:16We used to believe if someone took your photo with a camera,
00:20:19it would steal part of your soul.
00:20:20Watch the news today and it looks like the people taking the photos
00:20:23are the ones who've had part of their soul stolen.
00:20:26There was this book, 50 Shades of Grey,
00:20:29which was clever because it was for normal people and perverts,
00:20:33like how Harry Potter's for kids and adults.
00:20:36It was quite violent,
00:20:36it should have been called Seven Shades of Shit, really.
00:20:39The woman who wrote it was on Newsnight
00:20:41and Paul Mason listed some of his favourite bits
00:20:45and that was quite a turn on actually,
00:20:48Paul Mason saying all that.
00:20:49Fisting, anal intercourse, genital clamps, ripping.
00:20:55I rewound it and watched it again.
00:20:57Fisting, anal intercourse, genital clamps, ripping.
00:21:03And one more time after that.
00:21:05Fisting, anal intercourse, genital clamps, ripping.
00:21:11No one actually wants more, come to think of it.
00:21:14Fisting, anal intercourse, genital clamps, ripping.
00:21:19I'm trying to set it as a ringtone.
00:21:22This March, humankind was saved forever
00:21:24as an inspiring charity video got everyone online
00:21:27talking about Joseph Kony,
00:21:29a profoundly horrible African warlord with an army of child soldiers.
00:21:35It was a slick, heavily graphically stylised video
00:21:38in which a charismatic, idealistic filmmaker named Jason Russell
00:21:42evangelised about how the best way to stop Joseph Kony
00:21:45was to make him famous
00:21:46so politicians would be forced to pay attention and stop him.
00:21:49And how were they going to stop him?
00:21:52We'll get back to you on that one.
00:21:53Retweeted by celebrities, the video went big,
00:21:55becoming the most viewed YouTube clip since Two Cat Bin Lady's One Cup.
00:21:5970 million views in just five days,
00:22:01a comparison the news was mightily impressed by.
00:22:03For comparison, it took singing sensation Susan Boyle
00:22:06seven days to reach that mark
00:22:08and the old Spice Guy five months.
00:22:11If only they'd kidnapped children.
00:22:13Meanwhile, critics said the film was so crudely oversimplified
00:22:16it may as well have claimed Joseph Kony
00:22:18was literally whittling children into bullets
00:22:20and firing them at defenceless unicorns.
00:22:22Is he the bad guy?
00:22:24Yeah.
00:22:24Furthermore, some voices worried that the charity responsible Invisible Children
00:22:28seemed to be spending lots of the money it raised
00:22:30making glitzy videos that raised awareness of what, exactly?
00:22:34These glossy videos were all over the internet,
00:22:37videos that posed questions.
00:22:38Questions like, why did they make this slick high school musical number
00:22:41that doesn't really have much to do with Uganda
00:22:43but apparently lots to do with their dance fantasies?
00:22:46We are here to change the world.
00:22:50Gonna change the world.
00:22:52And what the leaping great joinkers
00:22:54was the deal with the odd-sounding Fourth Estate spin-off youth camp event
00:22:57they'd organised, promoted via an unsettling,
00:23:00some might say creepy, set of videos
00:23:02apparently promising some kind of global revolution?
00:23:05We will come together to map out a new revolution.
00:23:09You will say it all started at the Fourth Estate
00:23:12because it will.
00:23:14Sadly, before these questions could be answered,
00:23:16Invisible Children co-founder Jason Russell
00:23:19starred in a more upsetting follow-up viral video
00:23:21that was analysed in depressing detail by gossip mongers.
00:23:25Jason hit the streets of San Diego
00:23:27naked, cursing, smacking the pavement and screaming about the devil.
00:23:31And tragically for Joseph Kony,
00:23:33he was soon knocked off the top of the viral pop charts
00:23:36and there's no chance of him getting back up there,
00:23:38at least until he teaches his child army how to dance gangnam style.
00:23:42Gangnam style.
00:23:44This year, one of mankind's worst fears was realised
00:23:46as a formidable new viral threat emerged in Asia.
00:23:51This harrowing footage depicts the first recorded victim,
00:23:54a South Korean entertainer known only as Psy,
00:23:57as he succumbed to the contagion's trademark spasms.
00:24:00Victims of gangnam style exhibited several distinctive convulsions,
00:24:03crossed wrists, upper arm seizures,
00:24:06a compulsion to trot like a horse
00:24:08and a dramatic series of side-to-side leg contractions
00:24:10which left the victim looking like a confused drunk
00:24:13desperately trying to shake a turd down their trouser leg.
00:24:16Soon gangnam style was spreading across the region at a bewildering pace
00:24:19as chilling recordings of the agonised contortions of its victims
00:24:22made devastatingly clear.
00:24:24It swept through the Thai navy
00:24:26and infected thousands of prisoners in the Philippines.
00:24:29Like your mum has.
00:24:30But the outbreak was largely contained
00:24:32until patient zero was inexplicably allowed out of quarantine
00:24:36to infect regions worldwide.
00:24:38It's the name that is on everyone's lips.
00:24:40Lord Macalpine?
00:24:41It's Psy!
00:24:44Yes, as this effervescent X Factor moment firmly demonstrated,
00:24:47few were immune to the condition, not even former Spice Girls.
00:24:56In upsetting scenes broadcast live on US TV,
00:24:58Britney Spears also succumbed
00:25:00while Simon Cowell looked on powerless to do anything but laugh.
00:25:03Madonna also fell prey,
00:25:05offering inspiring proof that even 97-year-olds can do the gangnam style.
00:25:09Sky News caught the chilling moment
00:25:11the condition reached the UN and Ban Ki-moon himself succumbed,
00:25:14hailing gangnam style as a potential harbinger of world peace,
00:25:17saying,
00:25:18In this era of instability and intolerance,
00:25:20we need to promote better understanding through the power of music.
00:25:23Although shortly after he said that,
00:25:24it turned out Psy hadn't always been peace-minded
00:25:27and the news could scarcely hide its disappointments.
00:25:30It has now come out that in his younger days,
00:25:33Psy engaged in some vitriolic anti-Americanism.
00:25:37Psy performed at a protest concert.
00:25:39Singing along to another band song called Dear American,
00:25:42including these lyrics,
00:25:44Kill those bleeping Yankees who've been torturing Iraqi captives.
00:25:48Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers.
00:25:52Still, look on the bright side,
00:25:53he'll presumably kill them gangnam style.
00:25:58So much of 2012 have been so miserable so far,
00:26:01we were conditioned to expect the inevitable crapness of everything
00:26:04and the Olympics were clearly going to be nothing but bad news.
00:26:08For one thing, we couldn't afford it.
00:26:10The country didn't have a pot to piss in apart from Plymouth.
00:26:13The weather.
00:26:14Yeah, the weather was going to be awful as well.
00:26:16It had rained consistently throughout the summer.
00:26:19The country was being waterboarded, basically.
00:26:21There was moss growing on the inside of clouds.
00:26:23The ticketing system didn't work.
00:26:25London's transport network was completely knackered.
00:26:28Absolutely tortured.
00:26:30People, they haven't got a clue what they're doing.
00:26:32And security.
00:26:33Yes, security was all a bollocks.
00:26:35They had to call the army in
00:26:36and they immediately went mental
00:26:38and started positioning surface-to-air missiles on anything over chest height.
00:26:41When the flame made its way to the stadium,
00:26:43it might as well be lighting a bomb fuse.
00:26:46That flame was already touring the country,
00:26:48where it was being carried by many goodwill ambassadors
00:26:50and one bad will.i.am.
00:26:52Yes, it's dick you is again,
00:26:54texting and moonwalking while carrying the thing.
00:26:56You know, I'm not sure quite why I find him so irritating,
00:26:59but I think I've narrowed it down to this little bit in his hair.
00:27:02Lots of different cheery celebrities carried the torch.
00:27:05This showbiz knight struck a familiar pose on the site of the 1908 Olympics,
00:27:10which he'd attended as an old man.
00:27:12An Olympics fever was being accompanied by plenty of gaudy advertising,
00:27:17as you could see from the coverage,
00:27:18which gave rise to another complaint about the games,
00:27:21that they were clearly going to be nothing
00:27:23but a depressing logo-strewn corporate egg and spoon contest.
00:27:27The nation's ad breaks creeped with one patronising
00:27:30faux-inspirational propaganda movie after another,
00:27:32with legendary Olympians and Paralympians pimping goods
00:27:35and occasionally farting out corporate insignia willy-nilly,
00:27:38as apparently random products and services jostled desperately
00:27:42to associate themselves with that wholesome Olympic glow.
00:27:45Given all this, the Olympics were clearly going to be ghastly.
00:27:47And as the opening ceremony loomed,
00:27:49smartasses everywhere tried to work out what the emoticon for sneering was.
00:27:54Of course, in the event, Danny Boyle's opening show
00:27:56was a heartwarming spectacle that made everyone in the country intensely patriotic.
00:28:01The coverage of the opening ceremony was amazing.
00:28:03It wasn't just the most spectacular broadcast ever.
00:28:06It was educational, because it taught you all about British history.
00:28:09Like, how we started out as primitive Morris dancers and cricket people,
00:28:14all living in this field.
00:28:15And then Abraham Lincoln turned up and started shouting at everyone.
00:28:18And like chimneys grew out of the ground,
00:28:20rising up like big sort of penises made out of bricks.
00:28:24And it showed you how the Victorians invented Gangnam Style,
00:28:27and how we got invaded by the people from the Quality Street tint.
00:28:30And how the Mafia turned up to help us, but they were black.
00:28:33And then this volcano went off, and we hit the lava with hammers,
00:28:37until it flew in the air and turned into the Olympics.
00:28:40And I didn't know any of that actually happened, but it had all actually happened.
00:28:44The next morning, it was as if we cautiously realised that maybe,
00:28:48since we hadn't totally ballsed the ceremony up,
00:28:50maybe the rest of the games would be okay too.
00:28:53Usually, I find watching any sport less interesting than watching, say, cardboard exist.
00:28:58But for some reason, I couldn't stop watching the Olympics.
00:29:01I think it's because I'm a nerd, and it reminded me of video games,
00:29:04thanks to the video game-style cutscene the BBC displayed whenever its coverage booted up.
00:29:09And the electric colour tones, and crisp overlaid graphics showing who was in which lane.
00:29:14And the high score table, and the Tron-style fencing tournaments.
