First broadcast 9th January 2014.
Charlie Brooker
Al Campbell Barry Shitpeas
Diane Morgan Philomena Cunk
Doug Stanhope
Brian Limond
Stuart Clark
Charlie Brooker
Al Campbell Barry Shitpeas
Diane Morgan Philomena Cunk
Doug Stanhope
Brian Limond
Stuart Clark
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Hello, I'm Charlie Booker and you're watching Weekly Wiper, a programme all about things
00:24that are happening.
00:26Things like this.
00:27Britain angers Neptune, god of the sea.
00:30Turns out Britannia might not rule the waves after all.
00:33Snazzily directed detective show Sherlock returned.
00:36Some viewers were left confused as to why Sherlock didn't die at the end of the previous
00:40series.
00:41The simple answer is he was recommissioned.
00:44Meanwhile a freak polar vortex in America has created some astonishing images.
00:48Critics are praising this charming Broadway production of The Snowman.
00:53But we start with Britain.
00:54Britain's brilliant, isn't it?
00:55It's got everything.
00:56It's got Paddington Bear and Stonehenge and regular bin collections, but all of this hangs
01:01in the balance thanks to immigration, which is out of control.
01:04These days everywhere you look there's a Polsky Sclep selling weird foreign food like eggs.
01:09What the hell is an egg?
01:10Well, no more.
01:11Britain is full and we need to keep an eye on anyone new who wants to come here, which
01:15is why it's helpful that for over a year the news has kept us informed of the imminent
01:19threat of inbound Romanians and Bulgarians set to flood the country once EU restrictions
01:23were lifted on New Year's Day.
01:26But who exactly are these people?
01:28First, Bulgarians.
01:29Bulgarians, as a series of eye-opening reports made devilishly clear, live in a kind of medieval
01:34realm twinned with Game of Thrones, consisting entirely of horses and carts and people lugging
01:40giant sacks around like they're in a live recreation of a Bruegel painting.
01:44The world isn't entirely backward.
01:45I mean, they do have, say, cars, but only shit ones.
01:49In fact, as Channel 4's footage made clear, Bulgaria is a kind of open-air shit car museum
01:53where the only form of entertainment is driving over the nation's one speed bump.
01:57Romania, meanwhile, is apparently also a medieval Game of Thrones Bruegel painting squalor pot,
02:03according to this news footage, apparently beamed live from the year 1386.
02:08The news certainly painted a graphic picture of deprivation and hot horse-on-cart action.
02:12I mean, look at this bleak existence.
02:14No utilities, squalid conditions, people lugging sacks around everywhere, and the only way
02:19to get about is on horseback.
02:21They'd be better off in Britain.
02:22Little wonder a tidal wave of immigrants was being predicted by some, and it didn't seem
02:26they were going to be welcomed with open arms.
02:28It's hard to shake the suspicion that much of the hostility towards immigrants who haven't
02:31even migrated yet might have something to do with the kind of level-headed, non-judgmental
02:35and factually watertight reporting surrounding the issue.
02:38Some of the language about floods and swarms is reminiscent of dehumanizing anti-Semitic
02:42Nazi propaganda likening Jews to rats.
02:45They are cunning, cowardly, and cruel, and usually appear in massive hordes.
02:51And when not being compared with vermin, they're routinely painted as scroungers or criminals.
02:55Many Romanians were unimpressed with the coverage and tried to redress the balance.
02:59Sky News found an articulate Romanian barrister who pointed out Romanians have been allowed
03:03to work here since 2007, and apparently aren't all thieves.
03:07I know lots of doctors, nurses, scientists, lawyers like myself.
03:14We have integrated in this wonderful country, and we have been contributing.
03:18Yeah, whatever.
03:19Come on, turn your pockets out.
03:21Even statistics showing immigrants contribute more than they take don't help, because as
03:24the news demonstrated, statistics don't really mean much to most people.
03:28If you read the statistics, most of the Romanians who are here have got jobs, are doing well.
03:34Living it, here, the statistics can't be right.
03:38And when people aren't doubting statistics, they just make them up on their own.
03:42The majority are here to claim their benefits, aren't they?
