First broadcast 1st January 2013.
Charlie Brooker Presenter
Al Campbell Barry Shitpeas
Diane Morgan Philomena Cunk
Doug Stanhope Self
Charlie Brooker Presenter
Al Campbell Barry Shitpeas
Diane Morgan Philomena Cunk
Doug Stanhope Self
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00No New Year would be complete without it. Now on BBC Two, some strong language and adult
00:16humour as Charlie Brooker looks back.
00:30Hello, I'm Charlie Brooker and you're watching 2012 Wipe, a television programme in which
00:46we take a look back at the year 2012 AD. It was a year in which many things happened.
00:51A year in which Londoners finally strung up their mayor, a bunch of pussies desecrated
00:56a Moscow church, stunning TV footage proved dogs have evolved the ability to do Jeremy
01:01Clarkson's job with less casual racism, and Mr Andrew Lansley found himself only the first
01:07of this year's silver-haired hate figures with access to Britain's hospitals in this
01:10confrontational Sky News footage.
01:13Yes, it was a year so laden with incident, I hardly know where to begin. January, actually
01:19yeah, I'm going to start with January.
01:22As January dawned, our planet and all the poor sods stuck to it were exhausted. 2011
01:27had been a show-off, full of riots, revolutions and disasters. By the end of it, we all looked
01:32and felt like we'd been repeatedly kicked in the time tits by a gigantic dog-shit clock.
01:37What we needed was a little respite from the misery. What we got was this.
01:42Many people still missing after a huge cruise liner sinks in the Mediterranean.
01:46Yes, the cruise ship Costa Concordia suffered a grisly sea smash that left it looking like
01:51someone had driven the Chrysler building into a pond, and made people who try to avoid
01:55flying wonder what a holiday hiding under the stairs might be like.
01:58Now, Entertainment Tonight.
02:00Sparkly bum-brained showbiz US news show Entertainment Tonight took the unusual decision to cover
02:05this disaster, apparently because it struck them as precisely the kind of totally fictional
02:10scenario that only ever happens in films.
02:13It is a real-life Titanic tragedy still unfolding off the coast of Italy tonight.
02:19The real-life Titanic.
02:20Why did their dream vacations end up a real-life nightmare like director James Cameron's Titanic?
02:27Yes, seemingly unaware that a real-life Titanic had already sunk 100 years ago in real life,
02:32the hard-hitting fact-finders set about unearthing other similarities between the disaster and
02:37the 90s blockbuster movie, thereby qualifying as perhaps the world's thickest vultures.
02:42So was Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On playing on board when the Costa Concordia crashed into
02:48the rocks?
02:49Well, I guess we'll never know.
02:50And that's the real tragedy.
02:52Interesting fact here, the water that the passengers of the Costa Concordia had to enter
02:56was about 57 degrees.
02:58The water for the stars of Titanic wasn't much warmer, a frigid 60 degrees.
03:02Hmm.
03:03Almost makes you wonder who suffered more.
03:05Meanwhile, upbeat concert footage from the States as suave, sexy Pakistani bombing president
03:10Barack Obama prepared to spend a year campaigning for re-election, but first shared a mic with
03:14Mick Jagger and B.B. King.
03:16Come on, baby, don't you want to go?
03:20Yeah!
03:21Yeah!
03:22Mm-hmm.
03:23Mm-hmm.
03:24Name of place, sweet home Chicago.
03:29Just like a rock star, Obama often reduces women to a quivering, screaming mess, usually
03:33in the aftermath of one of his drone strikes.
03:35Meanwhile, as you could see from CNN's thrilling debate coverage, the Republican challengers
03:39didn't look quite so rock and roll as President Coolio.
03:42Rapidly rising in credibility was God-fearing, Seinfeld-faced thief Rick Santorum, a man
03:48so pious even the Pope thinks he needs to pull the Bible out of his ass for a minute.
03:52Santorum's campaign was anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, anti-quated, but mainly anti-Obama,
03:57as the news expertly depicted.
03:59He found a way to attack Obama on everything.
04:02President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college.
04:07What a snob.
04:09But while Santorum prayed for victory, Newt Gingrich, played by Grandma from the Tweety
04:13Pie cartoons, was all over the news, unleashing a barrage of astonishing attack ads against
04:17his main rival, square-jawed visual cliché Mitt Romney.
04:21Massachusetts moderate Mitt Romney, he'll say anything to win, anything.
04:26And just like John Kerry, laissez les bons temps rouler, he speaks French too.
04:32Bonjour, je m'appelle Mitt Romney.
04:35Speaking of the French, they had what you might call a good February in what Mitt Romney
04:39might call un bon février, the Frenchman.
04:42There was this really good film called The Artist, except it wasn't about an artist,
04:47but an actor who was black and white.
04:49And all his friends were black and white, and he lived in a black and white house, and
04:52ate black and white food.
04:53There were these informative subtitle things, right, but they hadn't put them on properly,
04:58so the actors would go like...
05:02For ages.
05:03But the words came up afterwards, so the old film probably took twice as long as it should
05:08have.
05:09It was the worst mistake in a film since they hired that sort of stuttery guy to play the
05:13king last year.
05:15The dog in it, the dog was really good as an actor, like at least as good as Keanu Reeves.
05:23It was such a good actor, he could star in a film like a romantic comedy with Jennifer
05:27Aniston, with all love scenes in it.
05:30They wouldn't even have to pay him, you know, you could just probably give him a tennis
05:35ball to chew on and he'd be fine with that.
05:38That's what they'd do with Hugh Jackman.
05:40The artists swept the board at the Oscars, which was also notable for other brilliant
05:44performances.
05:45For instance, in this penetrating live interview on Sky, actor Nick Nolte excelled in the role
05:50of most confused individuals.
05:51Now that you're here all dressed up, are you a bit itty-bitty excited?
05:55Well, you know, if I knew what you said, I could probably answer you.
05:59So I'll say yes, yes, yes, and no.
06:03True or false, you own a pet crow?
06:07What did I do?
06:08As March shimmied into view, the BBC tried to end the talent show wars for good, with
06:13a new kind of singing contest, one where trivial things like looks or basic entertainment value
06:18simply didn't matter.
06:20Dropped Nagasaki-style into the Saturday night schedules, The Voice was genuinely revolutionary,
06:26by which I mean it had revolving chairs in it.
06:28The nation's hopeful desperoids screeched at the backs of estuary foghorn Jesse Jay,
06:33fluffy roast chicken Tom Jones, butthead-shaped wannabono Danny O'Donoghue, and the photo
06:38Tom Jones takes to his tanning salon, Will.I.Am.
06:41You know, Will.I.Am was so ubiquitous this year, I started calling him Will.U.Leave.
06:46As a sing-along blind man's bluff, it was nearly fun.
06:48Look, Tom can hear something.
06:50Is it singing?
06:51His spidey sense is tingling.
06:52Where on earth is it coming from?
06:54But the moment the chairs spun around, all novelty and tension disappeared.
06:57If you ask me, they should have thrown in some more interesting format points, like
07:01in the brilliant Aussie version, where Seal had to masturbate to orgasm before contestants
07:05hit the high note.
07:06Don't you remember?
07:10Omni-shambles.
07:11That was a word that cropped up a lot in 2012.
07:13Not as often as the word the did, yes, but to be honest, I'm getting sick of your incessant
07:18pedantry.
07:19Faced with a tanker driver's strike that hadn't been announced, France's Maud told the public
07:23to top up their jerrycans, and having googled the word jerrycan, they began panic buying,
07:27as the news gleefully recounted.
07:30Although some hope to avoid the panic by putting off their panic till later.
07:34But I'm trying not to panic buy, because, you know, it takes a quality of time, just
07:38panic buying.