00:29:18And the velodrome coverage, which looked like Battle of the Planets on wheels.
00:29:21And the occasional weightlifting competitor,
00:29:23who looked like an ender level boss, who might suddenly lob a boulder at you or something.
00:29:27And of course, thanks to the new Olympic tradition of doing signature gestures,
00:29:30like Usain Bolt's thingamajig, or the Mobot.
00:29:34Yes, the presence of the cameras prompted many athletes to perform a fancy starting move
00:29:38before their event a bit, like the pre-fight animation for a character from the video game Tekken.
00:29:43The cameras captured many pre-bout player animations.
00:29:46There was the rearing tiger, the sinister squint, the burst hemorrhoid,
00:29:50the who-the-bloody-hell-are-you looking at,
00:29:52and the I'm-gonna-rip-my-nipples-off-and-throw-them-at-the-crowd.
00:29:55In fact, the only one missing was Gangnam Style.
00:29:58As well as looking like a game, it was a game we were good at.
00:30:01The blanket coverage presented us with a wealth of fresh-faced,
00:30:04clean-living British youngsters apparently fixated on being the very best they could be.
00:30:09Bastards.
00:30:09People started talking about what inspiring role models
00:30:12the Olympics were providing for a whole generation for once.
00:30:16I mean, compare them to the sort of gaudy role models our youth are usually presented with,
00:30:20like the nihilistic, boozy attention addicts on MTV's raucous,
00:30:23sex-intriguing reality shows Geordie Shore and The Valleys.
00:30:27Patricia's gone crazy. She keeps pulling up my skirt and flashing my foof.
00:30:33I'm not having that, so I shove an ice cube in her knickers.
00:30:38And another one up her arsehole.
00:30:40At last, thanks to the Olympics,
00:30:41our young folk were being represented by genuine achievers.
00:30:44They weren't dedicating their lives to pointless nonsense.
00:30:47They were doing real things, like jumping over a bar into some sand,
00:30:51or throwing a disc or a stick really well once every four years.
00:30:57Athletics provided many high points in the already euphoric coverage,
00:31:01such as the moment Mo Farah pulled off a spectacular win in the 10,000 metres,
00:31:05after which a nation held its breath,
00:31:07hoping you wouldn't roll into the phlegm freshly flobbed onto the track by a fellow athlete.
00:31:12All our fears had been unfounded.
00:31:14The weather was great, the systems worked,
00:31:16and it didn't feel like a big corporate shindig because it was all on the ad-free BBC.
00:31:20In fact, the only thing being advertised was Britain.
00:31:23The schedules heaved with emotive, triumphant, romantic, slow-motion montages,
00:31:28which managed to somehow mythologise the games before they were even quite over.
00:31:32Our patriotism was now at a peak.
00:31:34There was nothing the UK couldn't do.
00:31:36We were invincible.
00:31:37We were unstoppable.
00:31:38We were superior.
00:31:40F*** off, Frenchmen!
00:31:41F*** off, German!
00:31:42F*** off, American!
00:31:43We could do World War II all over again in our sleep if we wanted.
00:31:47We were the best nation on Earth.
00:31:48Anything we put our mind to, we could achieve.
00:31:58Then we had the Paralympics, which also defied expectations
00:32:01by being about 10,000 times better than many were expecting.
00:32:05In fact, if anything, they were better than the Olympics
00:32:07because half these sports hadn't received anything like this much jubilant coverage before,
00:32:11and the athletes were truly inspiring.
00:32:13The Paralympics changed the way we looked at disability forever.
00:32:17For instance, now when I see someone in a wheelchair, I think, bloody show-off.
00:32:21Almost every single aspect of the coverage was brilliantly life-affirming.
00:32:25For instance, here we see a man who lost both his charisma and respect
00:32:28in a tragic voting accident, triumphing in the 500 decibel boom.
00:32:33Chancellor of the Exchequer.
00:32:35They hate me. They really hate me.
00:32:39Thanks to the Olympics, millions of young people now dreamed of receiving a medal.
00:32:42It was just the same when I was a kid,
00:32:44except back then, the medals we coveted were being handed out
00:32:47by a sort of blonde-haired, wind-blasted skeleton beast.
00:32:52Jimmy Savile.
00:32:54For decades, Jimmy Savile was a TV legend,
00:32:57a garish and eccentric frontman of almost unparalleled weirdness.
00:33:00Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Top of the Pops.
00:33:04Looking at Savile shows from the archives is an unsettling experience now
00:33:07because of everything that's happened since.
00:33:09It feels a bit like sifting through evidence.
00:33:11Take his signature show, Jim'll Fix It,
00:33:13in which he ostensibly made children's dreams come true.
00:33:16It was the format that was the real star here.
00:33:18As a host, Savile didn't really display much charisma,
00:33:21more a kind of disconnected eeriness.
00:33:24That was always my memory of Jim'll Fix It,
00:33:26that it was like a funfair run by an off-putting scarecrow.
00:33:29By the late 90s, Savile's TV career was effectively over
00:33:32and he'd become a weird, marginalised figure,
00:33:35famously profiled by Louis Theroux in a surprisingly revealing documentary.
00:33:39Are you basically saying that, so tabloids don't, you know,
00:33:43pursue this whole, uh, is he, isn't he a paedophile line, basically?
00:33:48Yes, yes, yes.
00:33:49Oh, aye.
00:33:50How do they know whether I am or not?
00:33:52How does anybody know whether I am?
00:33:53Nobody knows whether I am or not.
00:33:55I know I'm not.
00:33:56When Savile died and his gold casket was driven through Leeds,
00:33:59thousands lined the streets, ostensibly to say goodbye,
00:34:02but possibly just to check he was definitely dead.
00:34:05And then this year it turned out he might not have been as innocent
00:34:07as almost no one thought he was.
00:34:10A television documentary will this week claim
00:34:12that the late broadcaster Sir Jimmy Savile
00:34:14sexually abused schoolgirls in the 1970s.
00:34:17Always the quiet ones, isn't it?
00:34:19Rumours about Savile had circulated for decades.
00:34:22Now, roughly a year after his death,
00:34:23ITV broadcast a documentary that would sink his reputation for good.
00:34:27It contained plenty of upsetting and powerful testimony
00:34:30from alleged victims of Savile,
00:34:32as well as inherently creepy reconstructions of allegations
00:34:35almost too grim for the human mind to cope with.
00:34:38And the bad news for human mind owners
00:34:41was that over the following weeks,
00:34:43you were going to hear a lot more about it.
00:34:45The accompanying stories grew even more appalling.
00:34:48There were even allegations he'd had sex with corpses.
00:34:51Tuning into the news became like riding an endless looping ghost train
00:34:54with this creepy cadaverous monster
00:34:56perpetually leering toward you through the gloom,
00:34:58the news ticker scrolling in front of him like police incident tape.
00:35:01Actually, I'm pretty sure Savile only had any kind of TV career at all,
00:35:05because back in the 70s,
00:35:06TVs were tiny and people kept them on the other side of the room.
00:35:10So he was physically horrible,
00:35:12but he was only about the size of a jacket potato
00:35:14and he was way over there, so it didn't really bother you.
00:35:17Faced with the heinous allegations,
00:35:19the BBC immediately launched a far-reaching comprehensive f*** up.
00:35:23First, new DG George Entwistle tried to wow reporters
00:35:26with his fancy bartending skills.
00:35:29God, it's like watching Tom Cruise in cocktail.
00:35:31Then, in a masochistic move,
00:35:33BBC1 ran a panorama investigating Newsnight,
00:35:36while simultaneously on BBC2,
00:35:38Newsnight was commenting on Panorama's investigation into itself.
00:35:42As you watch this, Panorama on BBC1
00:35:45is broadcasting interviews with members of the Newsnight team.
00:35:48And if you press the red button now,
00:35:50Newsround investigates Watchdog,
00:35:52while Watchdog asks,
00:35:53was there a country file ring at the BBC?
00:35:56In the wake of recent massacres,
00:35:57America has been asking itself searching questions
00:36:00about its apparent addiction to guns.
00:36:02There are now so many tragic mass shootings,
00:36:04they actually air public information films
00:36:06telling you how to survive.
00:36:08I'm not making this up.
00:36:17It may feel like just another day at the office.
00:36:21But occasionally, life feels more like an action movie than reality.
00:36:27This helpful video,
00:36:28which looks a bit like the most harrowing episode
00:36:30of The American Office ever made,
00:36:32teaches you how to react if a man with a shotgun
00:36:34goes berserk in your workplace.
00:36:36Apparently, you should run.
00:36:37If you can't run, you should hide.
00:36:39And if you can't hide, well...
00:36:42And commit to taking the shooter down,
00:36:45no matter what.
00:36:48Disgraceful.
00:36:49Look at that.
00:36:49There's four of them and only one of him.
00:36:51Cowards!
00:36:52Looking at this,
00:36:53it's little wonder the calls for tighter gun controls are growing louder.
00:36:56Well, they have to be loud to be heard
00:36:58over the constant sound of gunfire and screaming.
00:37:00It's a hot-button issue that's livened up
00:37:02Piers Morgan's CNN show considerably,
00:37:04as pro-gun guests turn up to shout at him.
00:37:07And I'm here to tell you,
00:37:081776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms.
00:37:12The whole thing's become a sort of interactive game show
00:37:15where the viewer has to decide who the biggest prick is.
00:37:17I don't know, is it the shouty prick or the slimy prick?
00:37:20I just don't know.
00:37:22This week, thousands marched on Washington
00:37:24to call for stricter gun control.
00:37:25We will not step back!
00:37:29I wish you would.
00:37:30I can hear you from here and I'm in Britain.
00:37:33But gun control faces an uphill struggle
00:37:35because some sections of US society seem to love guns
00:37:38more than their own children and they feel under threat.
00:37:42If only gun owners had some means of defending themselves.
00:37:45Fox News did their bit for trigger lovers
00:37:47with a QVC-style rundown of some of the most popular killing machines on the market,
00:37:51showcased by a hot Marx woman,
00:37:53seen here demonstrating the type of gun used in the Sandy Hook massacre.
00:37:57Probably one of the most popular rifles in the US right now,
00:38:00thanks to all the media attention.
00:38:01Yeah, you know what?
00:38:02I don't know that the media coverage has made it popular with everyone.
00:38:05Everyone says it's so big and scary,
00:38:07but that's simply, these are cosmetic features
00:38:10that have no bearing on the firearms functions at all.