03:44You think the majority are here to claim benefits?
03:47Yeah, the majority, yeah, definitely.
03:48So you want to see a clam down?
03:50It should be time.
03:51Given the nature of the news coverage, you'd think the Romanians would be rubbing their
03:54hands together, looking at the clock and booking their tickets.
03:57But weirdly, as some of the reporters pointed out, they just knock that into us.
04:01Having spoken to people here, it's clear that contrary to popular myth, Romanians have no
04:06wish to go to the UK to live on benefits.
04:08Yeah, I know.
04:09I read about it in the paper.
04:11They can't wait to come here and steal from us.
04:13Just listen to them.
04:14I would never leave my country, this woman says.
04:16For what?
04:18Give me back my wallet.
04:20What would be the point of leaving Romania just for social benefits?
04:23Yeah, whatever.
04:24Have you got a receipt for those kids?
04:26I make my money here.
04:27I have my family here and my friends here.
04:29I feel at home here.
04:30I would never go.
04:31You lying thief.
04:34Even their own officials denied they wanted to come here.
04:36I can see at least one factor that makes the UK far less attractive, and that's certainly
04:43the weather.
04:44How dare you?
04:45What's wrong with our weather?
04:48More disruption and misery after powerful gales and heavy rainfall hit the UK for the
04:53second time this week.
04:54Yes, in an apparent bid to scare off the great Eastern European invasion scheduled for New
04:58Year's Day when the floodgates would open, Britain's weather spent much of Christmas
05:02demonstrating what it would look like if there were no floodgates at all.
05:04Suddenly, there was an intense sense of déjà vu about some of the coverage.
05:08I mean, look at this bleak existence.
05:10No utilities, squalid conditions, people lugging sacks around everywhere, and the only way
05:14to get about is on horseback.
05:16They'd be better off in Romania.
05:18As New Year's Day arrived, the press pulled out all the stops to welcome the expected
05:22horde of newcomers, while in a last-ditch attempt to put off anyone attempting to enter
05:26the country, the government stationed MP and publicity tag nut Keith Vaz at Luton Airport.
05:31In fact, as Sky News clearly proved, when the much-anticipated plane load of Romanians
05:35arrived, it turned out most of them already worked here.
05:37But the news did find at least one new Romanian, this guy, Victor, who'd come to get a job
05:42washing cars while wearing a green hat.
05:45I don't come to rob your country, I come to work and you open the border.
05:50Hope you've paid for that hat.
05:51Ironically, while Victor the one-man horde flooded Britain and bravely withstood a coffee
05:56with Keith Vaz, there were more British newcomers working in Romania as reporters than new Romanians
06:01in Britain.
06:02Anyway, now the country is ruined.
06:04I miss the traditional British way of life, you know, before we had the Bulgarians and
06:08the Romanians and the Polish and the Russians and the Australians and the Kurdish and the
06:12Turkish and the Bengalis and the Pakistanis and the Indians and the West Indians and the
06:17Africans and the Huguenots and the Jews and the Normans and the Vikings and the Angles
06:21and Saxons and the Romans and the Jutes and those bloody Celts who were first in the door,
06:25the foreign f***ing idiots.
06:27It's been downhill ever since.
06:29Still, who cares what I think about immigration?
06:33Let's ask a foreigner, specifically US comedian and shambles Doug Stanhope.
06:37Here's his view.
06:38I'm Doug Stanhope and that's why I drink.
06:51Immigration again?
06:52Really?
06:53Who is it this time?
06:55The Bulgarians are coming.
06:56The Bulgarians are coming.
06:58Bar the door and lock up the wives and hide the children and put your pants on backwards
07:03so they don't get their mitts in your zipper.
07:05You know what?
07:06Honestly, I was surprised to find out the UK even had immigration law of any kind.
07:12As shitty and miserable and dire an existence as you live, you'd think you'd welcome anyone
07:18willing to live there with open arms and ask them stories about the outside world.
07:23All the stereotypes you hear about immigration are always, oh, they're lazy and they steal
07:28and they don't speak the language and then they turn around and go, and they're stealing
07:33our jobs.
07:34Hey, Kevin, we'd like to keep you on.
