Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe (2013) s02e01 Episode Script
Episode 1
This programme contains some strong language Hello, I'm Charlie Brooker, and you're watching Weekly Wipe, a programme all about things that are happening.
Things like this Britain angers Neptune, god of the sea.
Turns out Britannia might not rule the waves after all.
Snazzily-directed detective show Sherlock returned.
Some viewers were left confused as to why Sherlock didn't die at the end of the previous series.
Well, the simple answer is, he was recommissioned.
Meanwhile, a freak polar vortex in America has created some astonishing images.
Critics are praising this charming Broadway production of The Snowman.
But we start with Britain.
Britain's brilliant, isn't it? It's got everything, it's got Paddington Bear and Stonehenge and regular bin collections But all of this hangs in the balance, thanks to immigration, which is out of control.
These days everywhere you look there's a Polski Sklep selling weird foreign food, like eggs.
What the hell is an egg? Well, no more.
Britain is full, and we need to keep an eye on anyone new who wants to come here.
Which is why it's helpful that for over a year the news has kept us informed of the imminent threat of inbound Romanians and Bulgarians set to flood the country once EU restrictions were lifted on New Year's Day.
But who exactly are these people? First, Bulgarians.
Bulgarians, as a series of eye-opening reports made devilishly clear, live in a kind of medieval realm twinned with Game Of Thrones, consisting entirely of horses and carts and people lugging giant sacks around, like they were in a live recreation of a Breughel painting.
Their world isn't entirely backward - I mean, they do have, say, cars - but only shit ones.
In fact, as Channel 4's footage made clear, Bulgaria's a kind of open-air shit car museum, where the only form of entertainment is driving over the nation's one speed bump.
Romania, meanwhile, is apparently also a medieval Game Of Thrones Breughel-painting squalor-pot, according to this news footage, apparently beamed live from the year 1386.
The news certainly painted a graphic picture of deprivation and hot horse-on-cart action.
I mean, look at this bleak existence, no utilities, squalid conditions, people lugging sacks around everywhere.
And the only way to get about is on horseback.
They'd be better off in Britain.
Little wonder a tidal wave of immigrants was predicted by some, and it didn't seem they were going to be welcomed with open arms.
It's hard to shake the suspicion that much of the hostility towards immigrants who haven't even migrated yet might have something to do with the level-headed, non-judgmental and factually watertight reporting surrounding the issue.
Some of the language about floods and swarms is reminiscent of dehumanising, anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda likening Jews to rats.
They are cunning, cowardly and cruel.
And usually appear in massive hoards.
And when not being compared with vermin, they're routinely painted as scroungers or criminals.
Many Romanians were unimpressed with the coverage and tried to redress the balance.
Sky News found an articulate Romanian barrister who pointed out Romanians have been allowed to work here since 2007, and apparently aren't all thieves.
I know lots of doctors, nurses, scientists, lawyers like myself.
We have integrated in this wonderful country, and we have been contributing.
Yeah, whatever.
Come on, turn your pockets out! Even statistics showing immigrants contribute more than they take don't help, because, as the news demonstrated, statistics don't really mean much to most people.
If you read the statistics, most of the Romanians who are here have got jobs, are doing well Living here, it's The statistics can't be right.
And when people aren't doubting statistics, they just make them up on their own.
The majority are here to claim their benefits, innit? - You think the majority are here to claim benefits? - Yeah, the majority.
- Yeah, definitely.
- So you want to see a clamp down.
Big time! Given the nature of the news coverage, you'd think the Romanians would be rubbing their hands together, looking at the clock and booking their tickets.
But weirdly, as some reporters pointed out, they're just not that into us.
Having spoken to people here, it's clear that contrary to popular myth, Romanians have no wish to go to the UK to live on benefits.
Yeah, I know, I read about it in the paper.
They can't wait to come here and STEAL from us.
Just listen to them.
"I would never leave my country," this woman says.
"For what? I'm a patriot.
" Give me back my wallet.
What would be the pint of leaving Romania just for social benefits? Yeah, whatever.
Have you got a receipt for those kids? I make my money here, I have my family here and my friends here.
I feel at home here, I would never go.
You lying thief.
Even their own officials denied they wanted to come here.
I can see at least one factor that makes the UK far less attractive, and that's certainly the weather.
What? How dare you? What's wrong with our weather? More disruption and misery after powerful gales and heavy rainfall hit the UK for the second time this week.
Yes, in an apparent bid to scare off the great Eastern European invasion scheduled for New Year's Day when the floodgates would open, Britain's weather spent much of Christmas demonstrating what it would look like if there were no floodgates at all.