07:39Then a row broke out over VAT on hot pastries, prompting MPs to turn the news into one big
07:44pie-eating contest, starting when humanoid David Cameron claimed to regularly ingest
07:49pleb grub.
07:50I love a hot pasty.
07:51I think the last one I bought was from the West Cornwall Pasty Company.
07:55Oh, is it just me, or is this anecdote really sexy?
07:59I seem to remember I was in Leeds station.
08:02Keep talking, Cameron.
08:04And the choice was whether to have one of their small ones or their large ones.
08:09Then in even more powerfully erotic scenes, Ed's millaband and balls shambled into a Gregg's
08:13to prove how much they love the taste of hot mashed pig.
08:17Can we get eight sausage rolls?
08:20Eight?
08:21Eight sausage rolls?
08:22Eight?
08:23Check out the high roller.
08:24What a lifestyle.
08:25I mean, Ed Millaband lives like P. Diddy, doesn't he?
08:26We're in Redditch here to meet some people, and we popped in to buy some sausage rolls.
08:31There was this book, Fifty Shades of Grey, which was clever because it was for normal
08:35people and perverts, like how Harry Potter's for kids and adults.
08:39It was quite violent.
08:40It should have been called Seven Shades of Shit, really.
08:43The woman who wrote it was on Newsnight, and Paul Mason listed some of his favourite bits.
08:49And that was quite a turn on, actually, Paul Mason saying all that.
08:54Fisting, anal intercourse, genital clamps, whipping.
08:59I rewound it and watched it again.
09:01Fisting, anal intercourse, genital clamps, whipping.
09:07And one more time after that.
09:09Fisting, anal intercourse, genital clamps, whipping.
09:15No one actually wants more, come to think of it.
09:18Fisting, anal intercourse, genital clamps, whipping.
09:23I'm trying to set it as a ringtone.
09:26This March, humankind was saved forever, as an inspiring charity video got everyone
09:31online talking about Joseph Kony, a profoundly horrible African warlord with an army of child
09:36soldiers.
09:37It was a slick, heavily graphically stylised video in which a charismatic, idealistic filmmaker
09:44named Jason Russell evangelised about how the best way to stop Joseph Kony was to make
09:49him famous so politicians would be forced to pay attention and stop him.
09:53And how were they going to stop him?
09:56We'll get back to you on that one.
09:57Retweeted by celebrities, the video went big, becoming the most viewed YouTube clip since
10:01Two Cat Bin Lady's One Cup, 70 million views in just five days, a comparison the news was
10:06mightily impressed by.
10:07For comparison, it took singing sensation Susan Boyle seven days to reach that mark
10:12and the old Spice Guy five months.
10:15If only they'd kidnapped children.
10:17Meanwhile, critics said the film was so crudely oversimplified it may as well have claimed
10:21Joseph Kony was literally whittling children into bullets and firing them at defenceless
10:25unicorns.
10:26Furthermore, some voices worried that the charity responsible, Invisible Children, seemed
10:32to be spending lots of the money it raised making glitzy videos that raised awareness
10:36of what, exactly?
10:38These glossy videos were all over the internet, videos that posed questions.
10:42Questions like, why did they make this slick high school musical number that doesn't really
10:46have much to do with Uganda but apparently lots to do with their dance fantasies?
10:56And what the leaping great joinkers was the deal with the odd-sounding Fourth Estate spin-off
11:00youth camp event they'd organised, promoted via an unsettling, some might say creepy set
11:05of videos, apparently promising some kind of global revolution?
11:19Sadly, before these questions could be answered, Invisible Children co-founder Jason Russell
11:24starred in a more upsetting follow-up viral video that was analysed in depressing detail
11:28by gossip-mongers.
11:29Jason hit the streets of San Diego naked, cursing, smacking the pavement and screaming
11:36about the devil.
11:37And tragically for Joseph Kony, he was soon knocked off the top of the viral pop charts
11:41and there's no chance of him getting back up there, at least until he teaches his child
11:44army how to dance gangnam style.
11:47Technology, and as Google Chrome decides to promote itself with the unsettling tale
11:57of a stalky ex-boyfriend who's compiled an exhaustive dossier on his estranged girlfriend
12:01in a desperate bid to impress her, Nokia unveil a snazzy smartphone apparently equipped with
12:06incredible twat-dazzling technology.
12:07Why do you love your Lumia?
12:09My Lumia improves my life.
12:11One of the great features is that people have LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, messaging.
12:15I can have a tile for every part of my life.
12:18Yeah, I've got a tile for every part of my f***ing bathroom, you don't hear me crowing
12:22about it.
12:23You can completely make it your own.
12:24It is your own.
12:25It's fast.
12:26Literally just flip through apps.
12:27Send a tweet really, really quickly.
12:29Hear back from Lord McAlpine even quicker.
12:31Can I take a photo?
12:32Smile.
12:33Amazing.
12:34I'll say.
12:35Diet, and Mel B's here with some convincing and moving personal testimony.
12:45Now, I know how hard it is to get started, but this is what I did.
12:49Hi, I'm Mel B, and help, I need to lose 15 kilos.
12:52What, you didn't use a phone?
12:54I feel lighter, like when I walk now, it's not so bombada bombada, it's more doink doink
13:00doink doink doink.
13:01You want to get that looked at.
13:02Losing weight does not have to be scary, come join me, call Jenny, now.
13:07No.
13:08Coffee, and a high street coffee chain attempts to hammer this surreal sing-along trauma into
13:17potential customers' minds like a tent peg into a watermelon full of coffee beans.
13:22You know, I was so weirded out by this, I thought I'd sue them for emotional distress,
13:30so I contacted my barista.
13:33My barista.
13:34Barista.
13:35Oh, f*** off.
13:37I was made for loving you, baby, you were made for loving me.
13:43You know what this reminds me of?
13:44It reminds me of that horrible scene in the grisly Roman epic Caligula, where they bury
13:48Christians up to their necks in the stadium, then send in this nightmarish head-chopping
13:52machine.
13:57April featured one of the nation's favourite sporting events, the Grand National, an event
14:01that does for horses what a horse-killing machine also does for horses.
14:06But never mind what I think about it, what might a drunker, more American cynic make
14:09of the Grand National?
14:10Someone like scrofulous drinkist Doug Stanhope.
14:19I'm Doug Stanhope, and that's why I drink.
14:22The Grand National is the sickest, most perverted thing, where they take as many horses as will
14:28fit on the track, and they cram them all into this line, and then they go, how many
14:32horses will this track hold?
14:35We'll add five more.
14:37F*** them.
14:38And they fire them off, and it's not just enough to run around in a circle.
14:42They gotta put obstacles.
14:44You put up fences and barriers and embankments with a moat.
14:47It's like Gallipoli.
14:48It's like World War I, where they're expecting a Turkish gunner on the other side, mowing
14:52them down.
14:53And these horses collide in this giant demolition derby equine massacre, and they do triple
15:00lindy forward somersaults with jockeys flying off in the air, and they die.
15:06They die on the track, and no one gives a shit.
15:08And then the horses have to go around again and see their dead friend that they're trying
15:12to set up a big concession stand around, so they can kill it right on the track.
15:16They don't even pause it right.
15:17Just kill him right there.
15:18Put up a little curtain, like Angela's changing her nightie.
15:22And all the announcers sound like Tinker Tailor's Soldier Spy, where everyone talks
15:26like this.
15:27They go over the chair, and the leader jumped in well and always, right as a faller at the
15:31chair.
15:32Well, we've lost another one.
15:33Oh, that one fell.
15:34Oh, that one stepped out.
15:36That one's going to go smoke a fag, I believe.
15:39No, he's dying!
15:40He's mutilated!
