Charlie Brooker's 2013 Wipe

Contains adult humour and some strong language

Hello, I'm Charlie Brooker and you're watching 2013 Wipe,

a programme all about things that were happening in 2013.

Things like this.

Scintillating entertainment show Britain's Got Talent was

immeasurably improved by the arrival of the second woman this year

to willingly donate eggs to Simon Cowell.

I do take painting seriously.

It's changed my life and I brought a painting for you. You did? Yeah.

Cheerful chat show encounters prove George W Bush has managed

to become a painter without chewing the brushes or bombing the canvas.

Staggering news reports revealed Russia had arrested an alleged spy,

using a budget Boris Johnson disguise kit.

And following an Asiana Airlines crash,

a US news channel fell victim to a racist prankster

by misreporting the names of the pilots.

They are Captain Sum Ting Wong,

Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk

and Bang Ding Ow.

That's the kind of thing that occurred, that's where we're headed,

but we start with January because the year did too.

Overflowing with terrorist incidents, abuse allegations,

natural disasters and high profile deaths,

2013 was notable for containing many stories that were both

stomach churning and hard to digest.

So it was fitting that it kicked off with an ugly story about food.

Supermarket scandal. Horse meat found in beef burgers on sale in Britain.

Yes, the nation had scarcely finished excreting the last of the turkey leftovers

when the news erupted into a meat-based horror show.

People like to go on diets in the new year and the horse meat scandal certainly helped.

The way TV screens immediately filled with red churning tissue

made following the 5:2 fasting diet not just easy but almost compulsory.

For Alfie Green, beef lasagne was a tea-time favourite. Not any more.

So will you be eating any more of these? No, not no more, we won't!

Definitely not!

Also on hand for comic relief, Iceland founder

and Bradley Wiggins impersonator Malcolm Walker, who made reassuring statements like this.

I don't see what more supermarkets can do.

They probably wouldn't be testing routinely for horse DNA.

Neither are we testing for hedgehog. It's easy to test meat for hedgehog.

You just scare it and see if it rolls up into a meatball.

Extra fun value was provided by one food expert doing his best

to lighten the distressing news

by describing the crisis using the voice of Ronnie Corbett.

What's supposed to happen is that the supermarket checks on your behalf.

Supermarkets are experts in food.

This guy may sound funny, but he certainly knows the food chain.

We talk about the food chain and at one end, meat comes out

and cows normally go in, but somewhere in the food chain,

horses came in and meat came out.

This guy is good!

Lots of what I like to call "events" happened in February.

Archaeologists found King Richard III in a car park.

He'd been there for years, but they thought it was a speed bump.

More alarmingly, God decided to keep mankind on its toes

by lobbing a huge meteor at Russia in scenes resembling

a chilling, photo-realistic reboot of the Angry Birds franchise.

Meanwhile, in Australia, where the weather is so uniform

the weather forecast consists of nothing but a brass plaque

with the words, "Bloody sunny and hot, mate!" engraved on it,

they apparently have to liven up their TV forecasts with live stunt work.

This was illustrated by these unedifying scenes

as a weatherman strapped into a stunt plane for a bit of fun

on an otherwise toothless breakfast show

began slipping the realm of consciousness entirely

as the G force built up.

Forces and speed and dy...namics...

I've been fascinated...

I'm having flashbacks

to conversations I had with people in nightclubs in the '90s.

His eventual forecast was a bit confusing.

Bright at first, slowly fading, with some dark mist rolling in,

accompanied by light dribble, before a sudden and total nightfall.

Oh, he's passed out! Cut! We don't want to see!

A very good evening from Rome where Pope Benedict has stunned

the Roman Catholic Church by announcing his resignation today.

Yes, Pope Benedict XVI suddenly decided

he'd done quite enough pope-ing for one lifetime, thank you, and quit

using the withdrawal method -

pulling out unexpectedly and leaving a bit of a mess to clean up.

Pope-liking members of the public were so shocked,

they couldn't help but say so.

No!

Oh, I'm so shocked!

While others simply refused to believe it was true, going through

three of the seven stages of grief in the space of one soundbite.

You're joking!

The Pope?!

Oh, my God!

The news immediately began guessing who the next Pope would be,

profiling the hopefuls

until the screen began to resemble a sticker album

dedicated to the oldest, most sexless boyband in history.

Soon afterwards, in March, the Vatican set about p-p-picking

that Pope the only way it knew how - slowly.

Since the Pope pickers were locked somewhere indoors

trying to work out who'd look best in a Pope hat,

the news had to train its cameras on the Vatican spokesman, who,

because the Catholic Church is normal and modern, is a chimney.

And thus the news morphed seamlessly into 24 hour chimney watch...

There is the chimney.

..keeping its gaze trained on a flue, waiting for the right coloured smoke to belch out.

Most of the time, nothing was happening. The undisputed high point

being this thrilling moment when a seagull landed on the chimney.

That seagull has no idea that it's part of history.

Yeah, that's how seagulls work, mate.

Jesus, Chimneywatch just hasn't been the same since Bill Oddie left.

That's white smoke. Is that white smoke?

Finally, after two whole days of furious teasing, the cardinals

made hot white gobbet shoot from the pipe, just like your mum does.

And then, following the ceremonial handing over of the Papal Twitter account password,

out popped the new Pope, captured expertly by Vatican TV,

performing his first miracle by managing to look like Jim Bowen

and Woody Allen at the same time.

As you can see, everyone was absolutely frigging delighted,

except me, because I had a bet on that he was going to

regenerate as Peter Capaldi.

Oh, fiddlesticks!

Also in March, having never really recovered from the Savile scandal,

the BBC's iconic TV Centre closed down, almost as though it was committing suicide.

The Corporation claimed changes in technology had rendered many of TV Centre's functions obsolete.

For instance, suspicious old men

now largely meet children using the internet.

Incidentally, for legal reasons,

we're not allowed to mention some high profile court cases

which got under way this year, a year marked by a series

of startling post-Savile celebrity arrests

which peppered the nation's front pages like depressing croutons.

The cumulative effect made it almost impossible

to reminisce about 1970s' TV shows

without having to mentally pixelate out half the faces.

There was this new Doctor Who spin-off,

sort of like Torchwood, but for adults, called Broadchurch.

It was brilliant and gripping, like a dark reboot of Doctor Who.

It still had Doctor Who in it,

but instead of stopping the Cybermen from stealing a time crystal,

he was trying to solve the murder of a little boy. So it was the saddest Doctor Who story ever.

Apart from the one where he had to leave K9 behind on Gallifrey.

To save money, they didn't go to space,

they went to the seaside, but not a nice seaside like Eastbourne,

more a sort of evil seaside like Plymouth.

It was really intense.

The Doctor didn't have any of his powers

or his TARDIS and his assistant was like loads more serious than usual

and sort of swore a lot.

Shit! Shit! Shit! SHIT! Hi, Mick.

It was a bit more boring than normal Doctor Who because normal Doctor Who

could just go back in time and catch the murderer before they did it,

but this Doctor Who could only go back in time by talking to people.