Suddenly there was an intense sense of deja vu about some of the coverage.
Look at this bleak existence - no utilities, squalid conditions, people lugging sacks around everywhere and the only way to get about is on horseback.
They'd be better off in Romania.
As New Year's Day arrived, the press pulled out all the stops to welcome the expected horde of newcomers, while in a last-ditch attempt to put anyone attempting to enter the country, the Government stationed MP and publicity tag nut Keith Vaz at Luton Airport.
In fact, as Sky News clearly proved when the much anticipated planeload of Romanians arrived, it turned out most of them already worked here.
But the news did find at least one new Romanian.
This guy, Viktor, who'd come to get a job washing cars while wearing a green hat.
I don't come to rob your country, I come to work and you open the border.
I hope you've paid for that hat.
Ironically, while Viktor the one-man horde flooded Britain and bravely withstood a coffee with Keith Vaz, there were more British newcomers working in Romania as reporters than new Romanians in Britain.
Anyway, now the country is ruined.
I miss the traditional British way of life, you know, before we had the Bulgarians and Romanians and the Polish and the Russians and the Australians and the Kurdish and the Turkish and the Bengalis and the Pakistanis and the Indians and the West Indians and the Africans and the Huguenots and the Jews and the Normans and the Vikings and the Angles and Saxons and the Romans and the Jutes and those - bloody Celts who were first in the door, the foreign - BLEEP - idiots.
It's been downhill ever since.
Still, who cares what I think about immigration.
Let's ask a foreigner, specifically US comedian and shambles, Doug Stanhope.
Here's his view.
ROUSING MUSIC PLAYS I'm Doug Stanhope and that's why I drink.
Immigration, again, really? Who is it this time? The Bulgarians are coming, the Bulgarians are coming, bar the door and lock up the wives and hide the children and put your pants on backwards so they don't get their mitts in your zipper.
You know what? Honestly, I was surprised to find out the UK even had immigration laws of any kind.
As shitty and miserable and dire an existence as you live, you think you'd welcome anyone willing to live there with open arms and ask them stories about the outside world.
All the stereotypes you hear about immigration are always, "Oh, they're lazy and they steal and they don't speak the language," and then they turn around and go, "And they're stealing our jobs.
" "Hey, Kevin, we'd like to keep you on, you've been great, "but we've just found a slovenly, illiterate thief "and we think he might do a little bit better than you, "so you got to go.
" Besides, I thought the Polish people already stole all your jobs, so maybe the Bulgarians are just going to come in and steal Polish jobs, so you can relax.
In the States, when we say immigrant, it's just another word for Mexican.
We live on the border of Bisbee.
We see the fucking border patrol hustling all these guys up, 11 at a time, coming out of Ford Tempo like a fucking clown car.
After wandering the desert for six days and they just get over, and they're dehydrated and filthy.
Yeah, you're probably right, they don't speak the language and they probably have minimal education and if that guy can show up like that as qualified for your job as you are, you're a fucking loser of such dynamic proportions, I would be ashamed and humiliated if anyone found out that guy just took my job.
How simple and menial a job do you have where they can do the job training in pantomime? "Here, crank, crank, crank, crank, crank?" "Oh, si, crank, crank, crank, crank, crank.
" "Yeah, you got it.
" "Can you go?" "Oh, no, no, you go" "Yes, you're hired.
" You never hear people with legitimate skill sets complaining about immigrants taking their jobs.
You don't hear brain surgeons sitting round the Beverly Hills Hotel lounge going, "You know what chaps my arse, Patrick? "These fucking Guatemalans come up here.
Don't speak the language, "they steal all of our neurosurgery positions.
"Let's go thunder down some Jack Daniels "and put on our steel-toed boots "and go out tonight, stomping Guats, what do you say?" And the Romanians.
You see, I don't even think that one's a real country.
It's like from a fable or something.
Reality and grisly prick observation chamber Celebrity Big Brother kicked off once again with a star-studded line-up.
This year's twist saw faded celebrities handcuffed and incarcerated in front of a jeering crowd, a gimmick they've stolen from Operation Yewtree.
This year's housemates include Judy Finnigan and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
A Bratislavian prince from a 1920s silent film, Madeleine the rag doll, a young David Hasselhoff, an old David Hasselhoff, some atoms in the shape of a woman, thingy off thingamajig, Dorian Gray and his picture, a typical American, businesswoman of the year and Jennifer Aniston.