15:41Human interest and ITV's deceptively racy agenda-setting behemoth this morning meets
15:46a man weighed down with a heavy burden.
15:48Well, in just a moment, we'll meet Jonah Falcon, the man who has what is thought to be the
15:52world's largest penis.
15:54Actually, they just reused that caption from the last time they had Piers Morgan on.
15:58Because they couldn't broadcast Jonah's penis, Philip Schofield had a handy cardboard model
16:02showing just how mammoth it was.
16:04So this is the sort of thing that we're talking about.
16:07Of course, on the back of that, he's written the names of some suspected massive penises
16:11he found on the internet.
16:12Without using a ruler, I go from here to the crook of my elbow.
16:16Shortly after that, Schofield booked him as one of the rounds on the cube.
16:20Alternative TV network and former Big Brother bulletin board Channel 4 turned 30 this year.
16:26But that didn't stop it experimenting with drugs.
16:28Drugs Live, the ecstasy trial, includes scenes of drug taking.
16:31You don't say.
16:33The informative Drugs Live was the sort of show Channel 4 used to make when it started
16:3730 years ago.
16:38But unfortunately, this was made in 2012, sometime after the extensive ecstasy-taking
16:42experiment the British public's been getting on with for the past 25 years.
16:47Its big draw was a man on drugs live in the studio.
16:50Anything could happen.
16:51Would he skull burst?
16:52Would he start speaking in tongues?
16:54Would he say, I'm fine, yeah, I'm feeling good?
16:57It's fine, aren't you?
16:58I'm fine.
16:59Yeah, I'm feeling good.
17:00Mm.
17:01Still, this is the first time they've ever let someone on drugs live on Channel 4, apart
17:04from maybe every single episode of The Word.
17:07Sticking with law-breaking, Gordon Behind Bars was another new Channel 4 format disguised
17:12as an old Alan Partridge format.
17:13The idea was to rehabilitate a group of criminal offenders by sticking them in a boiling hot
17:17room with an angry Scotsman and a range of sharp objects.
17:20What could possibly go wrong?
17:23The show itself provided a thoughtful look at just what happens when the men's society
17:26has failed to shout at each other in a kitchen.
17:29Most TV presenters would shit their own hips out being surrounded by potentially violent
17:33criminals, but not Gordon.
17:34No, he knows all about violence.
17:36Why only the other day in his kitchen, an egg was beaten and a fish got battered.
17:42Also, five waiters were murdered.
17:44Sticking with crime, in another snazzy Channel 4 format, Gok Wan attempted to smuggle 15
17:49kilos of Class A shit onto primetime television in the baffling dating show, Luggage.
17:55I mean, Baggage.
17:56After an opening dance so horrid your mind won't let you recall it after seeing this
18:00footage, the idea behind Luggage, I mean, Baggage, became clear.
18:04A human being with genitals has to choose a potential mate from three other human beings
18:08with genitals.
18:09Except, rather than basing their decision on an assessment of their positive traits,
18:13they instead decided who to discard on the basis of their negative traits, or emotional
18:18luggage.
18:19Baggage.
18:20Emotional Luggage.
18:21Baggage.
18:22Fortunately, the Luggage, by which I mean Baggage, in question was fairly innocuous.
18:26Although, of course, in future they'll have to tearfully confess to wannabe partners that
18:29they once, many years ago and in a moment of madness, appeared on Luggage.
18:34Baggage.
18:35F**k.
18:36Hello and welcome live to Haute LGB.
18:38Finally, all of Channel 4's format experimentation came to a head in the bold Haute LGB, which
18:43was a bit like every reality show ever made, only somehow less so.
18:47It featured all the recently tried and tested format stars.
18:50Dr. Christian from Drugs Live, Gordon Ramsay from Cooking in Prison, and Gok Wan from Luggage.
18:56Baggage.
18:57F**k.
18:58Alongside that lot were Kirstie off Kirstie and Thingy as the concierge for no reason,
19:02and Thingy off Kirstie and Thingy playing the maitre d' for no reason.
19:05I'm very conscious that it's Gordon's name above the door in the restaurant.
19:08And if it's rubbish, then it's his name that will be affected, rather than mine.
19:14What is your name?
19:15Their task was to teach impressionable unemployed youths how to run a hotel pointlessly and
19:19on television for ages, while providing as little entertainment as possible.
19:23Would they pull it off?
19:24Yes.
19:25Haute LGB can be the biggest shithole in London, if we don't get this right.
19:29Come on, don't be negative.
19:30Could be the biggest shithole in the world.
19:34Jimmy Carr, right, was on this satire thing for Guardian readers who think they're better
19:38than everyone else.
19:39So, he did this thing where he dressed up all sexy, like, really sexy, and said Barclays
19:44didn't pay enough tax.
19:46Why don't you apply for the Barclays 1% tax scam?
19:49But then this year, it turned out that he hadn't paid much tax, which is the most satirical
19:55thing ever.
19:56He apologised, right, but there was a period before he did when literally no one knew what
20:01to think about it, until David Cameron turned up on the news to say it was wrong.
20:06That is not fair.
20:07That is not right.
20:09What was really sad was you could tell from the coverage that Cameron was obviously really
20:14annoyed with all the offshore tax loophole stuff, but there's nothing he can do about
20:18it.
20:19He's literally powerless to stop it.
20:222012 was her royal queenliness the second's diamond jubilee, which meant the first half
20:26of the year was set aside for ruddy-cheeked forelock tugging.
20:30For years, we the people had used her majesty as a kind of industrial digger for planting
20:34trees, and now it was time to say thank you by standing around waving flags like delighted
20:39peasants.
20:40As Sky News made clear, the Jubilee weekend itself was an event you'd want to tune in
20:44and remember forever.
20:45For one bank holiday weekend, the whole country will come together.
20:49We'll be all over London, bringing you the very best coverage, whatever the weather.
20:54Oh, whatever the weather.
20:56Wonder what the weather will be like.
20:57Well, fortunately, the BBC has some of the finest weathermen in the world, and Prince
21:01Charles.
21:02Well, it's an unsettled picture as we head towards the end of the week.
21:06This afternoon it'll be cold, wet, and windy.
21:09Oh, right.
21:10Well, I'm sure it won't ruin the celebrations.
21:13Those celebrations promised to be an uplifting spectacle, starting with a glorious river
21:17pageant which we were told would resemble an oldie-worldie painting with all boats and
21:20stuff in it.
21:21And in the event, as we'd been promised, what we witnessed really was like something from
21:25the history books.
21:27Specifically, the Great Flood.
21:28Yes, because as this armada sailed down the river, the coverage showed the Thames got
21:32so excited it jumped into the sky and then fell down again, all over everyone.
21:36Still, if you squinted between the raindrops, you could see it was wonderfully varied.
21:41There were boats, more boats, a boat there with a massive bell on it, another boat with
21:47a massive bell on it, basically lots of boats.
21:50It was hammering down so hard it was often difficult to see what was happening, but despite
21:54everything looking like a grim emergency evacuation, the media tried putting a brave
21:58face on things.
21:59My teeth are chattering a little bit, my hands are cold, my feet are cold.
22:03It is spitting a little bit, Eamon, but you know what?
22:06Everybody's getting in the party mood.
22:11Whatever the weather, eh, Kay?
22:14This year, one of mankind's worst fears was realised as a formidable new viral threat
22:18emerged in Asia.
22:21This harrowing footage depicts the first recorded victim, a South Korean entertainer known only
22:26as Psy, as he succumbed to the contagion's trademark spasms.
22:30Victims of Gangnam Style exhibited several distinctive convulsions, crossed wrists, upper
22:35arm seizures, a compulsion to trot like a horse, and a dramatic series of side-to-side
22:39leg contractions which left the victim looking like a confused drunk desperately trying to
22:43shake a turd down their trouser leg.