00:38:13Although, just to be clear, those firearms functions will kill you.
00:38:17My five-year-old nephew harvested his first deer
00:38:20about a month ago with my competition rifle
00:38:22and he was able to make this fit him.
00:38:24There you go.
00:38:25So simple a child could use it, but not outrun it.
00:38:28Still, the young guns do start young in the US
00:38:30and their guns aren't quite so cosmetically terrifying
00:38:33as Five News graphically demonstrated.
00:38:35This one is pinky.
00:38:37It's my pink .22 AR-15.
00:38:41And then this one is pinkalicious, my pink .22 chambered pistol.
00:38:47But not all kids like guns.
00:38:48In emotive scenes on CNN, Obama announced his plans for gun control,
00:38:52flanked by children who'd contacted him to ask him to do something.
00:38:55You know, in the letter that Julia wrote me, she said,
00:39:00I know that laws have to be passed by Congress,
00:39:04but I beg you to try very hard.
00:39:08Julia, I will try very hard.
00:39:10Oh, brave move.
00:39:11Resurrecting the gym will fix it format in this day and age.
00:39:15Very good evening from Rome,
00:39:16where Pope Benedict has stunned the Roman Catholic Church
00:39:19by announcing his resignation today.
00:39:21Yes, Pope Benedict XVI suddenly decided he'd done quite enough
00:39:25poping for one lifetime, thank you,
00:39:27and quit using the withdrawal method,
00:39:29i.e. pulling out unexpectedly and leaving a bit of a mess to clean up.
00:39:32Pope-liking members of the public were so shocked,
00:39:35they couldn't help but say so.
00:39:39Oh, I'm so shocked.
00:39:42While others simply refused to believe it was true,
00:39:44going through three of the seven stages of grief in the space of one soundbite.
00:39:48You're jogging?
00:39:50The Pope?
00:39:52Oh, my God.
00:39:54The news immediately began guessing who the next Pope would be,
00:39:57profiling the hopefuls until the screen began to resemble a sticker album
00:40:00dedicated to the oldest, most sexless boy band in history.
00:40:03Soon afterwards, in March,
00:40:05the Vatican set about p-p-p-picking that Pope,
00:40:08the only way it knew how, slowly.
00:40:10Since the Pope pickers were locked somewhere indoors
00:40:12trying to work out who'd look best in a Pope hat,
00:40:14the news had to train its cameras on the Vatican's spokesman,
00:40:18who, because the Catholic Church is normal and modern, is a chimney.
00:40:21And thus the news morphed seamlessly into 24-hour Chimney Watch.
00:40:25There is the chimney.
00:40:26Keeping its gaze trained on a flue,
00:40:28waiting for the right coloured smoke to belch out.
00:40:30Most of the time, nothing was happening,
00:40:31the undisputed high point being this thrilling moment
00:40:34when a seagull landed on the chimney.
00:40:36Seagull has no idea that it's part of history.
00:40:39Yeah, that's how seagulls work, mate.
00:40:41Jesus, Chimney Watch just hasn't been the same since Bill Odie left.
00:40:45That's white smoke.
00:40:46Is that white smoke?
00:40:48Finally, after two whole days of furious teasing,
00:40:50the Cardinals made hot white gobbets shoot from the pipe,
00:40:53just like your mum does.
00:40:54And then, following the ceremonial handing over
00:40:57of the papal Twitter account password,
00:40:59out popped the new Pope, captured expertly by Vatican TV,
00:41:02performing his first miracle by managing to look like Jim Bowen
00:41:05and Woody Allen at the same time.
00:41:07As you can see, everyone was absolutely frigging delighted,
00:41:10except me, because I had a bet on that
00:41:12he was going to regenerate as Peter Capaldi.
00:41:14Oh, fiddlesticks.
00:41:16It was a good year for natural history,
00:41:17with the BBC unveiling Africa,
00:41:19a sumptuous exploration of the expansive and diverse continent,
00:41:23expertly showcasing its incredible variety of picturesque wildlife.
00:41:26But this was nothing compared to the inspiring sweep
00:41:29of Channel 4's intensely moving Dogging Tales,
00:41:32a story of everyday folk who have sex with strangers in car parks.
00:41:36As well as life-affirming footage of tender acts of physical love
00:41:39happening somewhere between a tree and some bins,
00:41:41it featured heart-rending testimony from the people behind the grunts,
00:41:44their identities disguised but not their tattoos,
00:41:46as they outlined their ceremonial preparations.
00:41:50Namely squirting a bit of lynx around the old armpits.
00:41:52Can't beat it.
00:41:55That and juke.
00:41:58Yeah, juke's pretty good at masking the smell of bracken and semen.
00:42:01It even says that on the bottle.
00:42:03Hopefully this coldness, like, you know...
00:42:08It's getting there.
00:42:09It is getting there.
00:42:10It takes time because it's cold, isn't it?
00:42:11Yeah.
00:42:12It was all visually reminiscent of one of 2013's most popular viral videos,
00:42:16a quirkily entertaining comic song which posed the question,
00:42:19what does the fox say?
00:42:26But Dogging Tales revealed precisely what the fox says,
00:42:30because it asked him.
00:42:32Do you feel like you're hunting for something?
00:42:35Yeah, the furry triangle.
00:42:39Oh, wish I'd never asked.
00:42:41Politics is languishing in a stale funk, a bit like a soap in its 86th year,
00:42:46one that's run out of ideas and is stuck with a cast list everyone's sick of.
00:42:50Nick Clegg's a phone-in host, moonlighting as deputy PM,
00:42:53David Cameron looks like Angela Lansbury wearing a fleshy man suit,
00:42:56and Ed Miliband has thus far failed to inspire the population
00:42:59as anyone who saw Channel 4's coverage of his campaigning in Crawley can vouch for.
00:43:03He wants to be prime minister.
00:43:04Oh, does he? Of Crawley?
00:43:06No, no, prime minister of the country.
00:43:08Oh, Jesus.
00:43:10Little wonder people embrace almost any alternative to footage of Nigel Farage.
00:43:14Guffawing Admiral Ackbar look-alike,
00:43:16pint-magnet and man-of-the-people impersonator Nigel Farage
00:43:19impressed a sizeable chunk of the voting population
00:43:21with his non-racist, un-racist,
00:43:23racist-less, absolutely-not-racist party UKIP,
00:43:26whose members, when interviewed, routinely described themselves as not racist.
00:43:30Totally unprompted, they brought up the issue of race.
00:43:33We are not, close it, racist. We're not racist at all.
00:43:36As do their supporters.
00:43:38We've got some good policies, I think.
00:43:39Such as?
00:43:40Immigration.
00:43:42I'm not being racist, but, you know.
00:43:44Why do they keep having to say they're not racist?
00:43:46Maybe they're defensive because, as the coverage made clear,
00:43:49even casual passers-by keep accusing them of being racists.
00:43:52Oh, and homophobes.
00:43:53Racist, homophobes.
00:43:55Homophobes?
00:43:56That man says racist and homophobes.
00:43:57Does he? Well, there we are.
00:43:59I don't think we're homophobes.
00:44:00Despite such hiccups, UKIP did well in May's local elections,
00:44:03winning 150 seats and seriously spooking the other parties.
00:44:07But with startling speed, Operation UKIP started to look a bit wobbly.
00:44:11During a tour of Edinburgh, which looked exactly the way he always imagined it did,
00:44:15Farage learned his everyman charm didn't function north of the border,
00:44:18as depicted in uncomfortable scenes on Channel 4 News,
00:44:21when a group of ill-wishers serenaded him with some traditional folk-off songs.
00:44:31Sensing change in the air, the media began subjecting the party to more scrutiny,
00:44:35even asking UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom to defend Farage's trademark lifestyle.
00:44:40Perhaps he smokes and drinks too much as well.
00:44:44Well, he's never pretended to be a priest,
00:44:46and if you don't mind me suggesting that,
00:44:47I regard that as a rather impertinent remark.
00:44:50Well...
00:44:51How dare you suggest he should smoke or drink?
00:44:53What the hell has it got to do with you?
00:44:56A robust defence there, although it soon transpired that Bloom,
00:44:59a sort of blustering sitcom colonel from a previous century,
00:45:02who'd fallen through time, wound up here and was furious about it,
00:45:05the very last person Farage needed speaking up on his behalf.
00:45:09Soon, Bloom had whammed his ruddy foot in it
00:45:11when news cameras caught him referring to a colourful imaginary kingdom
00:45:14that lives in his head and steals his money.
00:45:15And how we can possibly be giving a billion pounds a month
00:45:18when we're in this sort of debt to Bongo Bongo Land is completely beyond me.
00:45:24And you can see more of Godfrey Bloom's hilarious non-PC routines
00:45:28on his official stand-up DVD.
00:45:30Apparently bemused to discover the phrase Bongo Bongo Land was offensive in the future,
00:45:34Bloom popped up in an illuminating interview on Channel 4 News
00:45:37to apologise in the most unapologetic way imaginable.
00:45:40Nigel Farage clearly thinks Bongo Bongo Land is a racist phrase, doesn't he?
00:45:45I think he does, and again, it's a generation thing.
00:45:47You know, I'm an older man and I don't see it that way.
00:45:50But if he tells me so, it must be so.
00:45:52And so you still don't understand why it is?
00:45:57No.
00:45:58But impossibly, even worse was to come.
00:46:00By now, Farage was doing his best to reinvigorate interest in UKIP,
00:46:04with a grand conference in front of impressed news cameras,
00:46:07including an inspiring star turn from Neil Hamilton.
00:46:10So it's counters the wheel, noses the grindstone.
00:46:14Let's go forward to victory!
00:46:16But this stirring scene was overshadowed by Naughty Boots Godfrey again,
00:46:20who was recorded using the word sluts at a UKIP meeting,
00:46:23which then dominated the news coverage.
00:46:25I tell you, I've never cleaned behind my feet in my life.
00:46:28I told you it was sluts!
00:46:33Bloom later explained that once again,
00:46:34he'd misplaced his past to present translation dictionary
00:46:37and had fallen victim to the language barrier.
00:46:39He explained to the BBC's Newsnight that he meant
00:46:42the very old-fashioned meaning of the word slut.
00:46:44It means that, you know, you're untidy, you leave your kit lying around.
00:46:48Has your mother never called you a slut?
00:46:49No, I don't think she has.
00:46:51Perhaps you're very tidy.