When did you last see Daniel Latimer? I told you. The day before he was found.

Anyway, it had this massive twist because it was on ITV,

but also, it was good.

It was really quite mind-blowing.

Because it was so good, apparently, they're doing another one,

which would be brilliant, but I hope this time it is in space

and with K9 in it.

In April, Margaret Thatcher stopped happening.

Thatcher's passing finally allowed the news to hit play on all the

preassembled biog packages they'd been quietly collating for years

and it quickly turned into an '80s nostalgia festival

with all the greatest hits, footage of election day,

champagne yuppies with giant phones, the miners' strike,

soundbites from Maggie's fellow former Spitting Image cast mates...

Of course, she did more for feminism than any feminist has ever done.

..the Falklands War and catchphrases from iconic adverts.

British Gas shares, they come out in November. If you see Sid, tell him.

Back on Earth, even as the Iron Lady was being driven away from the Ritz

in one of those vans they used to take scabs through picket lines in,

battle lines were being drawn.

Because newspapers chiefly exist to spoon-feed the opinions of their readers back to them,

much like an arse-to-mouth hosepipe,

they can cover divisive figures like Margaret Thatcher

with all the obvious bias you can eat.

TV news, however, is supposed to reflect the nation's opinions,

which meant it had to sit on the fence

until it got splinters in its soul,

repeating the one thing it could reliably say,

which was that she was divisive.

Margaret Thatcher was a Prime Minister who divided the country.

Margaret Thatcher profoundly divided opinions.

The flag of the country she divided and transformed

flies at half-mast.

Since she divided opinion, we had to hear from both sides.

In the blue corner, Prime Ministeroid David Cameratron,

seen here performing his Stars In Their Eyes cover version of Blair's People's Princess speech.

Margaret Thatcher didn't just lead our country, she saved our country.

By dividing it.

The news also unearthed some Maggie-loving members of the public.

Hello, you're live on Sky News.

Can you just quickly show us your tribute,

the ultimate tribute perhaps? There you go,

a new tattoo on your leg, saying, "She never turned."

I'm sure that's what she would have wanted?!

Meanwhile, in the red corner,

Labour droner Egghead Millipede did his best to discuss Thatcher

for several uninterrupted seconds without slagging her off,

and to make it even harder,

he had to do it while standing in the middle of a lake.

David Cameron, Nick Clegg

and myself were all shaped in a way by the politics of Lady Thatcher.

But it soon became apparent there was absolutely no shortage of folk

prepared to vent their anti-Thatcher spleen on camera.

Margaret Thatcher destroyed my hometown. I'm glad she's dead.

Extra high strength vitriol flowed from northern mining towns

where Thatcher had closed pits

and turned families to stone with her Medusa-like glare.

Up here, Thatcher was about as popular as pus pie and piss gravy.

She weren't a woman, she was evil!

You hear a lot

about how Thatcher consigned entire communities to the scrapheap,

but on the plus side,

she reinvigorated Britain's ingrained bitterness industry.

Amidst this febrile atmosphere,

it was announced that Baroness Thatcher would be treated

to a whopping great state funeral

in scenes reminiscent of the opening credits of Dad's Army.

But by now, the news was notably preoccupied

with an internet attempt to bump the song Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead

to the top of those pop charts, which apparently still exist.

This instantly became a stick to beat the BBC with,

in case it had to play the song on Radio One's official top 40 show.

The world of current affairs

was clearly concerned the lyrics might be offensive,

so it was weird that they couldn't seem to stop reciting them.

Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead...

Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead...

Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead...

In the event, the BBC dodged a bullet by broadcasting a snippet of the song in a news report

and anyway, the number one bid failed,

thus depriving the nation of the first catchy number one in a decade.

Come the day of the funeral,

the more extreme wing of the anti-Thatch camp organised a series of protests

at which it became clear Thatcher's savage cuts to arts funding

had rather cunningly left her opponents

without the skills to make a coherent effigy.

These bizarre anti-funerals were conducted beneath

the definitely not encouraging this in any way gaze of the news media,

who were probably secretly delighted to have stumbled across

this 21st century reimagining of the Wicker Man,

replete with traditional northern minstrels

and touching floral tributes. One thing's for sure,

that Margaret Thatcher certainly was a divisive figure.

And like her or loathe her, the lady's not returning.

It was a good year for natural history,

with the BBC unveiling Africa,

a sumptuous exploration of the expansive and diverse continent,

expertly showcasing its incredible variety of picturesque wildlife.

But this was nothing compared to the inspiring sweep

of Channel 4's intensely moving Dogging Tales,

a story of everyday folk who have sex with strangers in car parks.

As well as life-affirming footage of tender acts of physical love

happening somewhere between a tree and some bins,

it featured heart-rending testimonies from the people behind the grunts,

their identities disguised, but not their tattoos,

as they outlined their ceremonial preparations.

Namely squirting a bit of Lynx around the old armpits.

Can't beat it.

That and Joop.

Yeah, Joop's pretty good at masking the smell of bracken and semen.

It even says that on the bottle.

Hopefully, this coldness like, you know...

It IS getting there. It takes time cos it's cold, isn't it? Yeah.

It was all visually reminiscent

of one of 2013's most popular viral videos -

a quirkily entertaining comic song which posed the question,

what does the fox say?

Dogging Tales revealed precisely what the fox says

because it asked him.

Do you feel like you're hunting for something?

Yeah, the furry triangle.

Oh, wish I'd never asked.

In May, a huge tornado ripped across Oklahoma and in the aftermath,

CBS News captured a heart-warming moment.

I hollered for my little dog and he didn't answer.

A dog! Hi, puppy!

Oh!

This being the Bible Belt,

many thought this kind of thing demonstrated faith in action.

Well, God just answered one prayer to let me be OK.

He answered both of them.

But not everyone who survived the hurricane was God fearing,

as one notably illuminating exchange demonstrated.

I guess you've got to thank the Lord, right?

Do you thank the Lord for that split-second decision? I...

I'm actually an atheist. Oh, you are? All right.

If you think that didn't take balls, you've never been to Oklahoma.

Saying, "I'm an atheist," in Oklahoma is like screaming

Jihad at airport security. That took some nuts!

And you watch the footage, all the other victims are on the news,

thanking Jesus for only killing their neighbours and not them,

while a crawler is on the screen, telling me

where I can text money to help them out? Fuck them!

I don't want Jesus getting credit for my $50!

I'll help that other girl out. Hell, yes! She ain't got no Jeebuz!

She gonna need money! So I did.

I started an indiegogo fundraiser account and atheists ended up

ponying up over $126,000 just for little old her.

And I couldn't get the smile off of my face for a week.

I didn't do it because I felt sympathy

cos she got all her shit destroyed by a tornado,

I did it simply to be a prick to her Okie Christian neighbours,

hoping that they were still eating off of FEMA trucks when someone

drove up and presented Rebecca with a giant cardboard cheque.

It's funny how hate can make you do real nice things every now and then.