22:46Soon Gangnam Style was spreading across the region at a bewildering pace as chilling recordings
22:50of the agonised contortions of its victims made devastatingly clear.
22:54It swept through the Thai Navy and infected thousands of prisoners in the Philippines.
22:59Like your mum has.
23:01But the outbreak was largely contained until patient zero was inexplicably allowed out
23:05of quarantine to infect regions worldwide.
23:08It's the name that is on everyone's lips.
23:10Lord McAlpine?
23:11It's Psy!
23:12Oh, well.
23:13Yes, as this effervescent X Factor moment firmly demonstrated, few were immune to the condition,
23:18not even former Spice Girls.
23:26In upsetting scenes broadcast live on US TV, Britney Spears also succumbed while Simon
23:30Cowell looked on powerless to do anything but laugh.
23:33Madonna also fell prey, offering inspiring proof that even 97-year-olds can do the Gangnam
23:39Style.
23:40Sky News caught the chilling moment the condition reached the UN and Ban Ki-moon himself succumbed,
23:44hailing Gangnam Style as a potential harbinger of world peace, saying,
23:48In this era of instability and intolerance, we need to promote better understanding through
23:51the power of music.
23:53Although shortly after he said that, it turned out Psy hadn't always been peace-minded, and
23:57the news could scarcely hide its disappointment.
23:59It has now come out that in his younger days, Psy engaged in some vitriolic anti-Americanism.
24:07Psy performed at a protest concert, singing along to another band song called Dear American,
24:12including these lyrics.
24:14Kill those bleeping Yankees who've been torturing Iraqi captives.
24:18Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law, and fathers.
24:21Hmm.
24:22Still, look on the bright side, he'll presumably kill them Gangnam Style.
24:27In July, if you glanced at ITV's schedule, you could be forgiven for shouting Jesus Christ!
24:33Because he was on.
24:34He was.
24:35In what can only be proof of a burgeoning God complex, Andrew Lloyd Webber and ITV teamed
24:40up to find a whole new son of God in The Amazing Superstar.
24:43Who will have what it takes to play the most iconic role of all time?
24:49I know I could be Jesus.
24:50It just feels right.
24:51It turns out lots of men reckon they might be Jesus, either because they think they look
24:55like him, although of course, as we all know, Jesus actually looks like this.
24:59Or because they sound like him, especially when they deliver traditional Christian raps.
25:03Here we are today, auditioning for Jesus, I am gonna win, so you best of all believe
25:08this.
25:10But before they could don the crown of thorns, they had to go on trial, just like Christ,
25:14except with Melanie Cee and Jason Donovan, instead of Pontius Pilate and a load of Romans
25:19with spears.
25:20I mean, it's like you're on a building site, really.
25:22Jesus wouldn't be doing this on stage, and, you know, sort of, do you know what I mean?
25:29Yeah.
25:30Yeah, because pockets weren't invented back then.
25:32After having their spiritual metal tested with, I shit you not, A Last Supper.
25:37This is your last supper.
25:39See?
25:40They were also tested on their ability to come to earth on a Yamaha, do a skid, kill
25:44a kid and knacker their balls on a dustbin lid, before turning up in the Cavernous Live
25:48studio to perform some traditional hymns, like this.
26:07Let me be!
26:11Oh, man!
26:14Wow, I'd say you nailed it, but I suppose it's best not to mention nails to Christ.
26:18Time for a break, but don't go anywhere, because we need your help to find our Jesus.
26:23We'll see you soon.
26:29Smells and Chanel No. 5 unveil a stunning ad in which Brad Pitt turns shit dialogue
26:34into brown dust.
26:35It's not a journey.
26:36Every journey ends, but we go on.
26:40The world turns, and we turn with it.
26:42Turn on this.
26:43Plans disappear.
26:45Like scripts should.
26:46Dreams take over.
26:48Like another actor should.
26:49But wherever I go, there you are.
26:54My luck, my fate, my fortune.
26:59He's deep for a prick.
27:00So much of 2012 has been so miserable so far, we were conditioned to expect the inevitable
27:06crapness of everything, and the Olympics were clearly going to be nothing but bad news.
27:11For one thing, we couldn't afford it.
27:13The country didn't have a pot to piss in, apart from Plymouth.
27:16The weather.
27:17Yeah, the weather was going to be awful as well.
27:19It had rained consistently throughout the summer.
27:21The country was being waterboarded, basically.
27:24There was moss growing on the inside of clouds.
27:26The ticketing system didn't work.
27:28London's transport network was completely knackered.
27:31Absolutely tossed over.
27:32People, they haven't got a clue what they're doing.
27:34And security.
27:35Yes, security was all a bollocks.
27:37They had to call the army in, and they immediately went mental and started positioning surface-to-air missiles on anything over chest height.
27:44When the flame made its way to the stadium, it might as well be lighting a bomb fuse.
27:48That flame was already touring the country, where it was being carried by many goodwill ambassadors and one bad will.i.am.
27:55Yes, it's dick you is again, texting and moonwalking while carrying the thing.
27:59You know, I'm not sure quite why I find him so irritating, but I think I've narrowed it down to this little bit in his hair.
28:05Lots of different cheery celebrities carried the torch.
28:08This showbiz knight struck a familiar pose on the site of the 1908 Olympics, which he'd attended as an old man.
28:15An Olympics fever was being accompanied by plenty of gaudy advertising, as you could see from the coverage.
28:21Which gave rise to another complaint about the games, that they were clearly going to be nothing but a depressing logo-strewn corporate egg-and-spoon contest.
28:29The nation's ad breaks creaked with one patronising faux-inspirational propaganda movie after another,
28:35with legendary Olympians and Paralympians pimping goods and occasionally farting out corporate insignia willy-nilly,
28:41as apparently random products and services jostled desperately to associate themselves with that wholesome Olympic glow.
28:47Given all this, the Olympics were clearly going to be ghastly.
28:50And as the opening ceremony loomed, smartasses everywhere tried to work out what the emoticon for sneering was.
28:56Of course, in the event, Danny Boyle's opening show was a heartwarming spectacle that made everyone in the country intensely patriotic.
29:03The coverage of the opening ceremony was amazing. It wasn't just the most spectacular broadcast ever.
29:08It was educational, because it taught you all about British history.
29:12Like, how we started out as primitive Morris dancers and cricket people, all living in this field.
29:18And then Abraham Lincoln turned up and started shouting at everyone.
29:21And, like, chimneys grew out of the ground, rising up like big sort of penises made out of bricks.
29:27And it showed you how the Victorians invented Gangnam Style, and how we got invaded by the people from the Quality Street tin.
29:33And how the Mafia turned up to help us, but they were black.
29:36And then this volcano went off, and we hit the lava with hammers, until it flew into the air and turned into the Olympics.
29:42And I didn't know any of that actually happened, but it had all actually happened.
29:47The next morning, it was as if we cautiously realised that maybe, since we hadn't totally balled the ceremony up,
29:53maybe the rest of the games would be okay, too.
29:55Usually, I find watching any sport less interesting than watching, say, cardboard exist.
30:00But for some reason, I couldn't stop watching the Olympics.
30:04I think it's because I'm a nerd, and it reminded me of video games.
30:07Thanks to the video game-style cutscene the BBC displayed whenever its coverage booted up,
30:12and the electric colour tones, and crisp, overlaid graphics showing who was in which lane,
30:17and the high-score table, and the Tron-style fencing tournaments,
30:20and the velodrome coverage, which looked like Battle of the Planets on wheels,
30:23and the occasional weightlifting competitor who looked like an ender-level boss who might suddenly lob a boulder at you or something.