00:46:52By now, it was clear Bloom was box office gold for the news,
00:46:55but box office poison for UKIP.
00:46:57And when Channel 4's hilarious professional goader Michael Crick
00:47:00followed him up the street to ask why there were no black faces
00:47:02on the UKIP manifesto, Bloom went full Hulk.
00:47:05You, sir, are a racist!
00:47:07Why am I racist for saying there aren't any black people?
00:47:10And you've checked out the colour of people's faces?
00:47:13Disgraceful! You're disgraceful!
00:47:15Of course, he was actually thwacking Crick
00:47:17in the traditional old-fashioned sense of a thwacking,
00:47:19the kind of playful admonishment you'd dish out to a slut from Bongo Bongo Land.
00:47:24By now, as the news impassively recorded,
00:47:26Bloom's boss, Farage, had to sadly acknowledge
00:47:28his conference had been spoiled while playing an invisible bongo.
00:47:32We cannot have any one individual destroying UKIP's national conference.
00:47:38And with that, Godfrey was finally cast out into the dark,
00:47:41or Bongo Bongo Land, as he probably calls it.
00:47:44There was this programme called Broken Bad,
00:47:47sort of like a chemistry programme,
00:47:49but with acting in it to keep the science interesting.
00:47:53It was really good, like, really atmospheric,
00:47:56and it was presented by this bloke who was sort of clever,
00:47:59but, like, a bit ill. Like, I think he had a cold or something.
00:48:04Sometimes he'd be coughing, and you'd think,
00:48:07shouldn't they just wait to film this when he's better?
00:48:12It was a bit like Top Gear, but for drugs.
00:48:15And so he was like Jeremy Clarkson,
00:48:17and he had this funny little sidekick who was like his Richard Hammond,
00:48:20but who got all depressed because of some relationship problem or something,
00:48:24where his girlfriend got a stomach bug and then just lay around in bed.
00:48:27The main bloke kept making crystals,
00:48:30a bit like my auntie who had this shop in Stafford
00:48:32selling crystals and dreamcatchers and things.
00:48:35But he made loads of money out of it,
00:48:37whereas my auntie had to close her shop in 2009
00:48:40because it never really caught on.
00:48:42He was mental, this presenter.
00:48:44Like, you never knew what he was going to do next, you know?
00:48:46Like, one minute, he'd be running around in his pants,
00:48:48and then he'd cut all his hair off,
00:48:50or, like, turn up in a sort of silly hat,
00:48:52or in a sort of plastic dungarees.
00:48:54It was proper bonkers,
00:48:55like Chris Evans used to be on A Big Breakfast.
00:48:58You had to watch it because everyone was watching it.
00:49:01So if you weren't watching it,
00:49:02people who were watching it kept saying,
00:49:04are you watching it?
00:49:05And you'd have to say, no, I'm not watching it.
00:49:08But you'd think, I should be watching it.
00:49:10So then you'd start watching it, and then you'd be like,
00:49:12why am I watching this?
00:49:14Because for a chemistry show, it's really sad.
00:49:18When Amanda Berry escaped from the house
00:49:20where she'd been held captive for a decade,
00:49:22along with Georgina DeJesus and Michelle Knight,
00:49:24the news had a dilemma.
00:49:26It was a feel-good rescue narrative,
00:49:28but it was inexorably tethered to an unimaginably grim tale
00:49:31of rape and imprisonment almost too depressing to contemplate.
00:49:34But fortunately, it came with a side order of light relief
00:49:37in the form of one of the rescuers.
00:49:39I knew something was wrong
00:49:40when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms.
00:49:44Something is wrong here.
00:49:46Dead giveaway.
00:49:47Dead giveaway.
00:49:48This was Charles Ramsey, a local character and born performer,
00:49:51who was soon amusing viewers
00:49:52with his distinctive ghetto-speak soundbites.
00:49:55You got some big testicles to pull this off, bro,
00:49:58because we see this dude every day.
00:50:00Inevitably, broadcasters seized on this one bright spark
00:50:03in an otherwise dark story,
00:50:04and Ramsey became an overnight star,
00:50:06according to the ultimate tribute modern society has to offer,
00:50:09an amusing auto-tuned internet tribute of his own.
00:50:12I knew something was wrong
00:50:13when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms.
00:50:16Dead giveaway.
00:50:18Dead giveaway.
00:50:19I never got big testicles,
00:50:21because we see this dude every day.
00:50:23But with the women thankfully recovering in private,
00:50:25Ramsey had become the focus of the story,
00:50:27dragged from interview to interview,
00:50:28in which hosts repeatedly hailed him as a hero,
00:50:30despite him constantly trying to say he wasn't.
00:50:33When they keep saying I'm a hero,
00:50:34let me tell you something,
00:50:35I'm American and I'm a human being.
00:50:38I'm just like you.
00:50:39Soon he was appearing bleary-eyed on Good Morning America,
00:50:42not quite performing as well as expected,
00:50:44and viewers began to wonder what he was doing in the spotlight.
00:50:46How you feeling?
00:50:48I'm happy, I mean, you know, I'm, you know.
00:50:51At which point the media apparently turned on him,
00:50:53trying to disprove his story.
00:50:55Not everyone agrees with Charles Ramsey's account
00:50:57of what happened last Monday night.
00:50:58Some neighbours telling on the record
00:51:00the rescue went down differently.
00:51:01As well as uncovering unsavoury information about his past.
00:51:04You have been in jail.
00:51:08You got that right, Sherry.
00:51:09So there was a domestic violence?
00:51:11Who, my wife?
00:51:12Oh yeah.
00:51:13Basically, Charles Ramsey went through the trad celebrity career trajectory.
00:51:18Fame, worship, disappointment and then backlash in record time.
00:51:22Ramsey mania was all but extinguished after four days.
00:51:25We're getting more efficient at dismissing people, basically.
00:51:28By next year it should be possible to do it in just four hours.
00:51:31Quite often when you see who the guest is on this morning,
00:51:33you mutter Jesus Christ.
00:51:35Well, for one brief moment this summer, you'd have been right.
00:51:38That man there controversially claims that he is Jesus Christ
00:51:42and that 2,000 years after the crucifixion he's come back to earth.
00:51:46Not only that, have a look at this.
00:51:47The lady who's with him, that's his other half.
00:51:50She is Mary Magdalene.
00:51:51She says that's who she is.
00:51:52She says she remembers watching in horror
00:51:55as Jesus was nailed to the cross.
00:51:57We're talking 2,000 years ago.
00:52:00They believe it.
00:52:01Will you believe it?
00:52:02I don't even believe in the real made-up Jesus, Eamon.
00:52:05Let alone your weird made-up, made-up Jesus.
00:52:08And if you could put a question to Jesus, what would it be?
00:52:12Which is worse, crucifixion or this morning?
00:52:14Yes, in a hypnotic and potentially world-changing interview,
00:52:17it transpired Christ is a cross between Pat Cash and Cliff Richard
00:52:21and has returned to earth in the form of an annoying Australian.
00:52:24What do I call you?
00:52:25Do I call you Jesus, my Lord?
00:52:27What do I call you, AJ?
00:52:29Definitely not my Lord.
00:52:30I'm nobody's Lord.
00:52:32Just call me AJ or, like, my name is Jesus, obviously,
00:52:35but most people don't feel comfortable calling me Jesus.
00:52:38I'm comfortable calling you f***ing deluded.
00:52:40How does it feel, though, Jesus talking to us today
00:52:44and everybody watching at home and knowing
00:52:47that 99.9% of that audience are mocking you,
00:52:52are laughing at you, are saying,
00:52:54this man is bonkers?
00:52:56I don't know, Eamon, how does that feel?
00:52:59Is the second coming more difficult than the first coming?
00:53:02In my experience, yes, it is.
00:53:04There was this sort of anger-making programme called Benefit Street.
00:53:08It gave you a fascinating insight into the lives of these people
00:53:11who have got next to nothing so you could judge them.
00:53:14They weren't claiming benefits like an MP claims benefits
00:53:17or Prince Charles,
00:53:19but a different sort of benefits that they weren't entitled to
00:53:22because they were poor.
00:53:23Unemployed. Unemployed.
00:53:26Normally, when you see poor people,
00:53:28it's hard to judge them because you feel sort of empathy
00:53:30and you think, oh, dear, I hope humankind does something to help them.
00:53:34But this was clever because it stopped you feeling like that.
00:53:37When I was watching it, I felt sort of pity for the people in it,
00:53:40but when I went on Twitter, everyone was angry with them,
00:53:43so I thought, oh, I've got it wrong.
00:53:46I'd better join in with that.
00:53:47So then I wrote these little tweet things
00:53:50about how they were scum and bastards
00:53:53and how the government fucking shoots them
00:53:55and then stands over their bodies,
00:53:57pumping bullet after bullet into their Benefit scumbastard bodies.
00:54:01And I got, like, 20 new followers for that.
00:54:04So it was a pretty good programme, yeah.
00:54:07People say there's no community anymore,
00:54:09but watching that interesting show
00:54:11and joining in with everyone on the internet,
00:54:14hating them together,
00:54:15sort of outdoing each other to express how much hate you felt was amazing.
00:54:20I don't think I've ever felt so much like part of a huge group
00:54:24with all this fun anger surging through us.
00:54:27It really made me feel alive.
00:54:30Can't wait till next week's episode.
00:54:33Tonight at 10, more extreme weather on the way
00:54:36with strong winds and very high tides.
00:54:38Yes, in the words of Mr Dapper Laughs,
00:54:40Britain was proper moist as a merciless deluge of raindrops
00:54:43threatened to turn the country into a particularly shit reboot of Venice.
00:54:47The sea apparently had decided to take a gap year
00:54:49and go travelling around places it didn't belong,
00:54:51such as the land.
00:54:52And any immigrants who had come over here
00:54:54were probably regretting the decision,
00:54:56although they did seem to be making the most of it.
00:54:58I think we are getting better in this, you know?
00:55:01Now we have more experience.
00:55:03Typical, coming over here, breaking our brollies.
00:55:06Over in the USA meanwhile,
00:55:07they'd completely eclipsed our extreme weather
00:55:10with some extreme weather of their own,
00:55:12the polar vortex, which made Narnia look like the Bahamas.
00:55:15Some amateur scientists soon discovered
00:55:17that if you stood outside in these freezing temperatures
00:55:19and lobbed a load of boiling water into the air,
00:55:21it turned into instant snow.
00:55:23The magical results filled screens everywhere.