Also in May, the Same Sex Couples Act was passed.

Gay people were now equal in marriage,

able to do gay washing up, gay hoovering, go to gay Homebase

to buy gay rawlplugs and put up gay shelves at the gay weekend.

But not everyone was this happy. In an eye-opening interview with the Huffington Post,

beardy actor Jeremy Irons voiced his concerns about the financial implications of gay marriage.

Tax wise is an interesting one because...

You see...

Could a father not marry his son?

Well, there are laws against incest.

It's not incest between men.

Someone's in for a shock when they check Wikipedia later.

Irons also saw father-son marriage as a potential money-spinner.

If I wanted to pass on my estate without death duties,

I could marry my son and pass on my estate to him.

No, that sounds like a total red herring.

I'm sure that incest law would still cover same sex marriages.

Really? Why? Cos it's incest?!

I just wish everybody who's living with one other person

the best of luck in the world because it's fantastic!

And... Spoken like a happily married man.

Yeah, and also a man who has a dog that he loves.

Well, at least...that's not incest...

Politics is languishing in a stale funk,

a bit like a soap in its 86th year, one that's run out of ideas

and is stuck with a cast list everyone's sick of.

Nick Clegg's a phone-in host, moonlighting as Deputy PM,

David Cameron looks like Angela Lansbury wearing a fleshy man suit,

and Ed Miliband has thus far failed to inspire the population,

as anyone who saw Channel 4's coverage of his campaigning in Crawley can vouch for.

He wants to be Prime Minister. Oh, does he? Of Crawley?

No, no. Prime Minister of the country. Oh, Jesus!

Little wonder people embrace almost any alternative -

cue footage of Nigel Farage.

Guffawing Admiral Ackbar lookalike, pint magnet

and man of the people impersonator Nigel Farage impressed

a sizeable chunk of the voting population with his non-racist,

unracist, racistless, absolutely not racist party UKIP, whose

members, when interviewed, routinely describe themselves as "not racist".

Totally unprompted, they brought up the issue of race.

We are not closet racists, we're not racists at all.

As do their supporters.

They've got some good policies, I think. Such as? Immigration.

I'm not being racialist, but, you know.

Why do they keep having to say they're not racist?

Maybe they're defensive because as the coverage made clear,

even casual passers-by keep accusing them of being racist.

Oh, and homophobes.

Racist homophobes! Homophobes?! That man says racists and homophobes. Does he?

Well, there we are. I don't think we're homophobes.

Despite such hiccups, UKIP did well in May's local elections,

winning 150 seats and seriously spooking the other parties.

But with startling speed, Operation UKIP started to look a bit wobbly.

During a tour of Edinburgh,

which looked exactly the way he always imagined it did,

Farage learned his everyman charm

didn't function north of the border, as depicted in uncomfortable scenes

on Channel 4 News when a group

of ill-wishers serenaded him with some traditional folk off songs.

# Shove your Union Jack up your arse. #

Ah! So this is it.

Sensing change in the air,

the media began subjecting the party to more scrutiny,

even asking UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom

to defend Farage's trademark lifestyle.

Perhaps he smokes and drinks too much as well.

Well, he's never pretended to be a priest and if you don't mind me

suggesting, I regard that as a rather impertinent remark.

How dare you suggest he should smoke or drink...

What the hell has it got to do with you?

A robust defence there, although it soon transpired that Bloom,

a sort of blustering sitcom colonel from a previous century

who'd fallen through time, wound up here and was furious about it,

was the very last person Farage needed speaking up on his behalf.

Soon, Bloom whammed his ruddy foot in it when news cameras caught him

referring to a colourful imaginary kingdom that lives in his head

and steals his money.

How we can possibly be giving ?1 billion a month when

we're in this sort of debt to Bongo Bongo Land is completely beyond me.

Ha-ha(!) And you can see more of Godfrey Bloom's hilarious

non-PC routines on his official stand-up DVD.

Apparently bemused to discover the phrase "Bongo Bongo Land"

was offensive in the future,

Bloom popped up in an illuminating interview on Channel 4 News

to apologise in the most unapologetic way imaginable.

Nigel Farage clearly thinks Bongo Bongo Land is a racist phrase,

doesn't he? I think he does, and again, it's a generation thing.

I'm an older man and I don't see it that way.

But if he tells me so, it must be so.

So you still don't understand why it is?

No.

But impossibly, even worse was to come.

By now, Farage was doing his best to reinvigorate interest in UKIP

with a grand conference in front of impressed news cameras,

including an inspiring star turn from Neil Hamilton.

So it's shoulders to the wheel, noses to the grindstone,

let's go forward to victory!

But this stirring scene was overshadowed

by naughty boots Godfrey again who was recorded using the word "sluts"

at a UKIP meeting, which then dominated the news coverage.

Bloom later explained that once again he'd misplaced his Past-Present Translation Dictionary

and had fallen victim to the language barrier.

He explained to the BBC's Newsnight

that he meant the very old-fashioned meaning of the word "slut".

It means, you know, untidy, you leave your kit lying around.

Has your mother never called you a slut?

No, I don't think she has! Perhaps you're very tidy.

By now, it was clear Bloom was box office gold for the news,

but box office poison for UKIP

and when Channel 4's hilarious professional goader Michael Crick

followed him up the street to ask why there were no black faces

on the UKIP manifesto, Bloom went full Hulk.

You, sir, are a racist!

Why am I racist for saying there aren't any black people?

You've checked out the colour of people's faces?! Disgraceful! Disgraceful!

Of course, he was actually thwacking Crick in the traditional old-fashioned sense of a thwacking.

The kind of playful admonishment you dish out to a slut from Bongo Bongo Land.

By now, as the news impassively recorded, Bloom's boss, Farage,

had to sadly acknowledge his conference had been spoilt,

while playing an invisible bongo.

We cannot have any one individual

destroying UKIP's national conference.

And with that, Godfrey was finally cast out into the dark,

or Bongo Bongo Land, as he probably calls it.

There was this programme called Broken Bad,

like a chemistry programme,

but with acting in it to keep the science interesting.

It was really good, like really atmospheric, and it was

presented by this bloke who was sort of clever but like a bit ill.

I think he had a cold or something.

HE COUGHS

Sometimes, he'd be coughing and you'd think,

shouldn't they just wait to film this when he's better?

HE COUGHS

It was a bit like Top Gear, but for drugs.

So he was like Jeremy Clarkson and he had this funny little sidekick

who was like his Richard Hammond,

but who got all depressed

because of some relationship problem or something,

where his girlfriend got a stomach bug and just lay around in bed.

The main bloke kept making crystals,

a bit like my auntie who had a shop in Stafford selling crystals

and dreamcatchers and things, but he made loads of money out of it,

whereas my auntie had to close her shop in 2009

because it never really caught on.

He was mental, this presenter. You never knew what he was going to do next.

One minute, he'd be running round in his pants

and then he'd cut all his hair off,

or turn up in a silly hat, or plastic dungarees.

