First broadcast 7th February 2013.
Charlie Brooker
Al Campbell Barry Shitpeas
Diane Morgan Philomena Cunk
Doug Stanhope
Camilla Long
Bob Mortimer
Charlie Brooker
Al Campbell Barry Shitpeas
Diane Morgan Philomena Cunk
Doug Stanhope
Camilla Long
Bob Mortimer
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Hello, I'm Charlie Brooker and you're watching Weekly Wiper, a programme all about things
00:26that are happening.
00:27Things like this.
00:29The Tory party has been split over gay marriage.
00:32Conservative elders say it flies in the face of the traditional Tory position that marriage
00:36should be between a philanderer and a doormat.
00:39Incredible facial reconstruction technique reveals Richard III resembled amateur waxwork
00:44of Laurence Llewellyn Bowen.
00:46In distressing scenes, the news captured a knife-wielding man being tasered outside Buckingham
00:50Palace.
00:51The only man more shocked than him was eyewitness Ian Hislop.
00:53And then one cop went behind him and tasered him, he fell on the ground within a couple
00:57of seconds and he got taken away in the police van.
01:03And Edward D. Eagle Edwards wins gaudy celebrity dunking festival Splashed.
01:07He fought off tough competition from Linda Barker's revealing plunge and Jake Benidorm's
01:12amazing twitching tits.
01:14Eagle's victory proves once and for all that even our fittest celebrities are no match
01:17for our shittest Olympian.
01:19That's precisely the sort of thing that's been going on, but we start here.
01:24For many years, numbers were our friends, appearing on the shirts of national heroes,
01:28making us laugh on calculators, and starring in cheerful and hypnotic animations aimed
01:32at babies.
01:331, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
01:38But it turns out this was a front and now we know the ugly truth.
01:42Numbers may look jolly, but in reality they're bastards.
01:45Recently the Office of National Statistics proved they are by releasing a set of grim
01:49economic numbers.
01:50The gross domestic product fell by 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2012.
01:57So grim, they effectively silenced every journalist in the room.
02:05Any more questions?
02:08There must be some.
02:10Numbers have now knackered the country so comprehensively, the only businesses doing
02:14a roaring trade are shutter manufacturers, window board salesmen, and sad graph designers.
02:19In fact, the sad graph industry is booming.
02:22There are basic graphs, nostalgic graphs, and graphs with the sort of interactive chancellor
02:27head on them for you to fire light guns at.
02:30If you can afford a light gun, which you can't, thanks to him.
02:33Everything costs more these days, petrol's so expensive you'd think it was some kind
02:37of precious resource mined dangerously from the sea, and the prices are always rising.
02:41They go up quick enough, but they never ever come down.
02:44Well, if they do, yeah, a month later.
02:47If they never ever, or a month later, they're not even consistent in never coming back down.
02:51That's what devious shits these prices are.
02:54But numbers don't really convey the human cost, which is why reporters are keen to hear
02:58tales of personal number-induced misery.
03:01Newsnight rounded up plenty of totally representative people to find out what they think.
03:05Does it feel like we're in a double or triple-dip recession?
03:08It does, yeah.
03:09Do you think things will pick up?
03:11And what about you?
03:12I thought the same, really.
03:13There's just no spare money anywhere.
03:15Every bit of money you get goes on bills, electric.
03:17Elephant suits.
03:19And what do you do?
03:20I'm a builder by trade.
03:21Indian or African builder?
03:23In an attempt to convey the misery of the number-tastrophe, Sky invited a range of small business folk
03:28on air to share their tragic experiences.
03:30Well, what are the stories behind the numbers?
03:32The situation is keenly felt by businesses up and down the country.
03:35Oh good, this'll be sad.
03:37Tell us a little bit briefly about your business and how it's coping right now.
03:41We're coping pretty well.
03:42We're on the high street and the internet and we're doing pretty well, actually.
03:46Oh shit, sorry, they must have asked you by mistake. Try someone else.
03:49Tell us a bit about your business and how you're faring right now.
03:52Actually, last year we probably had one of the best years we've ever had.