00:55:25And it soon transpired that boiling water plus idiots
00:55:28equals the keys to Chuckle Castle.
00:55:30Later in the month, following a night time road race in Miami,
00:55:33melodic pipsqueak Justin Bieber
00:55:35briefly went from world's most desired pop star
00:55:37to world's most wanted man.
00:55:38His disarmingly cheerful mugshot was all over the media
00:55:41and he was condemned as a bad influence.
00:55:43In astonishing scenes, one Brazilian TV host was so outraged,
00:55:47he held an on-air protest in which he improved
00:55:49Bieber's latest CD with his foot.
00:56:00Meanwhile, the world was shocked by an outbreak
00:56:04of what resembled 14th century combat
00:56:06in the present day in Ukraine, or the Ukraine.
00:56:09I never really know if it's the Ukraine or just Ukraine.
00:56:13Maybe that's what they're fighting about.
00:56:14Suddenly, news channels were brimming with unpleasant footage
00:56:17of a standoff between the government
00:56:18and pro-EU campaigners
00:56:20who were turning the center of Kiev
00:56:21into a cross between Mad Max
00:56:23and a live performance of Stomp
00:56:24that had spiraled completely out of control.
00:56:30STOMP
00:56:31STOMP
00:56:33STOMP
00:56:35STOMP
00:56:37STOMP
00:56:39STOMP
00:56:41STOMP
00:56:43STOMP
00:56:45STOMP
00:56:47STOMP
00:56:49Actually, it's really out of order, this, isn't it?
00:56:52In April, there was a jolly nice story
00:56:55about a jolly nice young man called George.
00:56:58Yes, the world's media joined Killium
00:56:59as they went touring down under
00:57:01with the Joffrey it's okay to love, Prince George.
00:57:03Mum and dad had a packed itinerary.
00:57:05They headbutted the locals, met some plebs,
00:57:08did some swinging,
00:57:09made direct eye contact with a man doing a shit,
00:57:12enjoyed the Australian remake of Mrs. Brown's Boys,
00:57:15and were underwhelmed by a rock.
00:57:17But no one really cared about them.
00:57:18The person they really wanted to see was Wickle Prince George.
00:57:21And just like any other royal,
00:57:23the news found his every move inherently fascinating.
00:57:25Prince George attended his first public engagement today,
00:57:29and he wasn't mucking about.
00:57:30Yes, he was.
00:57:31He wasn't afraid to assert himself.
00:57:33But then that's perfectly normal for an eight-month-old boy.
00:57:37So is crawling, which he probably learned from you.
00:57:39Afterwards, parents of other less regal
00:57:41and therefore ultimately unimportant infants
00:57:43were asked how they'd found their encounter
00:57:45with the superior baby.
00:57:47He sort of took control,
00:57:49went into the middle of the circle of toys.
00:57:51He hunted out the biggest toy,
00:57:53propped himself up,
00:57:54and, yeah, he owned the place, basically.
00:57:57That's because he does own the place.
00:57:58And you, and your kid, whatever it's called.
00:58:00It's not royal.
00:58:01Don't see why I should give a shit.
00:58:02Hey, do you remember being particularly happy this year?
00:58:06It's me neither.
00:58:07But apparently, we were.
00:58:17It all began when celebrity hat stand Farrell Williams' song,
00:58:20Happy, went viral.
00:58:21Deceptively bland at first,
00:58:23infuriatingly catchy after two listens,
00:58:25the toe-tapping clap-along earworm
00:58:26was taken to the globe's heart,
00:58:27probably because, unlike everything else in 2014,
00:58:30it expressed an emotion other than soul-crushing terror.
00:58:40This up-tempo reboot of If You're Happy
00:58:42and You Know It, clap your hands,
00:58:43quickly became unavoidable,
00:58:44with irrepressible happiness belting out of every radio,
00:58:47tinkling away in the background in every clothes shop,
00:58:50leaking from the headphones of the maniac
00:58:52sitting beside you on the train,
00:58:55and tootling from the radio
00:58:57as you accidentally reverse over your dog.
00:59:06There was no respite from the happy onslaught online either,
00:59:09as people uploaded videos of themselves being happy here,
00:59:11happy there, happy every pissing where.
00:59:13In especially happy scenes,
00:59:15Farrell himself, dressed as the ranger from Yogi Bear,
00:59:17was shown footage of the universal outpouring of happiness
00:59:20he'd inspired on Oprah,
00:59:21and his eyes did an emotional wee.
00:59:27If that upsets him, imagine how he'll feel
00:59:28when he finds out that rooms have ceilings and not roofs.
00:59:32But hang on, amidst all the global YouTube revelers
00:59:34was a number of Muslims,
00:59:36sharing videos of themselves dancing
00:59:37in a bid to overturn negative media stereotypes,
00:59:40and the news made clear that amongst them
00:59:42was a group of fun-loving Iranians
00:59:43who'd uploaded their own version, Happy in Tehran,
00:59:46with disastrous consequences.
00:59:48You all know the song
00:59:49that has become a global anthem for optimism,
00:59:51Happy by Farrell?
00:59:52Know it? I can't f***ing escape it.
00:59:54Well, some young fans from Iran decided to join the movement.
00:59:58Their irrepressible joy met with an ominous show of force.
01:00:02They rounded up and arrested the six dancers and the filmmaker.
01:00:06Yeah, well, they don't like Farrell in Iran.
01:00:08They prefer Shariah Carey.
01:00:12Throughout May, all the political parties
01:00:14were campaigning for the local and European elections
01:00:16being held at the end of the month.
01:00:18Although, as Channel 4 News made clear,
01:00:20not everyone was interested.
01:00:22Do you know about this by-election?
01:00:24No, I don't.
01:00:24Well, the local MP, Patrick Mercer,
01:00:27had to resign over a bit of scandal.
01:00:29Yeah, that's right.
01:00:29And so there's a new election now.
01:00:32Will you be voting in that?
01:00:33No, I don't vote nothing.
01:00:34You don't vote nothing?
01:00:35Two men who were interested were Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage,
01:00:38who drummed up interest by going head-to-head
01:00:40in a pair of live debates about Europe.
01:00:42If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.
01:00:47Sounds too good to be true.
01:00:48You know, that reminds me of the time 100 years ago in 2010
01:00:51when a younger, pluckier Clegg took part in debates
01:00:54for the Gruffalo and Iggle Piggle.
01:00:56Back then, he was the wildcard, the exciting outsider,
01:00:59fighting the system, the voice of ordinary people.
01:01:01Barack Hussein Clegg, bright-eyed embodiment of hope.
01:01:05Now, you're going to be told tonight by these two
01:01:07that the only choice you can make
01:01:09is between two old parties who've been running things for years.
01:01:14I'm here to persuade you that there is an alternative.
01:01:18Now, just four years later, here he was, the company man,
01:01:21tainted goods, defending the closed shop
01:01:23against a new wildcard man-of-the-people outsider,
01:01:26albeit the kind of outsider who thinks
01:01:28the country's got enough outsiders already.
01:01:29Part of Clegg's trouble is that as soon as you're part of the system,
01:01:32you're not a man of the people anymore,
01:01:33you're not relatable, and you don't even seem human.
01:01:36For instance, Robo Cameron, the optimist prime minister,
01:01:39consistently exhibits alarmingly stiff gestures and arm movements,
01:01:42like he needs oiling.
01:01:43He also has an odd habit of abruptly walking out of shot
01:01:45the moment he's had enough of talking to the media
01:01:48or uploading information to the pleb cloud,
01:01:50as he probably thinks of it.
01:01:51I think that is important.
01:01:53Where's he going?
01:01:54Those are the things we'll be discussing here today,
01:01:56and I'm hopeful of a positive outcome.
01:01:59Come back here!
01:02:00Don't just walk off with your hands in your pockets!
01:02:02Jesus Christ!
01:02:04Right now, the key thing is getting everything done that we can
01:02:07in the next few hours to protect as many homes and communities as possible.
01:02:10Once the army's gone...
01:02:12Thank you, Prime Minister.
01:02:14That was David Cameron there.
01:02:16It was late for a bus, by the looks of it.
01:02:18But Labour's Ed Miliband has the biggest image problem.
01:02:21Throughout 2014, poor old Miliband, a man with the face of a rubber ear
01:02:25and the voice of an enchanted plimsoll,
01:02:27looked and sounded awkward in every setting he appeared in.
01:02:30It's like he's been badly photoshopped into our world,
01:02:32and the more he strains to look normal doing everyday things,
01:02:36the less normal he looks.
01:02:37He looks at odds trying to drink a pint in a brewery.
01:02:40Great.
01:02:41He can't eat a bacon sandwich without looking like a man
01:02:43who's been neck-nominated to eat a live bat.
01:02:46He can't even look viewers of insipid breakfast TV in the eye
01:02:49without coming across like a slightly frightened robot.
01:02:51He's the only man on earth who manages to visibly shift uncomfortably
01:02:55in a still photograph.
01:02:57Into this void have poured people who were once considered fringe figures
01:03:00and are now hailed as a fresh solution, chief amongst them being UKIP.
01:03:03The odd thing about UKIP is that unlike the other parties,
01:03:06every gaffe they commit seems to make them stronger,
01:03:08and throughout the year they guffed out gaffes like a gaff-guffing garrison.
01:03:12One of their sponsors claimed women shouldn't wear trousers.
01:03:15Why should women dress to excite men?
01:03:16Because that's the only way the world is going to continue.
01:03:19If they don't, then men are going to stop f***ing them.
01:03:23When Lenny Henry complained about a lack of diversity in British television,
01:03:26which, speaking as a black woman, I thought was a ridiculous claim,
01:03:30one UKIP candidate said he should emigrate to a black country.
01:03:33He told me if black people come to this country
01:03:36and don't like mixing with white people, then why are they here?
01:03:40Given all this, little wonder whenever ubiquitous Nigel wasn't on screen
01:03:43guffawing over a pint, he was saying sorry for something,
01:03:46anything, over and over again.
01:03:49I regret the fact that I was sort of completely tired out,
01:03:54and I didn't choose, I didn't use the form of words in response
01:03:57that I would like to have used.
01:03:59Somehow, somebody in UKIP has made a very major error.
01:04:02This is our fault. It's the party's fault.
01:04:04Hands up. This kind of behaviour is unacceptable,
01:04:06and it must never happen again.
01:04:08UKIP leader Nigel Farage apologises in person to the Thai woman
01:04:12described as a ting-tong by one of his MEPs.