He was proper bonkers,

like Chris Evans used to be on the Big Breakfast.

You had to watch it because everyone was watching it.

If you weren't watching it,

people who were watching it kept saying, "Are you watching it?"

And you'd have to say, "No, I'm not watching it,"

but you'd think, "I should be watching it,"

so then you'd start watching it and then you'd be like,

"Why am I watching this?

"Because for a chemistry show, it's really sad."

What was weird was it wasn't on real television.

You had to watch it on this sort of computer television thing,

but it was really well done, better than it used to be.

Like when they used to use computers to do telly in the olden days,

in that entertaining Dire Straits music video thing.

If you look closely, you could sort of tell it wasn't real

because they weren't quite right. Their knees weren't quite right.

But in Breaking Bad, it was so well done,

you'd never think it was all computer people at all.

Like, the knees were spot on! It was amazing!

Thing is, everyone said it was brilliant

and the best programme ever, but it can't be that good

because it finished and apparently, it's never coming back.

When Amanda Berry escaped

from the house where she'd been held captive for a decade,

along with Georgina Dejesus and Michelle Knight,

the news had a dilemma.

Here was a feel-good rescue narrative,

but it was inexorably tethered to an unimaginably grim tale of rape

and imprisonment almost too depressing to contemplate,

but fortunately, it came with a side order of light relief,

in the form of one of the rescuers.

I knew something was wrong

when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms.

Something is wrong here!

Dead giveaway!

This was Charles Ramsey, a local character and born performer,

who was soon amusing viewers

with his distinctive ghetto-speak soundbites.

You got some big testicles to pull this off, bro!

Cos we see this dude every day!

Inevitably, broadcasters seized on this one bright spark

in an otherwise dark story and Ramsey became an overnight star,

accorded the ultimate tribute modern society has to offer -

an amusing auto-tuned internet tribute of his own.

# I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl

# Ran into a black man's arms

# Dead giveaway

# My neighbour got big testicles cos we see this dude every day. #

But with the women thankfully recovering in private,

Ramsey had become the focus of the story,

dragged from interview to interview in which hosts repeatedly

hailed him as a hero, despite him constantly trying to say he wasn't.

When they keep saying I'm a hero, let me tell you something,

I'm American and I'm a human being, I'm just like you.

Soon, he was appearing bleary-eyed on Good Morning America,

not quite performing as well as expected,

and viewers began to wonder what he was doing in the spotlight.

How are you feeling? I'm happy.

You know... I'm...you know.

Then the media apparently turned on him, trying to disprove his story...

Not everyone agrees with Charles Ramsey's account of what happened.

Some neighbours telling On The Record the rescue went down differently.

..as well as uncovering unsavoury information about his past.

You have been in jail.

You got that right!

So there was a domestic violence? With my wife? Oh, yeah.

Basically, Charles Ramsey went through

the trad celebrity career trajectory -

fame, worship, disappointment

and then backlash in record time.

Ramsey mania was all but extinguished after four days.

We're getting more efficient at dismissing people, basically.

By next year, it should be possible to do it in just four hours.

In June, humanoids worldwide began dancing

and wanking to the toe-tapping sound of Blurred Lines,

a song which came with an eye-popping video starring

Simon Cowell doppelganger Robin Thicke.

I say he looks like Simon Cowell,

actually, he looks more like what the offspring would look like

if Simon Cowell had sex with Ricky Martin, which hasn't happened and never will.

It was hard to notice at first, but if you looked carefully,

you might have spotted the video also contained fleeting glimpses of naked women.

Not totally naked, obviously, that would be gratuitous.

They've got pants on,

so you don't get to see any of the really biological stuff

they used to put in special magazines before the internet,

which is why all the women in the video get to retain their innate feminine dignity.

The cheery objectification was interspersed

by screen-sized hashtags so viewers would know what to tweet

the moment they'd finished masturbating.

Trouble is, the sight of dancing nude women made it tricky to even notice the writing was there

because you sort of stared right past it, turning the writing itself

into just a load of blurred lines, which is sort of mind-blowing!

This ground-breaking combination of tits and arse

racked up a phenomenal amount of hits on YouTube.

There was also a clean version where the women had clothes on.

Apparently. No-one's ever actually clicked on it to check.

Perhaps, unsurprisingly, there was an abrupt backlash

as people complained about the video and some of the lyrics,

which sounded a bit suspect.

# I know you want it

# I know you want it. #

In illuminating scenes,

clever Thicke brightened populist US talk shows

by explaining how pure his motives had been.

We were just trying to make a funny silly song

and some of the lyrics are very easy to think that we're trying to say something negative,

but the other lyrics are saying man is not your maker

and we're empowering women.

Yes, it turned out everyone who was offended was wrong and stupid

and this was actually about empowering women,

specifically naked women.

And quite right too! Why shouldn't a naked woman be allowed to do anything a fully clothed man can?

For too long, naked women have been afraid to walk around with their mouths shut

while loads of men they can't see look at them and masturbate,

but this brave pioneering statement said,

"Hey, it's OK. It's OK for naked women to do that.

"In fact, this is the way things should be!

"This is exactly how a truly just society would look."

Anyway, by releasing a novelty single,

maybe Robin Thicke was merely following in the footsteps of his dad, Alan Thicke,

who also was a dab hand at peddling cheesy pop shit,

as this illuminating footage of his bracing performance of Sweaty And Hot from the remarkable

1988 National Aerobic Championships amply demonstrates.

# Ready or not, I'm coming, baby

# Maybe I've got some muscle for you

# Sweaty and hot I'm pumping iron and when I'm done

# You're going to beg me to have some big time fun, oh darling

# I work my body out just for you. #

A cynic might suggest the sudden increase in intensely titillating

music videos is somehow related to the news that YouTube views

now count towards a single's US chart position.

It may not have escaped your attention that we've sort of had our cake and eaten it

by showing gratuitous nudey lady imagery while also sort of decrying it.

So to balance it out, here's a screen full of dicks.

Also in June, the BBC Newsroom got its very own 3D holographic news Queen.

Today, an unique moment with a very special Royal guest.

Yes, Her Majesty, The Woman, visited the BBC's new Broadcasting House

to check the Corporation had been thoroughly de-Saviled.

And as part of that tour, she got to visit Radio 1

and be sung at by her favourite singer ever, Danny from The Script.

# Oh, I

# I wish you could swim. #

It was unclear how much the Queen enjoyed the performance.

No, it wasn't.

Tennis now and there was a lot of come on Andy this summer.

Don't know how he coped with all that on his back.

Yes, in a nail-biting final, broadcast in exhilarating detail live on TV,

Andy Murray put an end to years of Britons not winning Wimbledon by winning Wimbledon,

thereby allowing millions of Britons who haven't won Wimbledon

to feel a bit like they'd somehow won Wimbledon.

Proving there was no end to his heroism,

he then went on The One Show and saved Alex Jones from a bee.

Oh. You've got a bee there. Oh. I don't like bees.

And that wasn't the end of July's nice news.

Apparently, for some reason, most people think that babies are nice.