03:56Yeah, but apart from that, how bad is it?
03:58Out of the last six months of the year, five months of those were best-ever months.
04:03All right, show off. Let's ask the other bloke.
04:06I would concur with the previous comments. We've actually seen a good upturn in 2012
04:11and our revenues were increased.
04:14Oh, for fuck's sake. OK, try interviewing a sort of hotelier-restauranteur type
04:18who looks a bit like a prototype David Mitchell.
04:20David, welcome to you. How's business?
04:22It's been amazingly good, actually.
04:24Oh, everyone's a winner, aren't they? Tell us more.
04:27We're doing very well. Growth last year on the bedroom element.
04:31Growth on the bedroom element? You do realise embarrassing bodies is next door.
04:35There's no denying it's been tough on the high street recently,
04:37which is why it's curious that against this backdrop of high street shoppicide,
04:41ITV have decided to offer viewers some outlandish escapism
04:44with a series set in a fantasy world where people actually open shops.
04:48Mr Selfridge is effectively Downton Abbey with a stockroom,
04:51shot in HD and given a thick layer of creosote.
04:53It tells the slightly embellished story of Mr Harry Selfridge,
04:56a born showman and irritant who somehow managed to create
04:59one of London's foremost department stores
05:01despite consisting of hardly anything but a beard and some teeth.
05:04I don't know why they chose Harry Selfridge over Bob Comet or Dick Debenhams,
05:08but presumably Selfridge's The Shop is delighted
05:11because it gets name-checked every other nanosecond.
05:14Mr Selfridge. Mr Selfridge.
05:16Yes, Mr Selfridge. Good morning, Mr Selfridge.
05:18The Selfridgian exterior has been faithfully reproduced,
05:21presumably with CGI and some string,
05:23although most of the interior action is confined to one floor,
05:26which the cast perpetually stride through in a transparent bid
05:29to make discussion of stock levels seem dramatic.
05:32Still, we might only ever see one floor,
05:34but Selfridge's does clearly have a massive cheese department
05:37in the form of Jeremy Piven.
05:39Here's Mr Selfridge's no mere barrow boy,
05:41more of a barrow man, specifically John Barrow Man.
05:44We need to put on a show.
05:46He performs the role with all the subtlety of a pantomime game
05:49desperately trying to attract attention from the window of a burning building.
05:52Equally unsubtle is some of the dialogue,
05:54such as this exchange between Mr Selfridge
05:56and a good-as-gold plebby shop girl he's taken under his wing.
05:59You love it, don't you?
06:01The customers, the selling,
06:03the feeling of merchandise underneath your hands.
06:05I love it more than anything.
06:07It's hard to tell the other shop girls apart,
06:09partly because they're always either whispering or tittering in the corner
06:12like church mice in a Disney cartoon,
06:14and partly because they're styled like they've gone to a fancy dress wake
06:17as a cottage loaf.
06:19Everywhere you look, it's Princess Anne in mourning.
06:21Seriously, sometimes there are so many Princess Annes on screen at once,
06:24even they can't tell if they're looking in a mirror.
06:27But the main problem is that because it's based on a real shop,
06:30opened by a real man, there's not much real jeopardy.
06:33So the opening episode was a nail-biting tale of
06:36"'Will he or won't he open the shop?' when you know he did."
06:39Then we had, "'Will he or won't he open a perfume counter?'
06:41which you also know he did."
06:43And recently we had, "'Is he or isn't he dead?'
06:45when you know he won't be."
06:47It's a bit like a whodunit called Colin is Guilty.
06:49Still, while Mr Selfridge ingests scenery on ITV,
06:52the BBC is shoving viewers' faces headfirst
06:55into the grisly world of Ripper Street,
06:57a sort of CSI Whitechapel with nods to Sherlock and Deadwood
07:00set in Victorian London,
07:02a time when men were men, except when they looked a bit like owls.
07:05It stars Matthew McFadden as a sad-eyed proto-copper
07:08struggling with personal grief in a silly hat.
07:10Jerome off Robson and Jerome, looking a bit like a ship's figurehead
07:13that's been smashed repeatedly into a dock.