30:29And, of course, thanks to the new Olympic tradition of doing signature gestures, like Usain Bolt's Thingamajig, or the Mobot.
30:36Yes, the presence of the cameras prompted many athletes to perform a fancy starting move before their event,
30:41a bit like the pre-fight animation for a character from the video game Tekken.
30:45The cameras captured many pre-bout player animations.
30:48There was the rearing tiger, the sinister squint, the burst hemorrhoid,
30:53the who-the-bloody-hell-are-you looking at, and the I'm-gonna-rip-my-nipples-off-and-throw-them-at-the-crowd.
30:58In fact, the only one missing was Gangnam Style.
31:00As well as looking like a game, it was a game we were good at.
31:04The blanket coverage presented us with a wealth of fresh-faced, clean-living British youngsters
31:08apparently fixated on being the very best they could be. Bastards.
31:12People started talking about what inspiring role models the Olympics were providing for a whole generation for once.
31:18I mean, compare them to the sort of gaudy role models our youth are usually presented with,
31:22like the nihilistic, boozy attention addicts on MTV's raucous, sex-intriguing reality shows Geordie Shore and The Valleys.
31:29Tisha's gone crazy. She keeps pulling up my skirt and flashing my foof.
31:36I'm not having that, so I shove an ice cube in her knickers.
31:40And another one up her arsehole.
31:42At last, thanks to the Olympics, our young folk were being represented by genuine achievers.
31:47They weren't dedicating their lives to pointless nonsense.
31:50They were doing real things, like jumping over a bar into some sand,
31:54or throwing a disc or a stick really well once every four years.
32:00Athletics provided many high points in the already euphoric coverage,
32:04such as the moment Mo Farah pulled off a spectacular win in the 10,000 metres,
32:08after which a nation held its breath, hoping you wouldn't roll into the phlegm freshly flobbed onto the track by a fellow athlete.
32:14All our fears had been unfounded. The weather was great, the systems worked,
32:18and it didn't feel like a big corporate shindig because it was all on the ad-free BBC.
32:22In fact, the only thing being advertised was Britain.
32:25These schedules heaved with emotive, triumphant, romantic, slow-motion montages
32:30which managed to somehow mythologise the Games before they were even quite over.
32:35Patriotism was now at a peak. There was nothing the UK couldn't do.
32:39We were invincible, we were unstoppable, we were superior.
32:43F*** off Frenchmen, f*** off German, f*** off American.
32:46We could do World War II all over again in our sleep if we wanted.
32:49We were the best nation on Earth. Anything we put our mind to, we could achieve.
33:00Then we had the Paralympics, which also defied expectations
33:03by being about 10,000 times better than many were expecting.
33:07In fact, if anything, they were better than the Olympics
33:10because half these sports hadn't received anything like this much jubilant coverage before,
33:14and the athletes were truly inspiring.
33:16The Paralympics changed the way we looked at disability forever.
33:19For instance, now, when I see someone in a wheelchair, I think, bloody show-off.
33:24Almost every single aspect of the coverage was brilliantly life-affirming.
33:28For instance, here we see a man who lost both his charisma and respect
33:31in a tragic voting accident, triumphing in the 500 decibel boom.
33:35Chancellor of the Exchequer.
33:37They hate me. They really hate me.
33:41If you thought you'd seen a lot of the Royals throughout 2012,
33:43what with the Queen popping up every five seconds like a mushroom in a Mario game,
33:47you hadn't seen half as much of them as you were about to.
33:51First, Prince Harry, who'd been having a pretty good year,
33:54showcasing his stunning ability to blend into almost any surroundings,
33:57was photographed nude in a Vegas hotel room.
33:59Channel 4 News were so delighted they took Harry's bum on a walkabout tour
34:03where it could greet its subjects.
34:05That's what he's been up to.
34:06Is that really him?
34:07That's really him.
34:08What do you think of that?
34:10Well, it was going a bit too far.
34:11Ask her if she thinks he's wiped properly.
34:13Others were less amused, notably the Palace and the Sun newspaper,
34:17which considered this a terrible throwback to a more primitive age,
34:20before the internet let us see any bum we wanted.
34:23And the news dutifully recorded its front page blow for press freedom.
34:27For us, this is about the freedom of the press.
34:30This is about our readers getting involved in the discussion
34:34with the man who is third in line to the throne.
34:36It's as simple as that.
34:38Yes, and that discussion goes,
34:40Can I see your bum?
34:41No.
34:43But a few weeks after this brave attempt to let their readers see a bum,
34:46press commitment to free speech was tested by another story involving royalty.
34:50Or rather, royal T&A.
34:52Because the Duchess of Cambridge,
34:54seen here exiting the I'm a Celebrity jungle with Ben Fogel,
34:57was also snapped in a state of undress
34:59as the news sadly and soberly informed its viewers.
35:01This report does contain flash photography.
35:03Hmm, Ben it does.
35:04The Kate snaps were so disgraceful,
35:06that the British media turned its censorship filters up to maximum blur
35:09to prevent the merest hint of regal flesh exposure.
35:12I actually thought I'd developed glaucoma.
35:14Ben and the Duchess,
35:16who are currently appearing on the Solomon Islands version of Big Brother,
35:18were absolutely livid.
35:20But some people couldn't understand the upset.
35:22People like this bog-eyed French paparazzo.
35:24For me it's so stupid.
35:26Because she's a young lady.
35:28She's nice. She's not fat.
35:30She's beautiful.
35:32So you have to show them.
35:33Yes, that is the law in France.
35:35Are you going to show the pictures on your programme?
35:38Of course not.
35:40So it's a kind of hypocrisy.
35:42He's right, you know.
35:44We've got no problem showing French tits.
35:46I mean, here's a big French tit.
35:48Throughout the year, print journalism got it in the neck on TV,
35:51and Sky News often heaved with surreal reports about newspaper folk.
35:55Scotland Yard's confirmed that it loaned
35:57the former News International chief executive, Rebecca Brooks, a police horse.
36:01Sounds outrageous, although it was a retired horse.
36:03And let me tell you, if you'd seen the photos of that poor, exhausted-looking mare
36:07with its straggly mane and haunted eyes,
36:09you'd think, that poor thing, she deserves a ride on a horse.
36:12The fact that I met horses living with Rebecca Brooks for two years,
36:16it just strikes me as very unusual
36:18and reflects a relationship that was unhealthy.
36:21And pretty uncomfortable, I thought.
36:24But Brooks wasn't the only former Sun editor on the receiving end.
36:27In the wake of the Hillsborough scandal,
36:29beloved national treasure and front-page lie printer Kelvin McKenzie
36:32was subjected to disgraceful yet hilarious harassment by a Channel 4 news crew.
36:37Don't assault me. Don't assault me.
36:40I didn't realise Kelvin McKenzie had a doorstep.
36:42I thought he entered the world each morning
36:44by slithering through a haunted mirror into our realm.
36:47But things were about to get even worse for the press
36:49when Lord Justice Leveson published his report,
36:52which threatened the future of print journalism
36:55simply by using up all the f***ing paper on earth.
36:58There was this thing, right, called the Lesbian Inquiry,
37:01sort of like a talk show hosted by this Brian Lesbian bloke.
37:04It was like if Chatty Man was on in the afternoon,
37:07except it wasn't like Chatty Man
37:09because even though it had all these celebrity guests,
37:11their anecdotes were sort of unhappy.
37:13I was relentlessly pursued by about 10 to 15 men.
37:17You could tell the audience were depressed because they didn't laugh much.
37:21And instead of a big musical number from, like, Adele at the end,
37:24they brought out this report.
37:26There's no way it's coming back for a second series.
37:28It didn't really work as a format.
37:30This Chris Jeffries bloke was in loads of reports carping on,
37:34saying he'd been mistreated by the press and everything.