When the Duchess of Cambridge went into labour,

it prompted an instant media siege outside the hospital.

But the news wouldn't just plop effortlessly

into the reporters' laps.

Even though, that is apparently exactly how childbirth works.

For hours, nothing was happening

on the hottest day in seven years,

creating a vacuum of desperation akin to watching suited dogs

die in a hot car.

So far, here at the Lindo wing of St Mary's Hospital in Paddington,

there is no news.

And, what do we know? Well, not much.

What news? Er, no... Really, no further news.

Hundreds of the world's media here to report the news,

that there is no news.

Man of the match was the BBC's Simon McCoy whose obvious irritation

at having to stand around doing shit-all for hours

in the name of regal deference,

made him a beacon of cool sanity in a river of white-hot bibble.

I can tell you what all the media are talking about,

and that's what time they think they can get lunch.

Never have so many people gathered together in one place

with absolutely nothing to say.

When not blasting us with his own bracing straight talk,

he was sharing messages of goodwill from excited viewers.

"Come on, BBC, people do have babies(!)

"Stop saying the same thing over and over, give us the rest of the news."

And then another one, "What a load of sycophantic rubbish!

"Another de-de-dah royal for the public to support.

Later in the year, McCoy cemented his reputation as Britain's

foremost situationist newsmen, by appearing live on air

clutching a ream of paper for no apparent reason.

Apparently, he'd mistaken that huge block of paper for an iPad -

an easy mistake to make if,

like him, you've never physically touched or lifted an object before.

Meanwhile, back at the world's hottest door,

Sky's resident Fun Fuhrer Kay Burley

gamely tried to maintain the bubbly mood,

but instead exhibited the feverish desperation of someone

trying to keep a kid's birthday party going during a hostage crisis.

What do your friends think? They think I'm crazy.

Finally - putting us all out of an agony that frankly dwarfs labour -

Kate made a boy.

It is a son born at 4:24 pm.

Yes, after standing in the street all day talking about nothing

until their minds turned to wax,

the global news media had to read the news off the internet,

like we all did.

Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge

was safely delivered of a son at 4:24 pm.

Their ordeal over, an outpouring of relief disguised as emotion exploded

and Kay Burley went crowd-surfing,

triumphantly breaking the news to delighted onlookers.

Hi! Congrat... What fantastic news!

Did you hear the news?

You haven't heard the news? She can't speak English.

She can't speak English. We are Brazilian.

Thanks to Twitter and human mouths, everyone Kay spoke to already knew,

which meant that rather than breaking news,

she was merely reiterating it to some slightly odd people.

Very exciting. Very, very exciting.

I was hoping for a boy, you know.

The news is a black boy.

Reporters were also stalking Kate's hometown of Bucklebury -

a tax-funded fictional location based on Midsomer,

where they managed to break the news to a woman who apparently found

the very concept of gender incredible.

It's a boy. No way! Yeah. Really? Yeah.

You're lying! It's true.

What's your reaction? I think it's absolutely amazing!

Really? You're just saying that!

No, it's true! Really? It's a boy?!

Everybody crowded into Bucklebury's local to join the celebrations.

When I say everyone, I'm including, obviously, David White's horse.

We had a horse in earlier, celebrating.

He heard it was a baby boy, in he came.

We had David White's horse in here. We couldn't believe it.

Hope you asked him why the long face?!

The following day, the Duke and Duchess granted the world

an exciting glimpse of Prince George's head,

then got in a big car and sodded off, with some reporters impressed

that a qualified search and rescue helicopter pilot

can manage a baby seat.

There was some fiddling with the straps,

and then William was satisfied.

Radical cleric and hairy Dexys Midnight Runners front man

Abu Qatada was finally deported from the UK

following more than a decade of terror allegations.

The process took 12 years, during which time he'd not been allowed to shave

in the hope he'd eventually imprison himself in his own beard.

If he'd wanted to stay in Britain, he would've had to prove

there were no British terrorists who could do his job equally well.

But he couldn't do that, so he was instead led to a plane

without apparently bothering to pack any hand luggage.

If he'd been Abu Hamza, I could've made a joke here about HOOK luggage,

but he isn't, the bastard!

Actually, hang on, don't put him on a plane -

that's like giving him a gun, you maniacs!

There was this Newsnight programme

which used to be all boring and serious

but now it's like Rude Tube with Alex Zane,

except without Alex Zane

and a little bit more news than he does.

Be careful out there. Good night.

MUSIC STARTS: "Thriller" by Michael Jackson

You never knew what they'd do next.

Like, they put all these comedy things in,

like doing Michael Jackson or talking to puppets,

like, crazy stuff.

We're fortunate enough to be joined by him now from our studio

at BBC Westminster. Cookie Monster, why Britain? Why the BBC?

Cookie! MUNCHES NOISILY

Laurence Llewellyn Bowen was on Newsnight, right.

And he was speaking to this Jeremy man,

who looks sort of like a modern Father Christmas and everything.

And Laurence was telling him all about politics,

coming out with all these really interesting theories

that you could tell Jeremy hadn't thought of before.

Anyway, it was unpredictable because the pirate one

would be really chirpy and then suddenly go all serious.

So, I'm a person with crazy hair, quite a good sense of humour,

don't know much about politics, I'm ideal.

But is it true you don't even vote? Yeah, no, I don't vote.

He was good. I've always thought I should get more interested in politics.

But now I know I don't have to.

You've never, ever voted? No. Do you think that's really bad?

I don't vote either.

I might if it was someone proper

like Bono, or Sherlock Holmes, or something.

But the one time I went to vote,

it was just all these names of local people, like Colin whatever

or Shaban, or something.

And you've not heard of 'em. So, how d'you know who's good?

What was good about him was that,

even though he'd made millions of pounds doing Changing Rooms,

he still cares enough to go on TV and call for a revolution.

There's gonna be a revolution! It's totally going to happen.

I ain't got a flicker of doubt. This is the END!

People were like, "Oh, he shouldn't say that."

Revolutions are bad because they get all gunfire-y and thousands die.

But he meant revolution of the mind,

which is better than real revolution because nothing actually happens.

Quite often when you see who the guest is on This Morning,

you mutter, "Jesus Christ!"

Well, for one brief moment this summer, you'd have been right!

That man there, controversially claims that he is Jesus Christ,

that 2,000 years after the crucifixion, he's come back to Earth.

Not only that. Have a look at this.

The lady who's with him, that's his other half, she is Mary Magdalene.

She says that's who she is.

She says she remembers watching in horror

as Jesus was nailed to the cross.

We're talking 2,000 years ago.

They believe it. Will you believe it?

I don't even believe in the real made-up Jesus, Eamonn,

let alone your weird made up made-up Jesus.

And if you could put a question to Jesus, what would be?

Erm...which is worse - crucifixion or This Morning?

Yes, in a hypnotic and potentially world-changing interview,

it transpired that Christ is a cross between Pat Cash and Cliff Richard

and has returned to Earth in the form of an annoying Australian.