07:15And an American as a sort of pathologist-cum-corpse connoisseur
07:19who examines the bodies in the manner of an expert on Antiques Roadshow.
07:23You see this moon-like impression in the clavicle.
07:26Her fingers, worn and puckered by strings.
07:30And her hair.
07:32There are heavy deposits in it.
07:35Soot.
07:36And without that soot damage, she would have been worth as much as £3,000.
07:40Seriously, loads of people die in this.
07:42It's like Victorians had the life expectancy of a cocoa pop.
07:45And since it comes off the back of Call the Midwife,
07:48it's as if BBC One has decided
07:51Call the Midwife was brilliant.
07:53It was this drama thing about these sort of schoolgirls
07:56who worked for these mad nuns about 100 years ago.
07:59And their job was to go into poor people's houses
08:01and do these exorcisms on pregnant women.
08:05It's exciting because you see them pulling babies out of women
08:08and meeting all these really horrible men.
08:10Send it to her and I'll say it to you.
08:12You clear out of my home or I'll burn her and I'll burn her again.
08:16That's enough!
08:19Those bits are sad,
08:21but then they meet all these really nice babies, which is happy.
08:24The babies are really good actors.
08:26God knows how they read the script.
08:28They must have had to stick it on a mobile for them or something
08:31and then wait ages for it to spin round for the right bit
08:34for the baby to learn what to do.
08:36Like, oh, I've got to lift my arm up at that point, you know, and all that.
08:40People have said it's rose-tinted, but it isn't.
08:43It's sort of green.
08:45And sometimes it's really green
08:47and then sometimes it's brown
08:49and sometimes it's sort of green and brown, but it isn't pink
08:53because it's on early, so they can't show those bits.
08:56Good old-fashioned British televised health care there,
08:59but what's American televised health care like?
09:02Let's ask an American, namely drunk comic, Doug Stanhope.
09:11I'm Doug Stanhope and that's why I drink.
09:17As I'm sure you're aware,
09:19we don't have a national health service here in America like you do.
09:23We either have to pay for it or we have to suck it up.
09:27Fucking UK, they have nationalised health care.
09:30We have 300 channels of cable and TV doctors.
09:33You have to get the best you can do.
09:36Yeah, we're chock full of TV doctors
09:38doling out all the free advice you're willing to swallow.
09:41Have you heard of Dr. Phil?
09:43He's an Oprah Winfrey protege.
09:45The other day we saw he had an 800-pound guy
09:48that had made a YouTube video of himself.
09:50I'm just trying to get some help.
09:52Nutritionist, personal trainer, Dr. Phil.
09:59Please help me, Dr. Phil, because I can't get out of my bed.
10:04So Dr. Phil, being a great doctor and all,
10:06he sends an ambulance directly to this poor fat prick's house
10:10and they tow his bed into an oversized industrial ambulance
10:14and they drive him directly to the studios,
10:16as any medical professional would do.
10:21Do you really believe that you can have a normal life
10:26and a normal body and a normal health?
10:30Yeah.
10:32When they run out of obvious advice,
10:34like plug up your top hole, fatty, you're eating too much,
10:37then they have to move into junk science.
10:39Now we just start inventing diseases.
10:42You're a hoarder? Oh, wait, that's not a habit.
10:45That is an obsessive compulsive disorder.
10:48And we have an expert here that can help you with it
10:51if you allow them to exploit you on TV for an hour.
10:55I watch Hoarders and I see shit I need.
11:00Then we have the cottage industry of rehab television.
11:04You have Dr. Drew and you have Addicted
11:07and you have Cracking Addiction.
11:09Intervention is my favorite.
11:11Intervention is a show that's 58 minutes long
11:15of complete exploitation.
11:17It's just watching some poor prick stumble through his life
11:20and get fired from his job
11:22and he's shooting up in a bus toilet
11:24and now he's puking in a trash can and shit in his pants.
11:27That's the first 55 minutes.
11:29And then they cut to the intervention
11:31and that's just the sad family sitting around
11:34reading these sappy letters that they wrote,
11:36like Hallmark greeting cards.