37:37And you're like, mate, you're on telly.
37:39I wouldn't have even heard of you if it wasn't for the papers.
37:42And you wouldn't have even sorted your air out
37:45if they hadn't pointed out how weird it was.
37:47You know, show some gratitude.
37:49September, always a big month for movies.
37:52And, well, look, you know what it's like when you've read a book
37:55and you really like one of the characters in it
37:57and then someone makes a film of it and they just ruin it.
38:00Well, that.
38:03Spreading across the Arab world,
38:05violent protests over the American film that mocks Islam.
38:08Yes, tempers flared when a shoddy trail
38:11for a deliberately provocative anti-Islam propaganda flick
38:14called The Innocence of Muslims was posted on the internet.
38:16As you could see from the blanket coverage,
38:18it got everything the studios usually want from a movie.
38:21Strong word of mouth, huge crowds,
38:23queues around the block and a lot of heat generated.
38:25And if you think they're pissed off,
38:27you should see what they're saying about it on Rotten Tomatoes.
38:30Usually, Hollywood movies worship the Prophet.
38:32I mean, Prophet's all they care about.
38:34But then this wasn't a Hollywood movie
38:36but an Islamophobic trash fest made by an imbecile called Sam Basile,
38:40seen here turning the news into an impromptu tribute
38:43to the elephant man when he was arrested.
38:45Like many movies, by the end, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.
38:48Or a house. Or an eye.
38:50It was the most hostile reception for any film this year.
38:52Except Prometheus.
38:54Now, call me reactionary, but personally, in the post-Saville environment,
38:58I don't think we should encourage our young folk
39:00to lionise flamboyantly dressed weirdos who claim to be doing good work.
39:04But Hollywood begs to differ.
39:06The Dark Knight Rises is a superhero film
39:09for people who'd like to think they're watching The Seventh Seal,
39:12even though what they're actually watching is a children's film
39:14about a children's character who dresses up as a bat
39:17and hits people in the face.
39:19Calling Batman the Dark Knight makes him sound more sophisticated than he is.
39:23It's a bit like calling Papa Smurf the Blue Patriarch.
39:26The story is a sulky blancmange in which le cavalier noir
39:30goes up against thunderous tough guy Bane,
39:32an angry bollock with a sort of child-safety seatbelt mechanism
39:35glued to his face.
39:36Thing is, because Bane's every line is delivered through his alternate mask,
39:39you have to squint with your ears to understand what he's saying.
39:44What?
39:45Like shipwrecked men turning to sea water.
39:48Huh?
39:49I broke you.
39:50What?
39:51Here to end the boring time you've all been living on.
39:53We're so sick of the nautical piece.
39:56And despite all the pretentious stylings,
39:58the plot actually makes less sense than Thomas and the Magic Railway.
40:01For one thing, Batman gets turned into bad Batman fairly early on,
40:05and he spends ages lying around going,
40:07ow, ow, instead of being f***ing Batman,
40:10which is what you paid to see.
40:12The Dark Knight Rises isn't bad,
40:14but behind all the noir sheen,
40:15it's no more intellectually nourishing than the 1966 Batman movie,
40:19which was camp and loopy and fun,
40:21and never once mistook itself for Ingmar Bergman's
40:24From the Life of the Marionettes.
40:29Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb.
40:31Actually, that's almost identical to the end of Dark Knight Rises.
40:35The conservative chief whip Andrew Mitchell is under pressure tonight
40:39after reportedly swearing at a police officer in Downing Street
40:42and calling him a pleb.
40:44Yes, in a hotly disputed event that did for the Tory image
40:47what seawater did for the Fukushima nuclear plant,
40:50Mitchell was accused of voluntication at the site of the gates
40:52Margaret Thatcher erected to keep plebs out.
40:55Since at first the media didn't have a recording of the event itself,
40:58Channel 4 News was forced to reconstruct it like an Ealing comedy
41:01with dialogue lifted from Fifty Shades of Grey.
41:03Open this gate. I'm the chief whip.
41:06I'm telling you I'm the chief whip and I'm coming through these gates.
41:09This guy's almost as good as Brad Pitt in that Chanel ad.
41:12You're f***ing plebs.
41:16Morons.
41:17Soon Mitchell drove up to the TV cameras in a plebby little car
41:20to deny saying pleb but apologised for general disrespect.
41:23Mind you, this wasn't enough for some police
41:25who by now were proudly reclaiming the word pleb
41:27while campaigning against frontline cuts.
41:29Tough job when you're apparently not sure how a letterbox works.
41:32Still, never mind what the cops think, what do plebs make of it?
41:35How would you like to be called a pleb?
41:37Well, I'd probably just brush it off. I could be called a lot worse.
41:40Thanks, pleb.
41:41Eventually Mitchell resigned, thereby himself becoming a pleb
41:44who knew his place on the other side of the f***ing gate, moron.
41:48Except shortly after we done did this piece,
41:50Channel 4 News unveiled shocking CCTV footage
41:52disputing the police version of events
41:54and indicating a lack of plebs in Plebgate,
41:56making this whole mess a pleb-less Plebgate gate.
41:59Thanks to the Olympics, millions of young people now dreamed of receiving a medal.
42:03It was just the same when I was a kid,
42:05except back then the medals we coveted were being handed out
42:08by a sort of blonde-haired, wind-blasted skeleton beast.
42:12Jimmy Savile!
42:14For decades, Jimmy Savile was a TV legend,
42:17a garish and eccentric frontman of almost unparalleled weirdness.
42:21Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Top of the Pops.
42:24Looking at Savile's shows from the archive is an unsettling experience now
42:28because of everything that's happened since.
42:30It feels a bit like sifting through evidence.
42:32Take his signature show, Jim'll Fix It,
42:34in which he ostensibly made children's dreams come true.
42:37It was the format that was the real star here.
42:39As a host, Savile didn't really display much charisma,
42:42more a kind of disconnected eeriness.
42:44That was always my memory of Jim'll Fix It,
42:47that it was like a funfair run by an off-putting scarecrow
42:50whose mere on-screen presence now lends the show a deeply uncomfortable air.
42:54Now, you won't believe this. This is quite true.
42:56It says here,
42:57It says here,
43:11Well, of course, ten, like, no question, you see.
43:15So, six years ago, I replied,
43:17Hi, she'll have to wait a bit cos the regulations are she's got to be 16.
43:22Tell her to hurry. Love, JS.
43:25Now, I thought that that got me off the hook.
43:27By the late 90s, Savile's TV career was effectively over
43:31and he'd become a weird, marginalised figure,
43:33famously profiled by Louis Theroux in a surprisingly revealing documentary.
43:37Are you basically saying that,
43:39so tabloids don't, you know, pursue this whole,
43:44is he, isn't he a paedophile line, basically?
43:46Yes, yes, yes.
43:48How do they know whether I am or not?
43:50How does anybody know whether I am?
43:52Nobody knows whether I am or not. I know I'm not.
43:55When Savile died and his gold casket was driven through Leeds,
43:58thousands lined the streets ostensibly to say goodbye
44:00but possibly just to check he was definitely dead.
44:03And then this year it turned out he might not have been as innocent
44:06as almost no-one thought he was.
44:08A television documentary will this week claim
44:10that the late broadcaster Sir Jimmy Savile
44:12sexually abused schoolgirls in the 1970s.
44:15Always the quiet ones, isn't it?
44:17Rumours about Savile had circulated for decades.
44:20Now, roughly a year after his death,
44:22ITV broadcast a documentary that would sink his reputation for good.
44:26It contained plenty of upsetting and powerful testimony
44:29from alleged victims of Savile,
44:31as well as inherently creepy reconstructions
44:33of allegations almost too grim for the human mind to cope with.