Highlights thus far include Dappy's surprisingly successful mating ritual, which has echoes of Hannibal Lecter.
Mmm It's too early to saw which ones are worth hating and which ones aren't worth hating yet, so you're best off hating all of them and then retrospectively withdrawing some of that hate if they break down or die or piss in Dappy's cornflakes.
Food! And with the horse meat scandal behind us, the new year got off to a grizzly start as a Chinese branch of Walmart discovered its donkey meat was tainted with fox.
These days you just don't know what the fox you're eating.
The sad news was expertly reported on the slightly odd Blue Ocean Network, anchored by the world's first Lego human.
A man that bought a package of what he thought was donkey meat at a local Walmart turned out to be fox meat instead.
Talk about Fox News! The report rounded off with a helpful Jamie Oliver-style austerity cooking tip.
To be on the safe side, boil fox meat with spices before consuming.
And to be on the really safe side, throw it away.
Still, if you think fox meat's bad, what about the North Korean scandal where dog food has reportedly been found to contain traces of uncle meat.
You know, it was this sort of nature show about dolphins.
It was just like a normal natural history programme, but set underwater.
Sort of like Finding Nemo, but if fish were real.
Dolphins live downstairs where the sea is, and the programme was really clever because they'd filmed it underwater using magic robot animals.
It was like a game where you had to guess which things were the real sea animals and which were the robot animals, and sometimes it was like an advert for robots, you know? Spy Dolphin reaches 50mph and also has HD cameras for eyes.
The thing is, the robot sea animals were so sophisticated, they were loads more interesting than the real sea animals, so some of the real sea animals got jealous and attacked the robot sea animals.
It was like a war between robots and the sea, which is something I didn't expect to see in my lifetime, if I'm honest.
But then I was surprised when wi-fi came out, so maybe that's just me.
It told you all this stuff you didn't know, like the dolphins talk by making noises like a squeaky floorboard, which gets on your tits after about six seconds.
Usually dolphins are pretty, which is why unhappy people have big posters of dolphins jumping over sunsets on their walls with slogans that pretend life's worth living printed on them.
But in this, because the dolphins didn't know the cameras were there, they were filmed from all these unflattering angles.
So you saw that dolphins are actually sort of ugly.
Like a grey undersea pig.
You wouldn't want that on your wall.
The thing is, it was really magical and fascinating with all this incredible footage of dolphins jumping in the air, and you're like, "That's amazing," you know.
And then they're jumping in the air again and you're still amazed, but not as much.
And then they jump and spin at the same time, and you're like, "OK, that's clever.
That is clever.
" And then they jump and spin again and you're like, "Do something else.
" But they don't.
They just keep jumping and spinning and jumping and spinning, and just landing back in the sea.
And they don't stop doing it, it's all they do.
Fucking dolphins! Fuck 'em! And fuck everyone who likes them! If dolphins are the best thing the ocean's got to offer, they might as well concrete over the sea.
EastEnders, the BBC's expertly realised ongoing simulation of what London might look like if human beings spoke and behaved in unrealistic ways, has been facing a crisis.
Viewers were turning away in droves, even though no-one knows what a drove is.
It's not quite clear why people haven't been enjoying this tale of downtrodden proletarians suffering endless miseries beneath a battleship-grey sky.
It can't be the fault of the richly-drawn characters like Purple Ronnie here, or Ian, or Kat, or Ian, or Dot, or Ian or, I don't know, who's that? Colin? Or the bald one, or the other bald one, or the sort of newer bald one.
Actually, there's so many bald heads in it it's like watching Finding Chemo.
Seriously, when two of them meet, they must think they're looking in a mirror.
Anyway, now there's a new boss driving the East End bus and the square's being sexed up, literally, with some mature erotica.
They've paired Phil Mitchell up with Sharon again, which is good news for anyone who's ever wondered what it might look like if scientists made a woman mate with a giant thumb, and bad news for anyone who doesn't want to witness his delighted post-coital gasping.
HE SIGHS Just like old times, eh? "Oh, thanks for that, love.
"Just going to go pat me dick dry on a tea cosy.
" But these thrilling developments were nothing compared to the news that Cockney actor Danny Dyer, the thinking man's Dick Van Dyke, was joining the Square to play the exotically named Mick Carter, a mystery wrapped in an enigma cocooned within a bloke.
Git Carter has purchased the Queen Vic, an iconic Walford landmark used for absorbing meaningful looks from characters as well as housing countless brooding grudges and impromptu shouting contests.