11:38These ways you've ruined my life, Bruce.
11:41You didn't show up for Sheila's Bar Mitzvah.
11:44And then they whisk them off to rehab
11:47where you go, OK, now this is where it's helpful.
11:50It's going to show us how they rehabilitate these people.
11:53Nope, that's the end of the show.
11:55Graphic at the end.
11:56Bruce hasn't drank since July 21, 2009.
11:59Well, what'd you do in the rehab?
12:01If you're trying to help people,
12:03you might want to tell us what the fucking cure is.
12:05You skipped over that part entirely!
12:08I'm just saying, if you're going to get your medical advice
12:11from a TV doctor, you might as well just get the advice
12:14from Dr. Dre or Dr. Seuss.
12:17Because at least that way the bad advice you get will rhyme.
12:27Transport, and as the news excitedly showed,
12:29Prince Charles celebrates 150 years of cramped subterranean hell
12:33by using the London Underground.
12:35As far as Charles is concerned,
12:36an Oyster card is a credit card someone else uses to buy you oysters.
12:40It's a little wonder he approached it all like a virgin.
12:42Here's how you do it.
12:43Push your thingy up against the little round nubbin
12:45and you'll flip the flaps open, there you go,
12:47and ease yourself in all the way.
12:49Good-o.
12:50Not that it was his first time.
12:52As ITN nostalgically explained,
12:54the last time Charles used the Underground
12:56was during a pleb spotting trip in 1979,
12:59whereas the last time Camilla braved the tube
13:01was their wedding night.
13:02They didn't go all the way.
13:03In fact, Charles only lasted two minutes before popping off.
13:06Well, it's understandable, really.
13:08Poor bloke hasn't been inside a tunnel for 34 years.
13:15Technology and the humble Blackberries had it hard of late
13:17with tough competition and tech problems
13:19denting its popularity to the point where,
13:21as Sky News forensically pointed out,
13:22its own users tried to kill it with hammers.
13:25It took about a month of intermittent bashing
13:28to actually break the Blackberry handset up.
13:31But now the Blackberry handset folk
13:32were attempting to revive their fortunes
13:34with an informative and exciting relaunch.
13:36Yes, they're replacing their outmoded pocket typewriters
13:38with something that looks like an iPhone, but isn't,
13:41and another thing that looks like a Blackberry, and is.
13:43Aren't they beautiful?
13:47But perhaps most startling of all,
13:48Blackberry now has a new global creative director,
13:51courtesy of an announcement
13:52straight out of The Celebrity Apprentice.
13:54She's Blackberry's new global creative director.
13:58Please welcome Mrs. Alicia Keys.
14:00Yes, Alicia Keys.
14:01They signed her because playing the piano and wearing hats
14:04are key business skills,
14:05and not because the CEO wanted an excuse
14:08to get off with her on stage.
14:09What's odd about the appointment of Alicia Keys
14:11is she's actually a big Apple fan.
14:13I mean, she did a whole song about New York.
14:15In fact, the only thing Alicia Keys has to do with Blackberry
14:18is she's black and wears a beret.
14:20And you wonder if she's ever really going to work.
14:23I'll see you in the office.
14:24Yeah, Monday, 8 o'clock.
14:27But Ms. Keys wasn't the only Mobo winner hawking technology.
14:30The ubiquitous Will.i.am was at Macworld last week
14:33where the Wall Street Journal
14:34asked him penetrating questions about technology.
14:36What's your favourite gadget right now?
14:39Right now would be the iPad Mini.
14:41Really? What do you like about it?
14:43It's smaller than the iPad.
14:44He was promoting his own bespoke gizmo,
14:46showcased lovingly by CNN,
14:48a $400 accessory that turns the iPhone
14:51into a boxier, less ergonomic iPhone.
14:54So then you sit there and you lock it.
14:56Now it's locked.
14:57Presumably it's aimed at people who wished
14:59they'd bought a camera in 1978
15:01instead of an iPhone in 2013.
15:03But wait, it also has an extra function.
15:05And if that's not enough, a keypad.