01:04:16But, you know, mega, mega apologies.
01:04:20Yet despite all this, UKIP's popularity continued to grow,
01:04:23and come the elections, they cleaned up.
01:04:25But who knows how long that'll last, since Farage, the alternative outsider,
01:04:28is already being challenged by another alternative outsider.
01:04:31But this man is not a cartoon character.
01:04:35He ain't Del Boy, he ain't Arthur Daly,
01:04:38he is a pound shop Enoch Powell, and we've got to watch him.
01:04:43Also in May, the BBC attempted to rally the nation with When Cordon Met Barlow,
01:04:48in which national treasure James Cordon...
01:04:50Hey!
01:04:51...met national treasure Gary Barlow in a bid to solve the mystery
01:04:54of how they both became national treasures.
01:04:56The end result was a dispiriting road trip in which Barlow did all the driving.
01:05:00I mean, he could have got a cab, but he prefers to avoid taxis.
01:05:03It was shot weirdly, too.
01:05:04At times, almost like a sort of odd couple romantic comedy
01:05:06in which the two leads sadly never kiss.
01:05:17Sometimes it was like watching an episode of The Royal Family
01:05:20or a Creature Comforts animation before they put the plaster scene in.
01:05:23What's been your proudest moment?
01:05:26I've got to say the OBE, haven't I, really?
01:05:28It's a good day.
01:05:29It has been the ultimate occasion, hasn't it?
01:05:34It was, it was a good day.
01:05:35Yeah.
01:05:36The best bit happened after, really, didn't it?
01:05:38Yeah.
01:05:39Because I'd made a stew at home.
01:05:42Right.
01:05:42So we raced home, we got the award, done the pictures,
01:05:46raced home, we all tucked into this stew that I'd made earlier, wolfed it.
01:05:51Although he is an incredibly accomplished musician, this is my favourite one of his.
01:05:55Look at that, total concentration.
01:05:57I mean, he's boring, but he's focused.
01:06:00Gets good in a minute.
01:06:01Probably still thinking about that stew.
01:06:03Look at him.
01:06:04Any minute now.
01:06:06Seriously, stick with it.
01:06:09It's going to get good.
01:06:12Good bit's coming up.
01:06:14I know how to improve this.
01:06:17Just add a bit of Ukrainian stomp.
01:06:28Uh, sorry, I completely forgot what I'm meant to be doing.
01:06:33Here's a personal view from documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis,
01:06:36the man behind The Power of Nightmares and the forthcoming Bitter Lake,
01:06:39on the chaos that seems to be engulfing everything.
01:06:43So much of the news this year has been hopeless, depressing and, above all, confusing.
01:06:49To which the only response is, oh dear.
01:06:53But what this film is going to suggest is that that defeatist response
01:06:57has become a central part of a new system of political control.
01:07:02And to understand how this is happening, you have to look to Russia
01:07:06and to a man called Vladislav Surkov, who is a hero of our time.
01:07:12Surkov is one of President Putin's advisers
01:07:16and has helped him maintain his power for 15 years.
01:07:19But he has done it in a very new way.
01:07:26He came originally from the avant-garde art world.
01:07:29And those who have studied his career say that what Surkov has done
01:07:33is import ideas from conceptual art into the very heart of politics.
01:07:39His aim is to undermine people's perception of the world,
01:07:43so they never know what is really happening.
01:07:45Surkov turned Russian politics into a bewildering,
01:07:48constantly changing piece of theatre.
01:07:52He sponsored all kinds of groups, from neo-Nazi skinheads
01:07:55to liberal human rights groups.
01:07:58He even backed parties that were opposed to President Putin.
01:08:02But the key thing was that Surkov then let it be known
01:08:06that this was what he was doing,
01:08:08which meant that no-one was sure what was real or fake.
01:08:11As one journalist put it,
01:08:13it's a strategy of power that keeps any opposition constantly confused.
01:08:18A ceaseless shape-shifting that is unstoppable because it's indefinable.
01:08:24Which is exactly what Surkov is alleged to have done in the Ukraine this year.
01:08:29In typical fashion, as the war began, Surkov published a short story
01:08:34about something he called non-linear war.
01:08:36A war where you never know what the enemy are really up to,
01:08:40or even who they are.
01:08:43The underlying aim, Surkov says, is not to win the war,
01:08:46but to use the conflict to create a constant state
01:08:49of destabilised perception, in order to manage and control.
01:08:54But maybe we have something similar emerging here in Britain.
01:08:59Everything we're told by journalists and politicians
01:09:01is based on the fact that the war is not a war.
01:09:04Everything we're told by journalists and politicians
01:09:07is confusing and contradictory.
01:09:09Of course, there is no Mr Surkov in charge,
01:09:12but it's an odd, non-linear world
01:09:14that plays into the hands of those in power.
01:09:17British troops have come home from Afghanistan,
01:09:20but nobody seems to know whether it was a victory,
01:09:22or whether it was a defeat.
01:09:25Ageing distrokies are prosecuted for crimes they committed decades ago,
01:09:29while practically no-one in the City of London
01:09:31is prosecuted for the endless financial crimes
01:09:34that are being revealed there.
01:09:36In Syria, we are told that President Assad is the evil enemy,
01:09:41but then his enemies turn out to be even more evil than him.
01:09:44So we bomb them, and by doing that,
01:09:47we help keep Assad in power.
01:09:50But the real epicentre of this non-linear world is the economy.
01:09:55And the closest we have to our own shape-shifting,
01:09:58post-modern politician is George Osborne.
01:10:01He tells us proudly that the economy is growing,
01:10:04but at the same time, wages are going down.
01:10:07He says he is cutting the deficit,
01:10:09but then it's revealed that the deficit is going up.
01:10:13But the dark heart of this shape-shifting world
01:10:16is quantitative easing.
01:10:19The government is insisting on taking billions of pounds
01:10:22out of the economy through its austerity programme.
01:10:25Yet at the very same time,
01:10:27it is pumping billions of pounds into the economy
01:10:30through quantitative easing.
01:10:32The equivalent of £24,000 for every family in Britain.
01:10:39But it gets even more confusing,
01:10:41because the Bank of England have admitted
01:10:43that those billions of pounds
01:10:44have not gone where they are supposed to.
01:10:47A vast amount of the money has actually found its way
01:10:50into the hands of the wealthiest 5% in Britain.
01:10:54It has been described as the biggest transfer of wealth
01:10:56to the rich in recent documented history.
01:11:01It could be a huge scandal,
01:11:02comparable to the greedy oligarchs in Russia.
01:11:06A ruthless elite,
01:11:07siphoning off billions of public money.
01:11:11But nobody seems to know.
01:11:14It sums up the strange mood of our time,
01:11:17where nothing really makes any coherent sense.
01:11:21We live with a constant vaudeville
01:11:22of contradictory stories that makes it impossible
01:11:25for any real opposition to emerge,
01:11:28because they can't counter it
01:11:30with a coherent narrative of their own.
01:11:34And it means that we as individuals
01:11:36become ever more powerless,
01:11:38unable to challenge anything,
01:11:40because we live in a state of confusion and uncertainty,
01:11:45to which the response is,
01:11:47oh dear,
01:11:49but that's what they want you to say.
01:11:56Horror on the streets of Paris,
01:11:58an Islamist massacre at a magazine,
01:12:00leaves 12 dead,
01:12:01and a nation in shock.
01:12:032015 had hardly begun
01:12:05when a shocking Islamist terror atrocity took place in France.
01:12:08News channels were suddenly plastered
01:12:10with three days of horror and bloodshed
01:12:11ending in a coordinated police assault.
01:12:13It left the world reeling.
01:12:15For a while, an outpouring of shock and sympathy
01:12:17led to a show of unity,
01:12:18with people all around the globe
01:12:20proudly declaring,
01:12:21Je suis Charlie.
01:12:22And I don't want to sound like a hipster here,
01:12:24but I was saying,
01:12:24Je suis Charlie,
01:12:25back when I was 11 years old in French class.
01:12:28A huge demonstration took place in Paris,
01:12:30with people of all creeds and colours
01:12:32coming together as one,
01:12:33as well as an entire Panini album's worth
01:12:35of prominent leaders
01:12:36showing their support
01:12:37in scenes closely resembling
01:12:39the world's most oppressing can-can.
01:12:40But would all this inspirational,
01:12:42hippy-dippy unity last long?
01:12:44No.
01:12:45Of course, what the terrorists want
01:12:47is for atrocities like this
01:12:48to goad everyone into picking up
01:12:50the same mental polarising goggles they use,
01:12:52which divide the world
01:12:53into simple clumps of goodies and baddies.
01:12:55In reality, of course,
01:12:56the world isn't black and white.
01:12:57More like Fifty Shades of Grey,
01:12:59a punishing story in which
01:13:00everything and everyone is f***ed.
01:13:02Across the ocean,
01:13:03the bombastic Fox News
01:13:04was already wearing
01:13:05simple polarising goggles of its own.
01:13:08We are being hunted,
01:13:08so how would you like for us to be protected?
01:13:10What message do you want to send?
01:13:11I think the best thing that Americans can do
01:13:13is arm themselves.
01:13:14Me too.
01:13:15How can Americans arm themselves
01:13:16more than they already are?
01:13:17What are they going to do?
01:13:18Glue guns to the end of their guns?
01:13:20Sometimes bad guys don't look like bad guys.
01:13:22Right, and that's my question about these guys,
01:13:24because if we know they were speaking
01:13:25unaccented French
01:13:26and they had, you know, ski masks on,
01:13:28do we even know what colour they were?
01:13:30What the tone of their skin was?
01:13:31I mean, what if they didn't look like
01:13:32typical bad guys?
01:13:33It's simple.
01:13:34You just don't open fire
01:13:35till you've identified them as bad guys
01:13:37from your handy pocket-sized
01:13:38skin-tone chart of evil.
01:13:39It's also available as an app.
01:13:41Hello and welcome to Justice.
01:13:43I'm Judge Jeanine Pirro.
01:13:44Thanks for being with us tonight.
01:13:47We need to kill them.
01:13:48What?
01:13:49We need to kill them.
01:13:51What, you and me?
01:13:53How are we going to do that?
01:13:54Bomb them.
01:13:56Bomb them.
01:13:57And bomb them again.
01:13:59Ironically, this is a bit like being
01:14:01radicalised by an ideological hate preacher
01:14:03in a slickly produced video.