What do I call you? Do I call you Jesus, my Lord...?

What do I call you? AJ? Definitely not my Lord. I am nobody's Lord.

Just call me AJ, like, my name is Jesus, obviously,

but most people don't feel comfortable calling me Jesus.

I'm comfortable calling you BLEEP deluded.

How does it feel, though, Jesus, talking to us today,

and everybody watching at home,

and knowing that 99.9% of that audience are mocking you,

are laughing at you, are saying this man is bonkers...?

I don't know, Eamonn, how DOES that feel?

Is the Second Coming more difficult than the First Coming?

Hm. In my experience, yes, it is.

August, that's a time of year, isn't it? August.

What happened in August? Have a look.

ITV continued its online campaign to redefine

horror for the 21st century, with the nightmarish

Your Face Sounds Familiar -

a body-swap talent-rejecting competition

in which celebrities don prosthetics and wigs

pretending to be way more famous pop stars,

then slaughter their biggest hits

in perhaps the single most depressing event to hit the world

of traditional light entertainment since Operation Yewtree.

Here, for instance, we see Bobby Davro getting into Tammy Wynette -

thankfully not in an internet sex tape kind of way.

# Sometimes it's hard to be a woman... #

Actually, it did inspire me to work on my Kurt Cobain impression.

It's nearly there.

Just need to work a bit more courage

or watch this bullshit for two more minutes.

As you could see, the show would cross gender boundaries

with hilarious results,

here transforming Alexander Armstrong into Susan Boyle.

# I had a dream that love would never die... #

Which is hilarious, because... Well, just because it is.

Go on, laugh! Laugh! Laugh at it, it's funny!

Laugh at the funny thing. Laugh, come on!

That's what you're given - LAUGH!

Despite thinking nothing of leaping the gender divide,

the show was way more squeamish about racial differences,

meaning Denise Lewis was permanently trapped

inside the body of a black woman.

You could be any of them.

No such delicacies marked the Greek version of the show

as you can see from this startling scene, in which a blonde celeb,

who's probably famous for eating potatoes or something -

I can't be arsed to Google it - is transmogrified into Stevie Wonder.

A-one, a-two, a-one, two, three, four!

"Racist" you type into Twitter like a rat trained to jab phones,

but which is more racist -

the programme for making that woman black up,

or the entire British version for keeping the races apart,

just like apartheid, eh? Think about it. Yeah.

Put that in your noggin and give it a little think-around for Christmas.

And then give us a kiss.

The Great British Bake Off once again somehow managed

to pummel drama into a programme revolving around the correct use

of leavening agents,

beneath the chummy raised eyebrows of lady Ant and Dec

and the judgmental gaze of national matriarch Mary Berry,

played here by Glenn Close,

and laser-eyed barn owl Paul Hollywood,

who often looked like he was about to start line dancing.

Although disappointingly, he never did.

The final was a tense battle of crusts

between self-flagellating philosophy student Ruby,

Kimberley who had three facial settings -

concentrating, smiley, and very smiley -

and Francis whose artistically elaborate offerings

often tasted as good as a Damien Hirst.

The rhubarb is useless. What'll it do with the ginger?

There was minor controversy when some viewers complained that

Ruby was only being put through each week on the basis of her looks,

which is really unfair because Glenn was the best-looking one.

It wasn't the only elimination contest.

Steel-hearted ostensible business simulator

and solid gold prat farm The Apprentice

also returned for the 300th year running.

This year's male contingent of prospective Sugar-lovers,

included Curious George, Tony Blair, a Jimmy Carr sex doll,

Russell Crowe, Gok Wan,

and a photo in a barber's window.

The final boiled down to a face-off between two presentable young ladies

prompting yet more accusations

that pretty women were being treated favourably - which is wrong -

rather than like haunches of beef in a music video, which is...right.

In a triumph of irony, famously wrinkled, testicular-faced Lord Sugar

ended up picking Dr Leah Totten's plan

for a chain of walk-in cosmetic surgery clinics.

Leah, you're gonna be my business partner!

She immediately booked Lord Sugar in for a Botox treatment

starting Monday 9am until the end of time.

In August, former saccharin teen idol Miley Cyrus made headlines

with a provocative performance at the VMA awards

in which she attempted to seduce a zebra disguised as Robin Thicke

by rubbing her bum up and down it and marking it with scent.

Thicke later claimed he hadn't been turned on by this,

although I'd just like to point out vertical stripes do hide erections.

This seminal moment cemented the notion of twerking

in the public's imagination.

Twerking means offering your backside up for inspection,

like someone auditioning for a lead role in Proctology, The Musical.

When someone twerks at you, they are either giving you a sexy come on,

or inviting you to check to see if they've wiped properly.

Anyway, twerking's hard work and it was hot under those VMA lights,

as you could tell because Cyrus kept panting with her tongue out

and scratching herself where her costume kept getting itchy.

Miley's appearance was brilliant fodder

for 24-hour rolling hypocrisy generators

which could pay idiots to decry her performance,

while simultaneously repeating it on a loop at BLEEP lunchtime!

I watched the performance last night

like I watch most horrible films -

with my hands over my eyes.

It also dismayed the inventor of the foam finger,

a man who is very much the Nelson Mandela of the novelty-shit world

as revealed in this tragic and heart-rending interview.

What went through your mind

when you saw what Miley was doing with it on a national stage?

I...as I have stated, I thought it was degrading.

Christ, if you think Miley Cyrus' use of the foam finger is degrading,

I hate to think what you'd make of the things I've done with a rubber thumb.

Technology was threaded through the year like, well,

like a tangled ethernet cable. Do you remember ethernet cables?

We used them a hundred years ago back in 2009,

before everything went wireless, even this leg of lamb.

In a gloriously boring launch event,

Apple unveiled plans to replace their bestselling rectangle five.

And we're going to replace it with not ONE, but TWO new designs.

No, that's one design, but twice.

Actually, it looks a bit like what happens to breasts when you turn 80.

This slick promo revealed that the two new rectangles,

came in an expensive version, and a really expensive version,

finally giving iPhone users the one feature

they hadn't been yearning for - fingerprint recognition.

Your fingerprint is one of the best passwords in the world.

It's always with you, and no two are exactly alike.

Just like arseholes really.

Although, come to think of it,

every arsehole with an iPhone is exactly alike.

But then everyone uses smartphones these day, they are ubiquitous.

As you can see from this creepy selection of Apple ads,

human beings apparently now spend more time disconnectedly documenting

their world for the benefit of Cloud-based photo streams

than they do by being consciously present in the moment.

Of course, sometimes you don't want to be in the moment,

so it's perhaps understandable that people seem to have been snapping

and filming more traumatic incidents than ever before -

footage the news eagerly hoovers up and flings back at us.

Terrorists can use this to their advantage, committing atrocities

in the knowledge that harrowing footage of their exploits

will be repeated worldwide on the news for weeks

as happened with the Kenyan mall massacre

and in the aftermath of the murder of Lee Rigby in Woolwich this year.