07:36You've been great, but we just found a slovenly, illiterate thief and we think he might do
07:43a little bit better than you, so you gotta go.
07:48Besides, I thought the Polish people already stole all your jobs.
07:52So maybe the Bulgarians are just going to come in and steal Polish jobs so you can relax.
07:57In the States, when we say immigrant, it's just another word for Mexican.
08:01We live on the border in Bisbee.
08:02We see the fucking border patrol hustling all these guys up, 11 at a time, coming out
08:07of a Ford Tempo like a fucking clown car.
08:10They have to wander in the desert for six days and they just get over it, they're dehydrated
08:16and filthy.
08:17Yeah, you're probably right.
08:18They don't speak the language and they probably have minimal education and if that guy can
08:24show up like that, as qualified for your job as you are, you're a fucking loser of
08:32such dynamic proportions.
08:35I would be ashamed and humiliated if anyone found out that guy just took my job.
08:42How simple and menial a job do you have where they can do the job training in pantomime?
08:50Hey, come here, girl.
08:51Crank, crank, crank, crank, crank.
08:54Oh, see, crank, crank, crank, crank, crank.
08:56Yeah, you got it.
08:57Then you go.
09:00Oh, no, no.
09:02Yes, you're hired.
09:05You never hear people with legitimate skill sets complaining about immigrants taking their jobs.
09:10You don't hear brain surgeons sitting around the Beverly Hills hotel lounge going,
09:14you know what, chaps?
09:15That's my ass, Patrick.
09:17These fucking Guatemalans come up here.
09:21Don't speak the language.
09:22They steal all of our neurosurgery positions.
09:28Let's go thunder down some Jack Daniels and put on our steel-toed boots and go out tonight
09:34stomping guats, what do you say?
09:38And the Romanians.
09:39See, I don't even think that one's a real country.
09:42That's like from a fable or something.
09:44Shit.
09:51Reality and grisly prick observation chamber celebrity big brother
09:55kicked off once again with a star-studded line-up.
09:58This year's twist saw faded celebrities handcuffed and incarcerated in front of a jeering crowd,
10:03a gimmick they've stolen from Operation Yewtree.
10:05This year's housemates include...
10:07Judy Finnegan and Philip Seymour Hoffman,
10:10a Bratislavian prince from a 1920s silent film,
10:13Madeline the Rag Doll,
10:15a young David Hasselhoff,
10:16an old David Hasselhoff,
10:18some atoms in the shape of a woman,
10:19Thingy off Thingamajig,
10:21Dorian Gray and his picture,
10:23a typical American,
10:24businesswoman of the year,
10:25and Jennifer Aniston.
10:27Highlights thus far include Dappy's surprisingly successful mating ritual,
10:31which has echoes of Hannibal Lecter.
10:34It's too early to say which ones are worth hating and which ones aren't worth hating yet,
10:38so you're best off hating all of them and then retrospectively withdrawing some of that hate
10:42if they break down or die or piss in Dappy's cornflakes.
10:51Food! And with the horse meat scandal behind us,
10:54the new year got off to a grisly start as a Chinese branch of Walmart
10:57discovered its donkey meat was tainted with fox.
11:00These days you just don't know what the fox you're eating.
11:02The sad news was expertly reported on the slightly odd Blue Ocean Network,
11:07anchored by the world's first Lego human.
11:09A man that bought a package of what he thought was donkey meat at a local Walmart
11:13turned out to be fox meat instead.
11:16Talk about Fox News!
11:19The report rounded off with a helpful Jamie Oliver-style austerity cooking tip.
11:23To be on the safe side, boil fox meat with spices before consuming.
11:27And to be on the really safe side, throw it away.
11:30Still, if you think fox meat's bad, what about the North Korean scandal
11:33where dog food has reportedly been found to contain traces of uncle meat?
11:37Yeah, there was this sort of nature show about dolphins.
11:40It was just like a normal natural history programme, but set underwater.
11:45Sort of like Finding Nemo, but if fish were real.
11:48Dolphins live downstairs where the sea is.
11:51And the programme was really clever
11:53because they'd filmed it underwater using magic robot animals.