44:37And the bad news for human mind owners
44:39was that over the following weeks,
44:41you were going to hear a lot more about it.
44:43The accompanying stories grew even more appalling.
44:46There were even allegations he'd had sex with corpses.
44:49Tuning into the news became like riding an endless looping ghost train
44:52with this creepy cadaverous monster
44:54perpetually leering toward you through the gloom,
44:56the news ticker scrolling in front of him like police incident tape.
45:00Actually, I'm pretty sure Savile only had any kind of TV career at all
45:03because back in the 70s, TVs were tiny
45:06and people kept them on the other side of the room.
45:08So he was physically horrible,
45:10but he was only about the size of a jacket potato,
45:13and he was way over there, so it didn't really bother you.
45:15Whereas today, our TVs are the size of a Harrods shop window,
45:19so seeing them on the news IMAX size,
45:21you're suddenly struck by just how grotesque he was.
45:23Every time his image popped up,
45:25it was like having a spider crawl across your brain.
45:28But the man himself was dead, so there was no prospect of a trial,
45:32apart from the inevitable dramatised one
45:34that Channel 4 will probably do next autumn season.
45:36So instead, the hunt was on for someone or something to blame.
45:40One immediate suspect was the time period of many of the allegations itself,
45:44the 1970s, a decade of brown air, awful furnishings,
45:48nihilistically bad hair, industrial action,
45:51dead pig carcasses all spinning around
45:54and tear-and-piss-streaked concrete.
45:56And almost as a reaction to the grimness of that,
45:5970s culture was spangly and brash.
46:02Much of that culture looks outrageously alien to modern eyes.
46:05Young women were blithely lobbed in
46:07to zhuzh up almost any form of entertainment.
46:09Leering at them was always hilarious,
46:11and their age often seemed completely immaterial.
46:14Some of the things you see are quite an education.
46:19Just look at that shower. Blimey, they're big for their age.
46:23And what about the culture within the BBC in the 70s?
46:26Was the corporation hiding something?
46:28And what about today?
46:29Today had it shunted a Newsnight-Saville investigation of its own aside
46:32to make room for a lukewarm Christmas tribute
46:34with all the entertainment value of a blocked hose.
46:37Many thought it had.
46:39Faced with the heinous allegations,
46:41the BBC immediately launched a far-reaching, comprehensive fuck-up.
46:45First, new DG George Entwistle tried to wow reporters
46:48with his fancy bartending skills.
46:51It's like watching Tom Cruise in Cocktail.
46:53Then, in a masochistic move,
46:55BBC One ran a panorama investigating Newsnight,
46:58while simultaneously on BBC Two,
47:00Newsnight was commenting on Panorama's investigation into itself.
47:04As you watch this, Panorama on BBC One
47:07is broadcasting interviews with members of the Newsnight team.
47:10And if you press the red button now,
47:12Newsround investigates Watchdog while Watchdog asks,
47:15was there a country file ring at the BBC?
47:18While the BBC agonised, the press had the perfect story.
47:21It had everything.
47:22Paedophilia, the BBC, a whiff of incompetence or corruption,
47:25Britain's most notorious serial killer
47:27and a dead celebrity who couldn't sue.
47:29There were also Savile's astonishing links to the establishment,
47:32to the Prime Minister, to the NHS, to the Royal Family.
47:36It was all just the right breeding ground for conspiracy theories
47:39which quickly flooded the internet.
47:41Meanwhile, a rudderless Newsnight suffered a nervous breakdown
47:44and, in a classic example of BBC oversteer,
47:47ran a report which didn't seem to have been fact-checked thoroughly.
47:50A report which wrongly claimed a senior political figure was a child abuser.
47:55Soon, the names of supposed suspects were being gleefully circulated online
47:59and Twitter turned into a depressing guessing game
48:02which proved to be the final death blow for an already beleaguered DG.
48:06And the whole affair reached a strange new low
48:08in an uncomfortable edition of This Morning.
48:10David Cameron was on This Morning and you could see he was tense
48:14because he was being interviewed by Philip Schofield.
48:16And you never know what Schofield's going to do because he's a maverick.
48:20He might suddenly ask who your favourite X Factor judge is or something.
48:23Just bring it on you like a grand inquisitor.
48:25Philip Schofield had gone on the internet and he'd found the names of these people
48:30and because Philip Schofield's a good bloke, you know, he didn't just walk away,
48:34you know, turn a blind eye.
48:36He wrote the names down and he spends like, you know, a whole three minutes doing this,
48:41you know, really puts his back into it.
48:43And then later, David Cameron's on This Morning being all like,
48:46oh, you know, I'm the Prime Minister
48:48and doing his serious face and his hand gestures he learned in Prime Minister school.
48:53And Philip Schofield, right, goes like, bang, here's a list of pedos.
48:58Fucking sorted out.
49:00I have those names there. Those are the names on a piece of paper.
49:03You know the names on that piece of paper.
49:05Will you be speaking to those people?
49:07But instead of thanking him, Cameron goes all pissy about it,
49:10going like, ooh, ooh, that's dangerous.
49:13I think, Philip, this is really important, right, because there is a danger
49:17if we're not careful, that this can turn into a sort of witch hunt.
49:22There's no point in a witch hunt against pedos
49:25because pedos are harder to spot than witches, so a witch hunt isn't enough.
49:30We used to have like trials in a court when someone was a pedophile, right,
49:34but that cost loads of money and sometimes it didn't work
49:37because you'd find out they weren't one after all.
49:40But now, because we've got computers, we can decide, you know,
49:44who's a pedo or who looks like a pedo and then work out, you know,
49:49what they've done and make up all the proper facts and everything
49:53and then find out where they live and tweet the coordinates
49:57and get together and go around and kill them with our bare hands,
50:00right, in their own homes.
50:02I mean, that hasn't actually happened yet, but it will.
50:06And it'll probably happen next year and it'll be brilliant.
50:112012 was a bumper year for elections,
50:13with more crossing box action than ten tic-tac-toe tournaments
50:16glued together in an awkward metaphor.
50:19The French traded Nicolas Sarkozy for Francois Hollande,
50:22the Egyptians traded Mubarak for the Muslim Brotherhood,
50:25while Russian voters had a thorny choice
50:27between action man Vladimir Putin and action man Vladimir Putin.
50:30Some found the choice so thrilling they voted again and again,
50:33like this man expertly captured feeding ballot papers into a box over and over again,
50:38like a human photocopier.
50:40This was exactly the sort of thing that led some cynics
50:43to claim the election might be rigged.
50:45Hence sporadic outbreaks of nudey protest
50:47and the presence of a team of foreign observers,
50:49headed by a Dutch politician who immediately rendered the news fantastic
50:52thanks to his completely brilliant name.
50:54The government's control of the whole electoral process
50:57rendered the vote unfair, according to Dutch observer Tiny Cox.
51:02The Russian presidential election showed a clear winner.
51:05It can't be much fun being Tiny Cox on election night.
51:08Everyone awaiting the result, constantly asking,
51:10is it in yet?
51:12When the victor was announced, there was a massive swing from Putin to more Putin,
51:15and the man himself was so delighted he pissed his face.
51:18Meanwhile, in Greece, ominous coverage highlighted a growing taste for fascism,
51:22courtesy of Golden Dawn, a far-right party with a logo
51:25that looked like a cheap swastika knock-off made in Crete.
51:27ITN sent a slightly anxious-looking James Mates in to meet a spokesman
51:31who was sitting in a cut-price fascist lair
51:33looking like a bit of bad Gary Newman fan art.
51:36Still, if Mates was nervous, he needn't have worried.
51:38Golden Dawn members only hit people on camera if they're women,
51:41as this shocking incident on live Greek TV demonstrated.