15:07For folks who want to text.
15:10Yeah, for folks who want to text on something other than
15:13but attached to the iPhone they already own.
15:15Still on the plus side, it lights up.
15:17Will.i.am is proud of his invention
15:19as he explained during the launch a few months ago.
15:22This was in my head in February
15:25and it's in my hand in November.
15:28About to be in stores in December.
15:31And in landfill sites by March.
15:33Who paid attention to Mali last year?
15:35Well, hardly anyone, myself included.
15:37There was no connection between Mali and me.
15:39I thought it was a film about a dog.
15:41In fact, the only people who seemed to care about Mali
15:43were the French and the widely derided
15:45presidential candidate Mitt Romney
15:47who mentioned the country in his third debate.
15:49We want to make sure that we're seeing progress
15:51throughout the Middle East with Mali now
15:53rather than having North Mali taken over by Al-Qaeda.
15:55Only to get laughed at.
15:57As the depressing subsequent coverage made clear,
16:00life in northern Mali was grim.
16:02Islamic extremists had gained a foothold there
16:04and were apparently making civilian life
16:06about as much fun as sitting through nine episodes
16:08of Paddy's TV Guide
16:10with regular public thrashings for minor infractions.
16:13Unsurprisingly, the locals moved out in an evacuation
16:16or exodus.
16:18Well, that's Mali for you.
16:20The Malian army tried fighting back
16:22but they seemed underprepared
16:24as a startling French news report revealed
16:26they were genuinely having to train without ammunition.
16:34Someone answer that gun.
16:36They weren't the best equipped army in the world.
16:38Their uniforms were threadbare
16:40and their weapons were jamming.
16:42Well, that's Mali for you.
16:44By contrast, as Sky News comprehensively showed,
16:46the extremists seemed heavily armed
16:48with weapons apparently gained during the Libyan uprising.
16:50In fact, they had so many guns
16:52they often seemed to just frolic about with them
16:54like men playing with puppies.
16:56France responded by sending in troops
16:58who took the fight all over northern Mali.
17:00They also sprayed paratroopers over Timbuktu
17:02in what looked suspiciously like footage from 1943.
17:04The onslaught surprised both the Islamists
17:06and people like me
17:08who thought Timbuktu was a made-up region
17:10of Narnia or something.
17:12As the Islamists fled, Sky News broadcast footage
17:14of the jubilant locals recorded for posterity
17:16on a Commodore VIC-20.
17:18The people of Timbuktu were so delighted
17:20to be liberated by the French,
17:22they dressed up in celebratory costume for Sky's cameras,
17:24briefly turning Alex Crawford into Gok Wan.
17:26Look what this man has done.
17:28He's done the Viva l'Operation Cervelle.
17:30That's the name of the operation
17:32that Francois Hollande has given it.
17:34And then on the back, a big thank you
17:36not only to the French President Hollande
17:38but all the other countries
17:40who've helped support this operation.
17:42That's quite a get-up.
17:44Well, that's Mali for you.
17:46While the scenes of celebration were genuine enough,
17:48what wasn't quite clear was who the routed extremists
17:50actually were.
17:52Whoever they were, there wasn't much footage of them,
17:54mainly just the chaos left in their wake,
17:56such as burnt-out cars and a strange emphasis
17:58on the book collections they'd destroyed.
18:00Do you know why libraries annoy Islamic extremists so much?
18:02Maybe they think the Jewy system
18:04was invented by Jews.
18:06While Malians were suffering,
18:08the rest of the world wasn't too bothered
18:10until a few weeks ago when yet another terrorist group
18:12crept out of Mali into Algeria
18:14and overran a BP complex taking hostages.
18:16This was a terrifying event
18:18and a huge news story,
18:20but frustratingly for the networks,
18:22there was a distinct lack of footage of it,
18:24forcing them to improvise.
18:26Hence, we saw a lot of Google map explainers
18:28and reconstructions of the event
18:30that made it all look a bit like an Xbox Half-Life mod.
18:32Still, at least the news had something new to scare us with,
18:34namely terrorist leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar,
18:36so bad they named him twice.