11:57It was like a game where you had to guess
11:59which things were the real sea animals and which were the robot animals.
12:03And sometimes it was like an advert for robots, you know?
12:06A spy dolphin reaches 50 miles per hour and also has HD cameras for eyes.
12:13The thing is, the robot sea animals were so sophisticated,
12:16there were loads more interesting than the real sea animals.
12:20So some of the sea animals got jealous and attacked the robot sea animals.
12:26It was like a war between robots and the sea,
12:29something I didn't expect to see in my lifetime, if I'm honest.
12:33But then I was surprised when Wi-Fi came out, so maybe that's just me.
12:38It told you all this stuff you didn't know,
12:40like that dolphins talk by making noises, like a squeaky floorboard,
12:44which gets on your tits after about six seconds.
12:46DOLPHIN SQUEAKS
12:49Usually dolphins are pretty,
12:51which is why unhappy people have big posters of dolphins
12:55jumping over sunsets on the walls
12:57and slogans that pretend life's worth living printed on them.
13:00But in this, because the dolphins didn't know the cameras were there,
13:04they were filmed from all these unflattering angles.
13:07So you saw that dolphins are actually sort of ugly,
13:11like a grey undersea pig.
13:14You wouldn't want that on your wall.
13:16The thing is, it was really magical and fascinating
13:18with all this incredible footage of dolphins jumping in the air
13:22and you're like, that's amazing, you know?
13:24And then they're jumping in the air again and you're still amazed,
13:27but not as much.
13:28And then they jump and spin at the same time
13:30and you're like, OK, that's clever, that is clever.
13:33And then they jump and spin again and you're like, do something else.
13:36But they don't, they just keep jumping and spinning
13:38and jumping and spinning and just landing back in the sea.
13:42And they don't stop doing it, it's all they do.
13:44Fucking dolphins, fuck them and fuck everyone who likes them.
13:47If dolphins are the best thing the ocean's got to offer,
13:49they might as well conquer it over the sea.
13:52EastEnders, the BBC's expertly realised ongoing simulation
13:55of what London might look like if human beings spoke and behaved
13:58in unrealistic ways, has been facing a crisis.
14:00Viewers were turning away in droves,
14:02even though no-one knows what a drove is.
14:04It's not quite clear why people haven't been enjoying this tale
14:07of downtrodden proletarians suffering endless miseries
14:10beneath a battleship grey sky.
14:12It can't be the fault of the richly drawn characters
14:14like Purple Ronnie here, or Ian, or Cat, or Ian, or Dot, or Ian,
14:19or, I don't know, who's that, Colin?
14:21Or the bald one, or the other bald one,
14:23or the sort of newer bald one.
14:25Actually, there's so many bald heads in it,
14:26it's like watching Finding Kimo.
14:28Seriously, when two of them meet,
14:30they must think they're looking in a mirror.
14:32Anyway, now there's a new boss driving the EastEnd bus
14:34and the square's being sexed up,
14:36literally, with some mature erotica.
14:38They've paired Phil Mitchell up with Sharon again,
14:40which is good news for anyone who's ever wondered
14:42what it might look like if scientists made a woman mate
14:44with a giant thumb, and bad news for anyone
14:46who doesn't want to witness his delighted post-coital gasping.
14:49SHE SNIFFS
14:52SHE EXHALES
14:53Ah...
14:55SHE INHALES
14:56Ah, I just love the sound of them saying.
14:58Oh, thanks for that, love.
14:59Just going to go pat my dick dry on a tea cosy.
15:02But these thrilling developments were nothing compared to the news
15:05that Cockney actor Danny Dyer, The Thinking Man's Dick Van Dyke,
15:09was joining the square to play the exotically named Mick Carter,
15:12a mystery wrapped in an enigma cocooned within a bloke.
15:17Git Carter has purchased the Queen Vic, an iconic Walford landmark
15:20used for absorbing meaningful looks from characters,
15:22as well as housing countless brooding grudges
15:24and impromptu shouting contests.
15:26What?!
15:28Oh, Nancy!
15:30Swear down, touch me again and I will rip your bits off!