51:45But these events were mere bum garnish compared to the US election,
51:49which was altogether more exciting, because it was like a movie.
51:52It's your vote, your future, your country, your choice.
51:59As the US election inched nearer,
52:01it was clear Mitt Romney, a sort of Bob Monkhouse action figure
52:04with the personality of a vat return and the voice of a Dignitas tour guide,
52:07was in trouble.
52:09Despite resembling the president in a 1960s Marvel comic,
52:12he had a likability issue.
52:14Many saw him as a heartless corporate millionaire,
52:16partly because the news media repeatedly caught him
52:19sounding like a heartless corporate millionaire.
52:21In a series of astonishing scenes, he blurted statements like,
52:24I'm not concerned about the very poor.
52:26I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.
52:29Said he liked being able to fire people.
52:31I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.
52:34And claimed that corporations are people.
52:36We could raise taxes on people.
52:38That's not the way...
52:40Corporations are people, my friend.
52:42We can raise taxes on... Of course they are.
52:45Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people.
52:48So, where do you think it goes?
52:52Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets.
52:55Yeah, and who made those people's pockets?
52:58Corporations. Back at you, Romney.
53:01When Romney wasn't pulling a Montgomery Burns,
53:03he was captured babbling cluelessly,
53:05like his mouth was being operated by Norman Wisdom.
53:08I'm not familiar precisely with exactly what I said,
53:10but I stand by what I said, whatever it was.
53:12In a bid to stoke enthusiasm at the Republican convention,
53:15the party wheeled out the legend that was Clint Eastwood,
53:18who promptly held a mystifying debate with an empty chair.
53:21Presumably he'd been told they were going to CGI Obama in,
53:24in post-production.
53:25What do you want me to tell Romney?
53:28I can't tell him to do that. He can't do that to himself.
53:32Having mistaken a fellow piece of wood
53:34for the most powerful man in the world,
53:36Eastwood then crumbled in the face of the chair's rhetorical skills.
53:39What do you mean, shut up?
53:41Still, at least around now, it seemed things couldn't get any worse
53:44for the Romney campaign, until they inevitably did.
53:47Yes, Romney was caught on a hidden camera
53:49bad-mouthing 47% of the US electorate,
53:52the kind of soaring rhetoric that usually soars your chance of winning in half.
53:55And as the first debate loomed,
53:57the media was already reciting lines from Romney's obituary.
54:00The wheels are coming off the Romney campaign.
54:03But then something odd happened during that first debate.
54:06The slick-assured Obama people thought they knew
54:08was nowhere to be seen having traded personalities with Eastwood's chair.
54:12You know...
54:15Now it was Obama's turn to be pilloried in the media.
54:18Instead of making dramatic points, the president meandered.
54:22Suddenly, all bets were off,
54:24and Romney started creeping up in the national polls.
54:26And then, perilously close to election day,
54:28politics were temporarily blown aside by dramatic disaster movie footage
54:32as Superstorm Sandy smashed into New York.
54:34Oh, my God!
54:36My tree!
54:37It's a disaster. Terrible. Terrible, terrible.
54:41And we're going to be voting.
54:43I don't know how we're going to go out to vote.
54:45New Yorkers, they always brag,
54:47we're the best city in the world, and we're the toughest,
54:50and we're the, I'm from New York, and yeah, you're a badass,
54:53yeah, until you get a little rainfall,
54:55and then you go, oh, I've been 12 days without power.
55:00Somebody get here, help us, please.
55:02It was the opposite of after 9-11.
55:05They made a lot of news about, oh, New Yorkers are getting together,
55:09and for the first time, they're meeting each other,
55:12they're helping each other out, they're sharing their grief.
55:15Well, you should have kept that up and been nice to your neighbor
55:18more than a week after 9-11,
55:20because there's probably 10,000 people within walking distance that have power,
55:24but you've been a prick to them for the last 11 years,
55:27and now they fucking hate you again.
55:29Suck it, Mr Soggy Socks.
55:31Meanwhile, back in election land and away from the TV cameras,
55:34nerdy Moneyball-style stats geeks
55:36had long been calmly predicting a modest win for Obama.
55:39Despite this, come election night itself,
55:41the news wheeled out its most bombastic graphics
55:43and tried to play up the drama of a race it insisted was still too close to call.
55:47This presidential contest could be a squeaker till the end.
55:50Although in the event, the race was called fairly early on,
55:53leading to jubilant scenes amongst Obamarites
55:55and slightly less jubilant scenes from the Romney faithful.
55:58Then Romney himself came out to give a concession speech,
56:01which, incredibly, he managed to deliver
56:03without calling absolutely everyone watching a peasant and an arsehole.
56:06Sky News, meanwhile, seemed more interested in another great American orator,
56:09Mr Dickey Whiz.
56:11It feels good to see all the hard work he paid off.
56:14The thing about Will.i.am is he spent so long on British screens this year,
56:17the American media seemed to just forget who he was.
56:20We're just kind of giving you a little bit of what you see here.
56:25That's Wyclef Jean.
56:27By December, everyone needed cheering up
56:29and Fox News was happy to oblige.
56:31Great Britain might want to start building
56:33a paparazzi-proof delivery room somewhere
56:35because Prince William's wife, Kate, is preggers.
56:38Twinkly, tit-witted showbiz bum-washed slingers
56:41Entertainment Tonight covered the story
56:43with CGI mock-ups showing what the child won't look like
56:46and loads of other old shit.
56:47How much weight will she gain?
56:49And will they have royal twins?
56:51And what this royal psychic knows?
56:53Nothing.
56:54To celebrate Christmas,
56:55Adland highlighted the hilarious subjugation of women.
56:58First, Boots unflinchingly depicted
57:00the problems facing cash-strapped single-parent families.
57:03Let's get you back out there, Mum.
57:04Tragic, really.
57:05They need the income from her walking the streets.
57:07Good luck!
57:09Then, Asda portrayed Mum as little more
57:11than a member of household staff
57:12who doesn't even get to sit on a chair at lunch
57:14and has to squat near the edge
57:15like a dog begging for scraps.
57:17But the winner in the maudlin Christmas ad stakes
57:19was John Lewis, which delivered this heartstring-tugging tale
57:22of a snowman who undertakes an epic journey
57:24to buy a hat and gloves for the snowgirl of his dreams.
57:27Of course, it's worth bearing in mind
57:28that since snowmen can't move of their own accord,
57:30he's had to be built by hand for each stage of this journey,
57:33presumably by children.
57:34So this whole thing is really just despicable propaganda
57:37for child labour.
57:38But these attempts to cheer the population were nothing
57:41compared to the finest Christmas broadcast ever fashioned,
57:44TOWIE Live,
57:45which combined live, unedited conversations
57:47between people who can barely speak...
57:49Anything is right.
57:50I can't believe how much acts are going on.
57:52How much acts are there?
57:54...and on-stage performances from people-shaped things
57:57that definitely can't sing.
57:59I'm a Barbie girl in a Barbie world
58:02Life in plastic is fantastic
58:06...and sometimes, excitingly,
58:08both of those things together at once.
58:11Odd, at the end of the day...
58:13I'm so right, you can't lie to me!
58:16Odd, at the end of the day...
58:28Well, that was 2012, and guess what?
58:30The world didn't end, unless it did
58:32after I recorded this link, obviously,
58:34and if you're a future space archaeologist
58:36watching this using some kind of temporal transponder system,
58:39you've connected directly to my fossilised remains in the future,
58:42in which case, well done, aren't you clever?
58:44I'll see the rest of you again in a few weeks.
58:46Until then, get out!
58:50Also in reflective mood, next on BBC Two,
58:53a collection of the best bits from QI.