18:38Actually, he's got a variety of aliases.
18:40Mokhtar Belmokhtar has an entourage
18:42that calls him the Prince.
18:44They also call him One-Eyed Jack,
18:46as in the Jack of Diamonds.
18:48AKA One-Eye because he lost an eye,
18:50AKA the Marble, old man,
18:52because he made a living smuggling cigarettes.
18:54Yeah, AKA that bloke
18:56we've only got the one shot of.
18:58In fact, they had so little underwhelming footage
19:00of Belmokhtar, they had to keep fiddling
19:02with it just so it looked sinister,
19:04freezing it, zooming in and out,
19:06turning him into a sort of Warhol screen print,
19:08and on Sky, superimposing
19:10silly spook-style graphics over him
19:12while playing an ominous chord.
19:14Belmokhtar has joined the A-list
19:16of world's most wanted men.
19:18And to be fair, anyone looks sinister
19:20if you do that to them. I mean, look at Nicholas Lindhurst here.
19:22Chilling.
19:24In a sign the West is now
19:26taking the threat seriously, David Cameron
19:28committed troops to Mali, then hopped on a plane
19:30for a whistle-stop holiday tour of the troubled
19:32yet beautiful region, where he enjoyed
19:34the scenery, shuffled past traditionally
19:36dressed locals, marvelled at their detailed
19:38miniature leaders, and fine array
19:40of mezze, and generally did his best to
19:42blend in with his surroundings.
19:44In summary, the situation in North
19:46Africa, and Mali in particular,
19:48is clearly one to keep an eye on.
19:54Well, that's Mali for you.
19:56David Cameron's tour of North Africa
19:58provoked much thoughtful reaction, some of it online.
20:00Here's our regular round-up of some
20:02of the sort of things you've been saying
20:04online. Yes, you, your words, your
20:06opinions, it's what you think.
20:08It's points off of you, in points off you.
20:16Seeing Cameron play the international
20:18statesman seemed to annoy some of you.
20:20For instance, Alan from Leicester
20:22logged on
20:24to say simply, go on Dave,
20:26you toilet house.
20:28Robust yet concise commentary from
20:30Alan there. Cameron also visited Libya
20:32as part of his travels, which didn't
20:34impress Pooped On Worker,
20:36who took to Yahoo to say,
20:38he's going to help them as well, and our bloody
20:40council tax will rise.
20:42Why are we standing
20:44for this?
20:46Pooped On Worker seems to have calmed down there,
20:48slightly at the end, or maybe you were just tired.
20:50Tired after another long day being pooped
20:52on as part of the system, aren't
20:54we all? Someone calling themselves
20:56European, which scarcely narrows it down,
20:58complains that Dave is
21:00spending our money on
21:02Muslims, the very people that hate
21:04us. Well, actually,
21:06much of that money is going to be spent on
21:08shooting Muslims. Beyonce
21:10was in the news again. First she admitted
21:12lip syncing at Obama's inauguration
21:14during a tense press conference. Then she blew
21:16the roof off the Super Bowl with a triumphant performance
21:18that had millions pumping their fists,
21:20some of them in their laps. But not everyone
21:22is happy with her, no. Samantha
21:24went to the Mail Online to
21:26say, Beyonce, if you're so
21:28proud of your daughter, let us see
21:30her face. So what if she looks
21:32like her dad? You chose to have a baby
21:34with an unattractive man. Are you waiting
21:36until she's old enough for plastic surgery
21:38then you'll let us see her? And what sort of
21:40complex are you giving to this poor child?
21:42You know what, Samantha, we have seen her baby's
21:44face. There was a widely distributed
21:46heartwarming photo of it. Look, see?
21:48Anyway, thank you, Samantha. Good luck battling
21:50the demented sense of righteous entitlement
21:52which seems to have hopelessly crippled your sense of
21:54reason. All this kerfuffle over
21:56Beyonce's baby prompted someone calling
21:58themselves Blatalion. Blatalion?