15:32Despite buying the Vic late in the afternoon on Christmas Day,
15:35Carter apparently had a licence to sell alcohol granted by the 27th,
15:39which makes Walford Council more efficient than the Nazis.
15:42Contrary to popular opinion, Danny Dyer can act.
15:45He seemed uncertain at first, openly asking other cast members
15:48how he should perform each scene.
15:50I was thinking, how do I play this?
15:52Do I try tears?
15:54I don't know, Danny, what does it say in the script?
15:57I'm not going to tell Linda that tomorrow our little girl
15:59is getting married to a man we hate.
16:01Oh, you're supposed to do it gruffly, apparently.
16:05Dyer is surrounded by a supporting cast of Carters,
16:07including a wife who walks around in the street in curlers
16:09like she's just wandered out of Birds of a Feather,
16:12a daughter who inexplicably dresses like she's in EMF,
16:14a son who's gay but won't talk about it,
16:16and a sister who's gay and won't talk about anything else.
16:19Right, that's it, I'm splitting the room.
16:21I'm building a lezzanine.
16:22No-one is building a lezzanine.
16:24Shirley there is Mick's other sister, and her sex life's been horrible,
16:28because in the past she's also been filled in by the human thumb,
16:31hence their loaded glances.
16:33But then she's not picky.
16:34It won't last, Shirley.
16:36You'll blow it.
16:37Just like you blow everything.
16:39And everyone.
16:40Oh, yeah!
16:42Nice.
16:44Not all the language is that racy.
16:45In fact, most of the time there's no language at all,
16:47because the inhabitants of Albert Square chiefly seem to communicate
16:50by staring mutely at each other
16:52in some sort of weird silent theatre of the mind.
17:05Prompt!
17:15To be fair, this is some of the best dialogue Albert Square's seen in years.
17:18Anyway, after a couple of episodes, something disturbing happened.
17:21The old soap osmosis kicked in.
17:23Before long, I was caring about what happened to the characters,
17:26like Ian and Bald Man and Cat and Alfie and Ian and Bald Man 2 and Ian again,
17:30but mainly Danny Dyer.
17:32And then I realised that rather than watching EastEnders
17:34so I could laugh at Danny Dyer,
17:36I was watching EastEnders because of Danny Dyer.
17:38He's a canny choice, because there's something weirdly watchable about him,
17:41no matter what he does.
17:42Whether he's picking up a bird, standing around looking hard
17:45or enjoying a steamy threesome.
17:47Come on, then.
17:48There's a good girl.
17:50Come on.
17:51Come on, then.
17:52Come on.
17:53It's a good girl!
17:54Yes!
17:55Oh!
17:56Ooh, you know, even if that dog joined in,
17:57it still wouldn't be as disturbing as that bit where Phil came out of the bedsheets
18:00all satiated like a manatee surfacing for air after a big underwater shit.
18:05Ah!
18:07Bleurgh!
18:08It's a big, bewildering world, isn't it?
18:10It's a big, bewildering world, isn't it?
18:12And we're all just trying to make sense of the damn thing, aren't we?
18:15Well, yes, we are.
18:16Well, here's someone who's trying harder than most.
18:18He's trying to make sense of everything from geopolitical tensions
18:21to Russell Brand.
18:22And he's called Limmy.
18:24This is Limmy.
18:30Hi, so I just started hearing Russell Brand getting mentioned everywhere.
18:35Russell Brand, Russell Brand.
18:37Psst, psst, psst.
18:39Russell Brand.
18:40So I checked it out and he's going on about how,
18:42oh, we shouldn't bother voting because...
18:44What's the point?
18:45And I thought...
18:46Good on you.
18:47And I thought...
18:48No, hold on.
18:50Don't vote?
18:54And just let that lot walk straight in?
19:00Whose side is he on anyway?
19:03Is he one of us or...
19:05One of them.
19:08I mean...
19:10What's going on?
19:13So I tweeted him.
19:16What's going on?
19:18Nae reply.
19:20So I headed out because, believe it or not,
19:22I have got bigger fish to fry than Russell Brand.
19:24I was sending a video to the council about the state of the fences in Victoria Park.
19:28I don't know if you've seen it.
19:29The state of that?