01:14:05Some commentators weren't just concerned
01:14:06about Islamic terrorists,
01:14:08but the whole of Islam,
01:14:09claiming the Islamification of Europe
01:14:11had gone too far
01:14:12and it's time we drew a veil over it,
01:14:14then removed that veil and banned it.
01:14:16Fox News raised eyebrows
01:14:18by erroneously claiming
01:14:19Paris contains Islam-only no-go zones,
01:14:22then raised them even further
01:14:23with an astonishing exclusive
01:14:24revealing Britain's got no-go cities.
01:14:27In Britain, it's not just no-go zones.
01:14:29There are actual cities like Birmingham
01:14:32that are totally Muslim,
01:14:34where non-Muslims just simply don't go in.
01:14:36Yeah, Birmingham, phew, halal on earth.
01:14:39Other religions don't even get a look-in.
01:14:41There's only half a dozen Hindus.
01:14:42They're known as the Birmingham Sikhs.
01:14:44Anyway, as well as no-go zones
01:14:46that weren't there,
01:14:47questions were also raised
01:14:48about average everyday Muslims
01:14:49who didn't have anything to do with this.
01:14:51What did they have to do with this?
01:14:52Well, to find out,
01:14:53I've got one in the studio with me now.
01:14:55So, hey, representing all Muslims as you do,
01:14:57when are you lot going to do more
01:14:58to condemn the violence?
01:15:00Well, for some time now,
01:15:01many Muslims have spoken out
01:15:03against this type of violence.
01:15:04I can't hear you.
01:15:05Well, I'm actually trying to explain.
01:15:06I suppose I can take this as tacit approval.
01:15:08Tacit approval, everyone.
01:15:10Of course, the Paris atrocity
01:15:11wasn't just an attack on specific humans,
01:15:13but more widely on freedom of speech.
01:15:15It proved the pen may be mightier than the sword,
01:15:17but falters in round two
01:15:18went up against the Kalashnikov.
01:15:20Charlie Hebdo was an outspoken critic
01:15:22of more or less everything,
01:15:23every religion, including Islam,
01:15:25and had caused controversy in the past
01:15:26by featuring cartoons of the prophet Muhammad,
01:15:29something it defiantly did again.
01:15:31It was the most controversial cartoon since Scrappy-Doo,
01:15:34and it caused the news media a real problem.
01:15:36Should they show the cover or not show the cover?
01:15:39The end result was a game of cartoon prophet peekaboo,
01:15:41where the cover was almost, but not quite,
01:15:44pictured in full.
01:15:45Instead, it was pictured being bundled up,
01:15:47folded over on a news agent's counter,
01:15:49going for a ride with his buddies,
01:15:51and being carried at some distance
01:15:52by a French prime minister with a death wish.
01:15:55Sky News had a close call live on air
01:15:57when a former Charlie Hebdo employee
01:15:58tried to show it to their cameras.
01:16:00We cannot show a single drawing as that.
01:16:03With Mohammed at Sky News,
01:16:05we've chosen not to show that cover,
01:16:07so we would appreciate Caroline not showing that.
01:16:10I do apologise.
01:16:10Didn't realise Sky News is a non-profit organisation.
01:16:14Naturally, as a fearless satirical programme,
01:16:16we were going to show you
01:16:17the controversial front cover of Charlie Hebdo,
01:16:19but unfortunately, it's completely sold out.
01:16:22No, they managed to get one.
01:16:24Sorry?
01:16:24One of the runners got one.
01:16:25They didn't.
01:16:26They did.
01:16:27No, they didn't.
01:16:28Our backup plan was to print one out,
01:16:30but the bloody printer went and broke.
01:16:32Oh, no, IT fixed that.
01:16:33It was a bit weird, actually.
01:16:34Someone had wedged one of your socks into it.
01:16:36I hadn't.
01:16:36No, they didn't.
01:16:37Well, someone had.
01:16:38No, no, no.
01:16:39Actually, could you just fuck off?
01:16:41Because I'm trying to do the programme.
01:16:43Anyway, that's all academic,
01:16:44because we're waiting to hear
01:16:45whether we can show you it at all
01:16:47from the BBC legal department,
01:16:48and we've heard nothing.
01:16:49So we're powerless, thanks to those bloody cow...
01:16:52those bloody cowards.
01:16:53Typical bleeding heart, liberal BBC milk toast with a...
01:16:58Usually, people from Europe
01:16:59go off somewhere hot on holiday,
01:17:01but this year,
01:17:02loads of people from somewhere hot
01:17:03tried to come over here.
01:17:04You've got a swarm of people
01:17:06coming across the Mediterranean,
01:17:08seeking a better life.
01:17:09Normally, I think, fair enough,
01:17:11but when I read the papers,
01:17:12you could tell from the language they used
01:17:14that these weren't quite normal people.
01:17:16I mean, they look normal on the telly,
01:17:18but when you read about them,
01:17:19you realise they must have had insect DNA or something,
01:17:22because it sounded like
01:17:23there were sort of infestations swarming in.
01:17:25They couldn't have been real humans,
01:17:27because people were writing things about them
01:17:29that would be utterly unforgivable if they were.
01:17:32The people said there were migrants
01:17:33coming here in droves,
01:17:34which is interesting,
01:17:35because I've never heard of a country called Migratia,
01:17:38and I don't know what a drove is.
01:17:39The migrants couldn't hack it back home,
01:17:41just because they're caught in a crossfire
01:17:42between a bloodthirsty extremist death cult
01:17:45and a desperate amoral military regime,
01:17:48both of which would stop at nothing
01:17:49to kill anyone in their way.
01:17:51But we've all got problems.
01:17:52I mean, I don't always like where I live,
01:17:54but you don't hear me moaning about it
01:17:56and hopping on a drove.
01:17:57The coverage made it crystal clear
01:17:59they were headed for Europe
01:18:00because they wanted a better way of life,
01:18:02with benefits and a health service
01:18:05and houses that weren't all on fire or made of rubble.
01:18:08While they were waiting for the free house and money,
01:18:11the migrant swarms would build a sort of nest
01:18:13called a camp.
01:18:15The BBC did a special songs of praise from one of the nests,
01:18:21and the papers weren't happy.
01:18:23And nor was I.
01:18:24Songs of praise is meant to be a music show,
01:18:27so why is it suddenly getting all preachy about things?
01:18:30Anyway, just as I was really getting into hating the migrants,
01:18:33there was a massive twist that I hadn't seen coming.
01:18:36When the police arrived here this morning,
01:18:38they found several drowning victims,
01:18:40among them a toddler,
01:18:42a child of perhaps two years of age.
01:18:44This boat sank,
01:18:45and there was a photo of a little boy lying dead on the beach,
01:18:48and he looked just like a real human,
01:18:50because he was.
01:18:52And then I thought,
01:18:53wait a minute,
01:18:54what if they're all real humans?
01:18:56And then I thought,
01:18:57oh my god, that'd be awful.
01:19:00I mean, if that was true,
01:19:01this whole thing would be an unprecedented crisis.
01:19:05And to their credit,
01:19:06after that photo,
01:19:07the papers did some investigating
01:19:09and found out the migrants were real people,
01:19:11so their coverage totally changed.
01:19:13They realised they'd got it wrong,
01:19:15so they started shouting at David Cameron
01:19:17to do something about it,
01:19:18to give them a home.
01:19:19Today I can announce that we will do more,
01:19:22providing resettlement for thousands more Syrian refugees.
01:19:26I feel sorry for him,
01:19:27because he'd only just found out they were humans too,
01:19:29you know?
01:19:30Everyone was caught in the op-air.
01:19:31The news had all this footage of them
01:19:33all desperately squeezing onto trains
01:19:35and marching on foot in huge snaking columns,
01:19:39but now it looks sort of different,
01:19:41less swarmy and threatening
01:19:43and more harrowing and urgent and sad.
01:19:46And the clever thing was,
01:19:48it was the same sort of pictures you'd seen earlier,
01:19:50but now you knew the twist about them being humans.
01:19:53It seemed totally different.
01:19:55It was like the white and gold dress.
01:19:57Once it's flipped to blue and black in your head,
01:19:59that's it.
01:20:00You can't see it any other way forever.
01:20:03Well, until Paris happened.
01:20:05Then they went back to being a swarm of bastards
01:20:07and criminals again.
01:20:09In September, Prime Minister David Cameron
01:20:12was accused of inserting his penis
01:20:13into the mouth of a dead pig.
01:20:17Can I have a glass of water, please?
01:20:20Yes, the Daily Mail printed extracts
01:20:22from a biography of David Cameron,
01:20:24alleging that while a student,
01:20:25he'd taken part in a bizarre initiation ceremony,
01:20:27during which he'd inserted his penis
01:20:29into the mouth of a dead pig.
01:20:31A statement I still can't believe
01:20:32I'm reading aloud on BBC television.
01:20:34Seriously, this is like dreaming while awake.
01:20:36For a while, the trad TV news couldn't quite bring itself
01:20:39to discuss the ins and outs of the pig face allegations,
01:20:42preferring to mince words.
01:20:44The unauthorized biography includes allegations
01:20:46about Mr. Cameron's student days,
01:20:48that he smoked cannabis and took part
01:20:50in a bizarre initiation ceremony.
01:20:53There is a quite extraordinary account
01:20:55of David Cameron's sort of hijinks at university.
01:21:00A little bit more than hijinks, it has to be said.
01:21:02We actually can't say some of the other things
01:21:04he's accused of doing on TV.
01:21:06We're going to have to leave it at that.
01:21:07But in the alternative dimension of social media,
01:21:09it was Christmas Day in 3D,
01:21:11with pig joke piled upon pig joke
01:21:13like so much violated sausage meat.
01:21:16It didn't take long for the dam to burst
01:21:17and the allegations soon defiled
01:21:19otherwise straight-laced morning debate shows.
01:21:21You've also got this issue of the prime minister
01:21:24putting his cock in a dead pig's mouth.
01:21:26Okay, Dan, Dan, do you know what, mate?
01:21:29One, it's an allegation.
01:21:30Two, your choice of language in referring to that,
01:21:32I think far goes beyond what is permitted
01:21:35at this time of the day.
01:21:36And at that point, really,
01:21:37you've forfeited any right to speak on this show.
01:21:39So bye-bye.
01:21:40What a waste of a call.
01:21:42Let's try another.
01:21:42We've got Lewis on line two.