22:00To take to Twitter to point
22:02out that bitches be more
22:04concerned with Beyonce's baby
22:06than theirs. Yes, well
22:08that is one thing we can all agree on.
22:10And now, here's something else.
22:12Hitchcock is a
22:14shaggy dog story involving everyone's
22:16favourite borderline misogynist cinematic
22:18genius, Alfred Hitchcock, played by
22:20Anthony Hopkins in a slightly distracting fat
22:22suit which makes him vaguely look like he's in
22:24a highbrow all-white Big Momma's House
22:26spinoff. The story concerns Hitch's
22:28attempts to shoot his stabby, masterworked
22:30psycho while experiencing relationship turbulence
22:32with wife Alma, played by Helen Mirren
22:34and suffering troubling visions of real-life
22:36serial killer Ed Gein, whose genuine
22:38corpse-skinning exploits were the inspiration
22:40for Psycho. Graphic elements
22:42of brutal violence, transvestitism
22:44and incest. Sounds ghastly.
22:46Peggy, this is the boy who dug up his own
22:48mother. It starts off well
22:50and the behind-the-scenes on Psycho stuff is
22:52initially fascinating, for film's pods at
22:54any rate. But the film soon veers into clunky
22:56terrain and winds up feeling like an underwhelming
22:58TV movie about a kooky couple
23:00which leaves you chiefly frustrated that a bunch
23:02of fine performances have been left wandering
23:04fruitlessly in search of a slightly better script.
23:06It has great moments, but not quite enough
23:08of them. But nor is it a complete horror show
23:10which is ironic really, given the subject matter
23:12which is filming Janet Leigh being stabbed
23:14to death in the shower.
23:16Joining me to discuss that
23:18and topics arising are journalist
23:20Camilla Long and comedian Bob Mortimer
23:22who once stabbed a woman to death in the shower.
23:24Isn't that right? That's correct, yes.
23:26I have often wondered, if you were stabbing someone
23:28to death in the shower, where would you start?
23:30They say the classic prison
23:32stabbing is in the arse. No, I think they've been
23:34telling you stories. No, because it makes the point.
23:36It's very, very difficult to heal.
23:38It takes forever and they can't sit down.
23:40A lot of them can simply be stitched
23:42and the pain goes away. But not the bum.
23:44Not the arse. There is no surgeon who will stitch
23:46an arse. So if Janet Leigh had been stabbed
23:48in the arse in Psycho, she could have
23:50survived, but the rest of the film she'd have been
23:52really complaining and not really enjoying
23:54that money she'd stolen. Yes, I think we wouldn't have had a movie. It would be a different movie
23:56if she'd been stabbed in the bum.
23:58Would you say you're a Hitchcock fan?
24:00I enjoyed the films
24:02when I was young.
24:04You know, when I was 13, 14, when they first
24:06came out. But I think that... What are you saying? You're now too
24:08sophisticated for Hitchcock? Well, I think that
24:10technology has made them seem
24:12very dated and difficult to enjoy
24:14for me. I don't know why there's such
24:16reverence for Psycho. I can't quite see it.
24:18So you prefer
24:20new stuff to old stuff?
24:22In that genre, yeah, I much prefer it.
24:24Like some of the Spanish stuff like Wreck and
24:26Juliet's Eyes. So that Wreck is a terrifying film?
24:28They're terrifying. They're magnificent.
24:30You're a real connoisseur of these things, basically.
24:32Well, I've been about a bit.
24:34I'm 53, and I came with
24:36the first rush of DVD rentals.
24:38Would you remember that? You came with
24:40the first rush of DVD rentals.
24:42You really are a fan.
24:44At that very moment, the blockbusters opened.
24:46So it did kickstart the slasher movie genre.
24:48There's a new slasher film coming out in March. It's called
24:50Maniac. It's got a gimmick,
24:52which is that it's all shot from the point of view
24:54of the killer.
25:02Who do you think is playing the killer
25:04in that? Christian Slater?
25:06No. Er...
25:08Mr. Paparazzi?
25:10Well, Darren Lyon!
25:12The guy who looks like a sort of depressed
25:14Sonic the Hedgehog. He would be scared.