19:30But it was there that I remembered...
19:31Kay Perry.
19:32Kay Perry.
19:34Kay Perry.
19:35The ex-wife.
19:36She knows what's going on.
19:37It's all there in the lyrics.
19:38I see it all.
19:39I see it now.
19:40And...
19:41I'm wide awake, wake, wake.
19:42And you can see that she's wanting to tell people,
19:44but she knows that they're watching.
19:45She knows that he's watching.
19:46So she's doing it in riddles and rhymes for the people who can work it out.
19:49Like a code.
19:50So I sent her a code to tell her she can tell me,
19:53I'm wide awake.
19:54Follow me please so I can DM you.
19:58Big fan.
20:00DM me.
20:01Big fan.
20:03And they reply.
20:05And they reply for the council, either.
20:16The New Year began as it always does, with mankind declaring war on the sky,
20:20and exciting news reports of world leaders delivering inspiring words of hope
20:24in their thrilling New Year's speeches.
20:26Happy New Year 2014, Russia!
20:32Showing the world how New Year's Eve addresses should be done,
20:35the star of the North Korean remake of Game of Thrones, Kim Yong Joffrey,
20:39took to an outsized ornamental tissue box with seven inset microphones
20:43to swap feel-good stories about executing your own uncle.
20:46Back home, mechanical prime mini-droid David Camerobot
20:49stood in the factory that made him to deliver an inspiring message of hope
20:53with a slightly distracting glistening chin
20:55like he'd just been fellating the devil,
20:57which I'm legally obliged to assure you, he hadn't.
21:00But he wasn't as worried about greasy chins
21:02as the prospect of Scottish independence.
21:04This year, let the message go out from England, Wales and Northern Ireland
21:09to everyone in Scotland.
21:10We want you to stay.
21:12Yes, or to put it in terms you'd understand,
21:14OK, then please don't go.
21:19On the other side of the ideological curtain,
21:22head firebrand Ed Miliband started his own New Year's message,
21:25bits of which resembled Where's Wally?
21:27There he is, the sexy one.
21:29Red-hot Ed was shown posing for snapshots
21:31with delighted members of the public
21:33who couldn't believe they'd met a future prime minister
21:35because they hadn't.
21:36And he articulated their angry voices in his own sort of dorky way.
21:39People are thinking, look, I've made the sacrifices,
21:42well, where's the benefit?
21:44The government keeps telling me that everything's fixed.
21:46It doesn't seem fixed for me.
21:48He's just like Nelson Mandela, isn't he?
21:50It may be irrelevant in 2014.
21:52It being a new year, the mystery of time is on everyone's mind.
21:55Well, to properly explore that mystery, you need an expert.
21:58Luckily, we have one in the form of our very own Philomena Kunk,
22:01who will explore time for us and you now
22:04in the first of her landmark mini-documentary series,
22:06Moments Of Wonder.
22:20Time is precious,
22:22but it's not like other precious things.
22:25You can't hold it like a necklace
22:28or taste it like money.
22:34Time has existed since before time began
22:38and today it's all around us,
22:42on our phones, in the corner of the news.
22:45But once upon a time,
22:48but once upon a time,
22:50if you wanted the time,
22:52then you had to come here,
22:54to the headquarters of time,
22:56Greenwich Clock Museum.
23:01All the clocks in the world are set from here,
23:04which must take ages.
23:07So, what is clocks?
23:10Clocks was invented by the ancient Mesopotamians
23:16in ancient Mesopotamian times,
23:19but they didn't know it were ancient Mesopotamian times,
23:23because there were no clocks to see what the times was.
23:29Because of the shape of clocks,
23:32you might think that time goes in a circle,
23:35but it actually goes in a line.
23:38This is the famous Greenwich Meridian line,
23:42named after the band Meridian,
23:44who were named after this line.
23:46Every day that's ever happened starts exactly here,
23:51coming out of that time transmitter
23:54and running along this metal line on the ground.
23:58That's why this is the only place in the world
24:01where I can be in the past and the future,
24:04with the present running right up through my middle bits.
24:08No wonder time is such a mystery.
24:11Literally no-one can understand it apart from science men.