The man with the bloodied hands

is not talking to a professional cameraman,

he has deliberately sought out a passer-by

who is filming with a phone camera.

Terrorists exploiting camera phones,

hi-tech drones waging wars...

This is the stuff of dystopian sci-fi!

And not just military drones - no -

in a dispiriting promo,

Amazon unveiled plans to launch their own unmanned drones

so the Taliban won't know if they're about to die

or get a box set delivered.

Then they used their glossy Kindle Fire promos

to unveil a nightmare vision of now,

as a prick unexpectedly chat roulette's a worker ant.

Oh, hello! Erm, I've pressed the May Day button

because I need a hand with my Kindle Fire.

Yeah, great. How can I help?

Teach him how to put it down and BLEEP off!

Instead, eerie Amy shows the horrid man how to beam a shit film

onto his irritating television so he can bore his disgusting friends.

Brilliant! Thanks for the rescue.

Not at all. Now, get back to your friends.

Don't tell me what to do, you disgusting machine!

Creepily, it seems Amazon are growing multiple Amys in Petri dishes

because the American version of the advert also features

a familiar-ish face.

May Day?

Thank you for pressing the May Day button. How can I help you?

Whoa! Who are you? I'm Amy.

A tech adviser for your new Kindle Fire.

I didn't realise I'd get a live person.

Don't worry, I'm sure she's dead on the inside.

Amy?

I like you. Aw...!

Yeah, bad news, mate. You can't BLEEP her, she's a rectangle.

Terrifyingly, tosser here seems to be enjoying

the most meaningful relationship he's ever had with a human.

Thanks for pressing May Day. How can I help?

Yes, I was just wondering if the Kindle has a left-handed mode!

The big mystery here is why would anyone want a device

some anonymous stranger can remotely control?

It seems some people actively welcome intrusion,

or are at least weirdly relaxed about it.

Perhaps that's why no-one seemed to give too much of a toss

about the snooping revelations of one Edward Snowden.

Here was a privacy bombshell

that made the News of the World phone hacking scandal

look about as significant as half a grain of couscous.

Whistle-blower Edward Snowden,

seen here droning on in footage resembling a glasses advert,

revealed the existence of a secret scheme called PRISM,

which sounds like a bad '80s Spectrum game,

complete with a logo to match.

Incidentally, why does a secret plan need a logo?

PRISM apparently allowed America's National Security Agency

to spy on almost everything human beings shared on phones or internet.

There hadn't been a more sinister Big Brother programme

since the one where Nasty Nick hid a pencil.

And yet the public largely shrugged.

I mean, I shrugged, because I'd always assumed

some computer somewhere was logging everything we do,

making a little animated paper clip pop up on some CIA guy's screen

to warn him it looked like you were buying stuff to make a pipe bomb,

or that you were just a bit of a wrong 'un.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, now we know that governments

listen into all your cellphone calls and read all your e-mails,

and for that reason alone, I'd be surprised if the NSA

doesn't have the highest suicide rate

of any occupation anywhere on this planet.

I can't even go through my OWN e-mails.

Imagine the poor NSA worker

who has to sift through all that nonsense bullshit

you send each other.

Ew, forward! Here's 10 Reasons A Cucumber's Better Than A Man.

He he he...!

I knew you'd get a kick out of it!

Someone's got to spend their days reading that shit?

Listening to your cellphone calls?

I have to listen to your cellphone conversations

just sitting in an airport bar

and listening to you drone on at top volume about...

"Yes, well, the doctor said that the warmer climate

"might be good for my fibromyalgia.

"Hello? Can you hear me?"

God help the poor bastard who has to eavesdrop on those conversations

day in and day out.

Keep that man away from sharp objects when he gets off the job.

In October, Britain was briefly sent into a tailspin

as lurid headlines warned terrified civilians

about the evil false widow spider,

which was said to be crawling across Britain

sinking its fangs into any BLEEP it could find.

A school was closed, apparently infested with the death-beasts,

and there were reports of false widow victims

hovering at death's door.

Even though false widow spiders have been commonplace in Britain

for over 140 years, an excited media

had only just discovered how amazingly dangerous they are.

A terrible oversight.

But, fortunately, all the stations had spider experts on hand

to tell us just how grave the false widow threat was.

It's very slow-moving, it's not aggressive

and, if you got bitten by it, then you'd be very unlucky.

OK, you SAY that, but presumably we should eradicate them anyway,

because they're dangerous to man.

There's no need to eradicate them.

These spiders are getting everywhere.

They're not dangerous to man.

OK, so, not dangerous, but they do cause terrible agony, yeah?

Most people when bitten by a noble false widow,

even the most venomous one, will only feel a pinprick.

Oh, right. But they're almost impossible to get rid of?

If you want to get rid of it, put a glass over it,

slide a piece of card underneath and just take it outside and release it.

It's basically just a spider, isn't it?

Yes, the papers had mischievously turned false widow spiders

into a false scare out of sheer boredom during a slow news week.

Ironically, the suspected reason why there's more false widows around,

climate change, really is scary,

but the reports kind of only mention that in passing.

But never mind, I'm sure our grandchildren

are going to chuckle to themselves

thinking about how silly their ancestors were,

worrying about tiny, non-threatening spiders

when they're not knifing each other to death

over the last glass of water on the planet.

Ed Miliband's dad, right, hated Britain.

But no-one knew,

because most of the things he did suggested he didn't.

But then the Daily Mail found out he did hate Britain,

so they did this big dramatic news story about it,

with all massive headlines and everything, and then Ed Miliband

got all upset and went on the news to say they were out of order.

That is a lie, and I'm not willing to let it stand.

Most people love or hate different bits of Britain.

Like, I hate the M6, but Ralph Miliband hated ALL of Britain.

He hated London, he hated Manchester, he hated Leeds,

he hated Glasgow, he hated South Wales.

He hated North Wales, he hated the Lake District

and the Peak District, and all the Shires.

If it was in Britain, and it was a place, he hated it.

But he also hated THINGS in Britain as well,

so he hated British people, he hated British wildlife,

he hated all the coins and the stamps and the phone boxes

and, like, even down to stuff like shoelaces and things like that

that aren't even worth hating, he hated them anyway.

He hated Paddington Bear, and Made In Chelsea, and Tom Daley,

and Dawn French.

He hated QI, and all those British shops like Zara and ALDI

and KFC and Delice de France, he hated the British Museum,

and British Gas, and British Airways, and British Sea Power.

British Rail, even after they changed their name to Railtrack,

he never forgave them.

He hated Leon Britton, Fern Britton, Brittany Ferries and Britney Spears.

He even hated British air. That's why he stopped breathing it.

And he hated British children,

so when Ed Miliband was on TV defending him, he'd have hated it,

because Ed Miliband's British, and Ralph Miliband hated Britain.

And all the Mail did was point that out.

Also in October, Channel 4 confronted the one issue

it's simply never had the guts to face before - sex.

In a few minutes, a couple will enter this box, they'll have sex,

and then, immediately afterwards,

come out and talk frankly about what they did.