25:16Mr. Paparazzi. I could believe
25:18kills women. I definitely could.
25:20It's Elijah Wood.
25:22Elijah Wood. Frodo Baggins
25:24from Lord of the Rings. The only way
25:26his face would look disturbing is if you sheared it
25:28off, I think, and stuck it on the end of a pike
25:30and waved it. Oh, I think he's very weird
25:32looking. You know, baby face is good
25:34for a killer. Would you go and see that?
25:36I would, yeah. I do like horror. I like to go and
25:38see horror in the afternoon, because the cinema's empty
25:40and I can smoke. What, in the suit?
25:42Yes. You smoke in cinemas?
25:44When there's no one in, yes. Really?
25:46Do they let you? Well, I don't ask anyone's
25:48permission. It's empty. I can't relax in cinemas.
25:50I always think that something terrible is going to happen
25:52in a cinema. And certainly, if I went
25:54into a cinema in the afternoon and there was a lone man
25:56sitting in the middle, smoking,
25:58I'd probably leave,
26:00I think. I'd definitely think he was a pervert.
26:08Fluids and the
26:10world's favourite chemically complex
26:12refreshment beverage unveils an arresting ad
26:14telling the everyday story of a simple gardener
26:16undermined by a gang of predatory can-rolling
26:18women. Of course, if you actually
26:20rolled a drink's can at a professional lawnmower,
26:22it'd get shredded up by the blades
26:24and ragged shards of metal would fly
26:26out, slicing his face and throat open.
26:28Not that these would care, no. Not as long
26:30as his six-pack's intact. And stopping
26:32the mower isn't enough for these pick-a-nick baskets,
26:34no. They then trick him into drinking
26:36the shooken-up can, causing it to detonate
26:38in the messiest cum-shot of all time.
26:40But, our cunning
26:42mow-man gets his revenge by pulling his
26:44soggy top off and silencing the haridons
26:46by flaunting his bevelled surfaces at
26:48them, thereby rendering them both speechless
26:50and wetter than him. And thus,
26:52women are conquered once more.
26:54I guess the take-home message here is that it's
26:56funny to force menial workers to strip
26:58and that Diet Coke only contains one
27:00calorie and you can soon burn that off with about
27:02ten seconds of bean polishing.
27:04Oh, and in the interest of balance, I have to point out
27:06other diet drinks are available, e.g.
27:08water.
27:14Publications! And in a
27:16series of disturbing ads, tranquil lunch
27:18breaks nationwide are repeatedly interrupted by
27:20the invasion of a cheerful oak tree.
27:22Hiya! Hiya! So, what do you think of the
27:24stories in this week's Take a Break? Dunno,
27:26what do I think of the stories in this week's Take a Break?
27:28Hang on a minute, haven't you lot
27:30got to go back to work?
27:32Nah. Oh, yeah, yeah. F*** British
27:34industry. It seems no lunch break
27:36is safe from Mel's weekly inspections.
27:38Hiya! Hiya! What do you think
27:40of the stories in this week's Take a Break?
27:42Well, they're all a bit depressing, to be honest with you. I mean, they're
27:44all about death and disease and like...
27:46Hiya! Oh. Hiya!
27:48So, what do you think of the stories in this week's Take a Break?
27:50I don't know anymore!
27:52Haven't you lot got to go back to work?
27:54This is my work, Mel.
27:56Hiya!
28:02Hair! And a simpering husband dribbles his way
28:04through a glossy cheeseball hair dye ad.
28:06Kate and I have been married for 15 years.
28:08That's three moves, five jobs, two
28:10newborns. It's no wonder I'm getting grey.
28:12Grey? You're black and white.
28:14But Kate still looks like...
28:16Kate. It'd be weird if she looked like the late
28:18Richard III. I don't know all her secrets,
28:20but I do know Kate's more beautiful now
28:22than the day I married her. Yeah, well, the day you
28:24married her, she was pale and shivering with regret,
28:26you f***ing creep.
28:28Well, that's your lot.
28:30We're done for now. You and I are through.
28:32Till next time, go away.
28:54Bye.