24:15One science man who knows all about time is this science man.
24:20Hello, science man. Who are you?
24:22I'm Dr Stuart Clark.
24:24I'm an astronomy writer and a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
24:28What is time?
24:30We don't actually know.
24:32There are a couple of possibilities.
24:34Either time could be a physical thing that flows like a river,
24:39or it could be more of a psychological thing.
24:42When you say it's like a river, what do you mean?
24:45I mean that time flows like the water in the river
24:49and that the events in our lives are like things in the river
24:53that that water encounters.
24:56Like fish and stuff?
24:58Yes.
25:01Yes.
25:03You know when you store time on a clock,
25:07how do you get it back out again?
25:10Because when I was winding my watch up,
25:14I accidentally put it forward,
25:17so I'd got two hours more in my clock.
25:21But then I put it back, but I thought, is it still in there?
25:25Is the time still in the clock?
25:27So your watch doesn't actually measure time?
25:31Well, it does because it's accurate.
25:33It measures the oscillation of a crystal.
25:37And the change in the physical state of that crystal
25:41has to happen in what we call a certain amount of time.
25:45So from one moment to another,
25:47physical systems everywhere in the universe changes its state.
25:51And that change takes place in what we call time.
25:55And that's the only way we can infer the existence of time,
25:59but actually what time is, we don't know.
26:03Right.
26:05So even the people who understand time
26:09don't understand what time is.
26:11It'll always be an unknowable mystery,
26:14like why the seasons change or how a telephone works.
26:18Next time on Moments of Wonder,
26:22I'll be asking, what are these?
26:25And why are they everywhere?
26:35Gambling!
26:36And in a chilling online bingo advert,
26:38London is invaded by pop giant Mel B,
26:40clomping through the streets like Godzilla's cigar,
26:43terrifying pedestrians with the biggest camel toe in history.
26:47Not that it's that unusual a sight.
26:49The city is full of massive twats.
26:51Actually, I don't know why they've shown her playing bingo in the city.
26:54It's not a place anyone associates with huge destructive idiots
26:57mindlessly gambling and crushing the man on the street.
27:00She is massive.
27:02You think I'm massive? Get a load of this jackpot.
27:05Looks like someone's sitting on a full house.
27:07Bingo joke.
27:15Furniture!
27:16And in an alarming promo for a sofa and chair emporium,
27:19Mel B is on a domestic date with a two-faced kind of fella.
27:22I've got it for the design, and it's really comfy.
27:25That and the fact that we saved a bundle.
27:27Would you like some popcorn?
27:29What's worrying is he comes across like he's suffering from a split personality disorder.
27:32I like a man that's cost-conscious.
27:34You can thank me later.
27:36Would you like me to take your coat?
27:38I'll wear your skin like a coat.
27:40Breaks!
27:42And with 2014 already proving too miserable to bother with,
27:45holiday companies are doing their best to make us temporarily emigrate
27:48with this uplifting tale of a family in which Dad is a monster.
27:51Not a monster in the sinister tabloid sense, but a sort of cuddly ogre.
27:55After a bit of fun chillaxing on holiday,
27:57he finds he no longer has the horn in bed with his wife
28:00and attempts to run into the sea in a bid to end it all,
28:03only to find himself transformed into a sort of climaxing Chippendale.
28:06It's all quite heartless, isn't it?
28:09It's all quite heartwarming, really,
28:11until you realise he'll have to fly back to Gatwick in 48 hours
28:14for the whole soul-shitting cycle to begin all over again,
28:17until next year when another holiday makes him human again,
28:20and he's only got a few more years of that left
28:22until his daughter wants to go to Ibiza with her real mates,
28:25leaving him and his poxy wife alone to bicker and read books
28:28in lonely silence on the beach and...
28:31Actually, maybe I'm reading too much into this. I need a holiday.
28:36Well, that's all we've got time for this week.
28:38Till next time, go away.
28:44Charming. Well, if you still want to spend time with Charlie,
28:47his 2013 wipe is available now on BBC iPlayer.
28:50And more intelligent brain-teasing comedy tomorrow night
28:53here on BBC Two at ten with a new QI and everything kitsch.