Sex Box was a ground-breaking televisual landmark in which

volunteers rutted like hounds in a terrifying pillbox

for reasons beyond the realm of normal human comprehension.

In the show, ostensibly ordinary couples entered Mariella's box

and then did it. Basically, it was just like Big Brother -

ie, a load of pointless BLEEP in a box.

But, crucially, it was also better than Big Brother

because there weren't any cameras in there.

There are no cameras in the sex box, it's your private, intimate space

to do whatever it is you fancy doing.

Have a great time. Thank you! See you later.

This being a Channel 4 show, the couples were excitingly diverse.

There were straight ones, gay ones, wheeled ones, ethnic ones.

In fact, the only minority not represented was necrophiles,

which is ironic, because they're always having sex in boxes.

The brave fucksplorers went in two by two,

a bit like the animals on Noah's Ark, which was fitting,

since given the lack of obvious air holes or any kind of any

kind of cleaning rota, by the end of the day, under studio lights,

that box must have stunk like a biblical zoo.

They could do a follow-up show called Surviving The Sex Box,

in which you just have to sit in there

and eat a corned beef sandwich without being sick.

While they were in there stinking the place out,

the sexperts sat outside like account execs

killing time in a brothel waiting room,

swapping bullshit anecdotes about sticking it in.

Sex up the bum, it's butt sex, it's assfucking.

Once the rutting was complete,

the freshly glazed couples had to do the walk of shame back outside,

and then try to talk about the sex they'd just done, ideally

without picking pubes from their teeth or weeping openly on camera.

And the result was as mutually enlightening

as listening to some random tit on a train platform

describing a recent sneeze.

Our experience in the box - we started doing one thing,

we'd talked about it, that's where we were going.

We rimmed, we had anal sex, we then 69ed.

We tried everything.

LAUGHTER

We're very grateful.

2013 was a landmark birthday for everyone's favourite time traveller

and the BBC paid tribute with a raft of exciting celebratory specials,

including a nail-biting live reveal of the next Doctor.

Doctor Who was, like, 50 this year, so the BBC celebrated by killing him

and getting a new one who looked more like he actually was 50.

Peter Capaldi!

It's good they've got an older Doctor Who

because an older actor's going to know more about how time works,

because he's experienced more of it. You know, in his life.

Just from being older, he's already travelled through loads more time

than, say, Rick Edwards.

If there's a story set in 1910,

he doesn't have to look 1910 up on Wikipedia, like a normal actor,

he can go there in his head,

because he remembers it from when he was a teenager.

In December, millions of people were enjoying

an inspiring episode of Mrs Brown's Boys - the uplifting tale

of a man in a dress hitting another man with a tin tray...

..when there was a sad and unexpected twist.

Now on BBC One,

we interrupt Mrs Brown's Boys to join President Zuma for a statement.

But we don't have a President Zuma.

Unless we've been invaded by the Zumatrons.

It was actually South Africa's President Zuma

telling the world that Nelson Mandela was dead.

The coverage of Mandela's death was essentially a mirror image

of the coverage of Thatcher's death.

The news had whanged on and on about how divisive she was,

whereas Mandela, they told us, was universally admired.

Mandela was a hugely significant and widely-beloved figure,

and with his passing it felt rather as though the very concept

of likeable political figures had become extinct.

Now we were just left behind on the planet with the rest of them.

Maybe that's why politicians fell over themselves

to pay gooey tribute, blurping on about how much they admired him.

Presumably hoping a little Mandela magic might rub off on them, too.

Notable freedom fighter, champion of the oppressed

and admirer of political prisoners David Cameron

once again took to his special little podium

to explain how Nelson embodied almost Thatcher-like greatness.

Tonight, one of the brightest lights of our world has gone out.

Still, at least he didn't black up in tribute.

Not to be outdone, effortless charisma-engine

and Prime Minister of Crawley Ed Miliband sat before those lamps

he's often sat before to explain how much he'd been influenced

by the famously dynamic leader.

The world will miss him very deeply.

He was the inspirational figure of our age.

Do you think HE hated Britain?

Meanwhile, in fictional London, the BBC's EastEnders

also paid its own moving tribute to an inspirational man

none of its characters had ever mentioned before.

Do you know, when they let him out,

we just sat in front of the television all day, and...

and cried.

That must have been a boring BLEEP episode.

Still, not everyone was a fan,

such as notorious Fox News blowhard Bill O'Reilly,

who tempered his praise with a warning.

He was a great man, but he was a communist.

Black AND red? That's the worst.

A few days later, world leaders jetted in to South Africa

to appear at Mandela's memorial service.

Highlights included shots of Tony Blair sitting awkwardly

like a spare prick at a wedding.

The Danish PM and star of Borgen

was clearly worried that sitting next to the US President

at the memorial service of one of the most important figures

of the 20th century, nobody might take any pictures.

So she instigated a selfie that became instantly notorious.

The three of them obviously had no idea how bad that might look

sensationally splashed across the front pages,

so it's lucky they took a photo to check.

But even that gaff was overshadowed by the sign language debacle

when it transpired this sign language translator was

spouting meaningless gibberish.

Sort of freeform sign jazz.

To be fair, it wasn't really his fault.

When they'd asked him if he could do sign language,

he had given them a very clear "no".

Finally, in moving scenes, the man himself was laid to rest,

leaving behind a gaping void

and the chilling realisation that with Mandela gone,

the world's most popular political figure is currently Russell Brand.

Did you know there once was an animal

that had never seen Christmas?

Not a Jewish bat, but a bear.

# Is this the place... #

Once again, John Lewis attempted to tug your heartstrings so hard,

your wallet fell out of your pocket

with this finely-tuned, sentimental cartoon bullshit story

of woodland creatures celebrating Christmas just like animals don't.

It's basically about a bear that has its hibernation routine ruined

by a selfish rabbit. He'll die now, his metabolism's fucked.

And, as many pointed out,

it was visually reminiscent of Watership Down,

although not quite reminiscent enough for my liking

because Watership Down is actually one of the most brutal depictions

of nature's godless cruelty it's possible to imagine.

And if only their advert had ended like this,

it would have made for the best Christmas campaign ever.

Supermarkets, meanwhile, tried using domestic nostalgia

to wash away the lingering taste of horse meat,

either with actual home movies,

as in Sainsbury's' documentary-style offering,

or simulated home movies, as in this depressing Tesco mini-epic,

which is supposed to be uplifting, although really,

whizzing through a couple's life in 30 seconds actually only makes you

contemplate the fleeting, transient pointlessness of all life on Earth.

Mind you, I suppose reducing a human life to a commercial

is a slight improvement on reducing a horse's life to a burger.

It's all very well, all this feel-good chumminess, but I'll tell

you whose Christmas home movies with the family I'd rather see -

Kim Jong-Un's.

Anyway, that was 2013.

We got through it together, didn't we? As a people.

Anyway, I hope you'll join me again in January for Weekly Wipe.

You will, won't you?

Until then, get out.