01:21:44Eventually, the nationwide chortling reached such a peak,
01:21:47it was reported workplace productivity was suffering.
01:21:49But amidst the hilarity, some were wondering
01:21:51whether maybe, just maybe,
01:21:53the allegations weren't entirely reliable.
01:21:55For one thing, Cameron was denying it.
01:21:57And for another, the book had been co-authored
01:21:58by Tory donor Lord Ashcroft,
01:22:00who by his own admission had an axe to grind with Cameron.
01:22:03And it all boiled down to one rumour
01:22:05from one anonymous source.
01:22:06Could have been anyone.
01:22:07Could have been Keith Lemon.
01:22:08It was a bit like a dirty protest.
01:22:10And people like me, who wanted it to be true
01:22:12just because it was so irresistibly funny,
01:22:14were the ones daubing someone else's shit
01:22:16up the cell walls of the collective unconscious.
01:22:19And it was working.
01:22:20It even amused loose women.
01:22:22The funniest thing is that the British public
01:22:25see the possibility as entirely plausible,
01:22:28although it has put me off sausage for life.
01:22:32The book's co-author and chronic smirker,
01:22:34Isabel Oakeshott, was all over the media
01:22:36defending the noble tradition
01:22:37of spreading uncorroborated rumours
01:22:38from a single potentially unreliable source.
01:22:40Where's the evidence for the allegations
01:22:43that you make in the book,
01:22:44especially the ones about the dead pig?
01:22:46Look, this is just a few paragraphs
01:22:49in the middle of a book
01:22:50which is some 200,000 words long.
01:22:54Yeah, come on, guys.
01:22:55There's only a hint of pig f***ing in it.
01:22:57Do you think the stuff about the pig is true?
01:22:59We're not there to write a hagiography.
01:23:01There are some difficult things in there
01:23:04and there are also plenty
01:23:05of extremely complimentary flattering things
01:23:08about the prime minister in there as well.
01:23:10Oh, what kind of compliments?
01:23:11Let me guess.
01:23:11He was the best dead pig's head f***er
01:23:13the world has ever seen.
01:23:15To be honest, the whole thing left me,
01:23:16particularly, feeling a bit weirded out.
01:23:18You see, a few years ago,
01:23:20I wrote a drama for Channel 4
01:23:21in which a fictional prime minister
01:23:23was blackmailed into having sex with a pig.
01:23:26And lots of things in that show
01:23:27played out much the same as they were now.
01:23:29There were people in newsrooms
01:23:30bemoaning the fact they couldn't run the story.
01:23:32If we mentioned bestiality pre-watershed,
01:23:34Ofcom would be seriously pissed off.
01:23:36F*** Ofcom.
01:23:37There were people making wisecracks on Twitter,
01:23:39even using some of the same hashtags.
01:23:41The vindictive stunt impacted cruelly
01:23:43on the people at the centre.
01:23:44Nothing is going to happen.
01:23:46It's already happening in their heads.
01:23:48And the whole thing played out
01:23:49as a kind of national sport,
01:23:50bringing the nation to a standstill.
01:23:52At the end of Black Mirror,
01:23:53the PM's reputation survives intact.
01:23:55And a few months on,
01:23:56David Cameron doesn't seem to have suffered
01:23:57too much from his piggy scrape.
01:23:59Although the mental image is still too powerful
01:24:01and amusing for some of his opponents to drop.
01:24:04The irony is the collective thunder chuckle
01:24:06overshadowed somewhat more pointed allegations
01:24:08in the book, which the prime minister also denied.
01:24:10I think it's important that this allegation,
01:24:12that he knew more about Lord Ashcroft's non-DOM status
01:24:15than he had previously said he did,
01:24:17that that's not lost in the more lurid
01:24:19and humorous allegations
01:24:20that many people are talking about.
01:24:22Good point, Nicola.
01:24:22Let's hope no one lets that happen.
01:24:24The prime minister's attitude to Scotland
01:24:27betrays the worst characteristics of his government.
01:24:31Arrogant, patrician, out of touch, pig-headed,
01:24:36some might say.
01:24:39He f***ed a pig.
01:24:41He f***ed a pig.
01:24:43Or he didn't.
01:24:43Or he did.
01:24:45Or he didn't.
01:24:45Or he did.
01:24:47Or he didn't.
01:24:47Or he did.
01:24:48Donald Trump is running for president of America
01:24:50in the President of America contest.
01:24:53Americans like Trump because he's got loads of money,
01:24:56which is sort of their version of being clever.
01:24:58I mean, he's built all these giant buildings
01:25:00and written his name on them so no one else can steal them.
01:25:03He's all over the news,
01:25:04like the news can't stop filling their screens with him,
01:25:07even though he looks sort of weird.
01:25:09I mean, he looks like a sort of guinea pig
01:25:11staring at you through the porthole on a washing machine.
01:25:13There's this amazing stuff on his head.
01:25:16It's not hair.
01:25:17It's like a sort of furry gas.
01:25:20It's like he was born with a squirrel's tail
01:25:22and he's brushed it over his head to pass among humans.
01:25:25As well as looking like a sort of biological car crash,
01:25:28he's got this gimmick.
01:25:30He says horrible things about people,
01:25:32totally slags them off.
01:25:33I never attacked him on his look,
01:25:36and believe me, there's plenty of subject matter right there.
01:25:39That I can tell you.
01:25:40He slagged off John McClane,
01:25:42who was a Vietnam war hero.
01:25:44He's a war hero because he was captured.
01:25:46I like people that weren't captured, OK?
01:25:48I hate to tell you.
01:25:49He slagged off loads of women.
01:25:50You've called women you don't like fat pigs,
01:25:53dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.
01:25:58Your Twitter account...
01:25:58Only Rosie O'Donnell.
01:26:01He said horrible things about Mexicans.
01:26:03They're bringing drugs.
01:26:05They're bringing crime.
01:26:06They're rapists.
01:26:07And some, I assume, are good people.
01:26:10He took the piss out of a reporter with a disability.
01:26:12You gotta see this guy.
01:26:13Oh, I don't know what I said.
01:26:15Oh, I don't remember.
01:26:17It's like if Frankie Boyle decided to use his powers for evil.
01:26:21One of his enemies is all Mexicans,
01:26:23or he wants to build a wall around.
01:26:24He says Mexico is the new China, which it isn't.
01:26:27Tupperware is the new China.
01:26:29He hasn't thought that through.
01:26:30Then there was this mass shooting in California
01:26:33like there is every day in America.
01:26:34But this wasn't one of the normal mass shootings
01:26:36that a maniac does for no reason.
01:26:38This one was carried out by two maniacs
01:26:41for some ideological reason.
01:26:44I mean, it must be scary to think the terrorists
01:26:46are so good at infiltrating America,
01:26:49it's almost impossible to tell them apart
01:26:51from your normal unhinged maniacs.
01:26:53I mean, you could be calmly minding your own business
01:26:56in the middle of an everyday mass shooting
01:26:58and suddenly realize it's a terror attack.
01:27:01Anyway, then Donald Trump said he had banned all Muslims
01:27:03from entering the country.
01:27:05And suddenly, even though he'd been saying
01:27:07all these Hitler-y things for a while,
01:27:08that was just too Hitler-y for everyone.
01:27:10Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown
01:27:15of Muslims entering the United States.
01:27:18Until our country's representatives
01:27:21can figure out what the hell is going on.
01:27:27Basically, everyone said he was horrible.
01:27:29They started calling him a fascist
01:27:31and that he was starting to look and sound
01:27:32like a racist dictator.
01:27:34Like, even Dick Cheney went on the news
01:27:36and said it was wrong.
01:27:38And he's the bloke who invented filling Muslims with water
01:27:40till they say they're terrorists just to make it stop.
01:27:42Trump up the jam, Trump up the jam, Trump the jam.
01:27:45Super Trump.
01:27:47A lot of pundits predicted that support for him
01:27:49would fizzle out after the summer.
01:27:52That doesn't seem to be happening.
01:27:54It's exciting watching footage of his rallies,
01:27:56thinking, oh, this will be in a documentary
01:27:59in about 20 years' time with ominous music on it.
01:28:01And here's me watching it live.
01:28:04He says all these things that aren't true.
01:28:06And loads of his followers don't trust the media,
01:28:08so they believe whatever he says.
01:28:10So he can basically create his own mental reality
01:28:13and have thousands of people blindly agree with him.
01:28:16Actually, saying it out loud
01:28:17makes him sound sort of terrifying.
01:28:18But luckily, he's also got silly hair.
01:28:20You can laugh at.
01:28:21I mean, there's no way Hitler would have risen to power
01:28:23if he had some weird physical thing
01:28:25that made him look silly.
01:28:26You know, like a stupid air car or a little stuff.
01:28:29Oh, fucking hell.
01:28:31The controversy and news on terrorism over the past month
01:28:34seems to have given Trump a boost.
01:28:37Back in late October,
01:28:38there were signs he had started to fade.
01:28:41Since then, he's jumped 13 points in that same poll.
01:28:44Oh, God, you know what?
01:28:45This is making me think there's no hope.
01:28:47I mean, look, you've got this kind of lunacy.
01:28:49Get a gun.
01:28:51You've got maniacs slaughtering anyone in sight.
01:28:53You've got fascistic demagogues
01:28:55capitalizing on the whole thing.
01:28:57No wonder that bloke's hiding out on the moon
01:28:59in that poxy, stupid John Lewis advert.
01:29:01It looks like the safest place to be right now
01:29:04because down here, down here,
01:29:05it's all anger and fear and carnage and despair.
01:29:08I just, I just wish,
01:29:09I wish there was something to take my mind off it.
01:29:11Just anywhere.
01:29:12Oh, oh, look, look, it's Dave's epic strut.
01:29:15Don't you wish you'd gotten what's wrong with me?
01:29:16It's Dave's epic strut, everyone.
01:29:18Don't you wish you'd gotten what's wrong with me?
01:29:21Don't you wish you'd gotten what's wrong with me?
01:29:24No.
01:29:26Don't you?
01:29:29Oh, well, that's all we've got time for.
01:29:31I'll see you at some point next year.
01:29:33Till then, go away.
01:29:38A bit of a relief to smile at all the news
01:29:43rather than sink into despair,
01:29:45cunking other humans on 2019.
01:29:47Your Christmas sorted with the best of 2019
01:29:50streaming on BBC iPlayer.
01:29:52Charlie Brooker's 2016 wipe, next.