What?! Maxie! Swear down, touch me again and I'll rip your bits of! Despite buying the Vic late in the afternoon on Christmas Day, Carter apparently had a licence to sell alcohol granted by the 27th, which makes Walford Council more efficient than the Nazis.
Contrary to popular opinion, Danny Dyer can act although he seemed uncertain at first, openly asking other cast members how he should perform each scene.
I was thinking, how do I play this? Do Itry tears? I don't know, Danny, what does it say in the script? How am I going to tell Linda that tomorrow our little girl is getting married to a man we hate? Oh, you are supposed to do it gruffly, apparently.
Dyer is surrounded by a supporting cast of Carters, including a wife who walks around in the street in curlers like she has just wandered out of Birds Of A Feather, a daughter who inexplicably dresses like she is in EMF, a son who is gay but won't talk about it, and a sister who's gay but won't talk about anything else.
Right, that is it, I am splitting the room, building a les-zanine.
No-one is building a les-zanine.
Shirley there is Mick's other sister, and her sex life has been horrible because in the past she has also been filled in by the human thumb, hence their loaded glances, but then she is not picky.
It won't last, Shirley.
You'll blow it.
Just like you blow everything.
And everyone.
SHE VOMITS Nice.
Not all the language is that racy.
In fact, most of the time there is no language at all because the inhabitants of Albert Square chiefly seem to communicate by staring mutely at each other in some sort of weird silent theatre of the mind.
SHE SIGHS Prompt! To be fair, this is some of the best dialogue Albert Square has seen in years.
Anyway after a couple of episodes, something disturbing happened.
The old soap osmosis kicks in.
Before long, I was caring about what happened to the characters.
Like Ian and bald man, and Kat and Alfie, and Ian and bald man two, and Ian again.
But mainly, Danny Dyer.
And then I realised that rather than watching EastEnders so I could laugh at Danny Dyer, I was watching EastEnders BECAUSE of Danny Dyer.
He's a canny choice because of something weirdly watchable about him, no matter what blokey thing he is doing - whether he is picking up a bird, standing around looking hard or enjoying a steamy threesome.
Come on, then.
There's a good girl.
- Come on.
- Come on.
- Come on.
- Big jump.
- Yeah.
- Good girl.
You know, even if that dog joined in, it still wouldn't be as disturbing as that bit where Phil came out of the bed sheets all satiated like a manatee surfacing for air after a big underwater shit.
PHIL SIGHS Urgh.
It's a big, bewildering world, isn't it? We're just trying to make sense of the damn thing, aren't we? Well, yes, we are.
Well, here's someone who is trying harder than most.
He's trying to make sense of everything from geopolitical tensions to Russell Brand, and he is called Limmy.
This is Limmy.
Hi.
So I just started hearing Russell Brand getting mentioned everywhere.
"I saw Brand, I saw Brand.
" "Russell Brand.
" So I checked it out and he's gone on about how we shouldn't bother voting because "what's the point?" And I thought, "Good on you.
" Then I thought, "No, hold on Don't vote?" And just lot that walk straight in? Whose side is he on anyway? Is he one of us or .
.
one of them? I mean What's going on? So I tweeted him.
"What's going on?" Nae reply.
So I headed out because believe it or not I have bigger fish to fry than Russell Brand.
I'm sending a video to the council about the state of the fences in Victoria Park, I don't know if you've seen them.
Look at the state of that, look.
It was there that I remembered Katy Perry.
Katy Perry.
Katy Perry.
'The ex-wife.
She knows what is going on.
It's all there in the lyrics.
' "I see it all, I see it now and I'm wide awake wake-wake-wake.
" You can see that she is wanting to tell people but she knows that they are watching, she knows that he is watching so she is doing it in riddles and rhymes for the people who can work it out, like a code.
I sent her a code to tell her she can tell me, "I'm wide awake".
Follow me, please, so I can DM you.
Big fan.
Nae reply.
And nae reply from the council either.
The New Year began as it always does, with mankind declaring war on the sky, and exciting news reports of world leaders delivering inspiring words of hope in their thrilling New Year speeches.
SPEAKS RUSSIAN Showing the world how New Year's Eve addresses should be done, the star of the North Korean remake of Game Of Thrones, Kim Jong-Joffrey, took to an outside ornamental tissue box with seven inset microphones to swap feel-good stories about executing your own uncle.
Back home, mechanical pri-minidroid David Camero-bot stood in the factory that made him to deliver an inspiring message of hope with a slightly distracting glistening chin like he had just been fellating the devil, which I am legally obliged to assure you, he hadn't.
But he wasn't as worried about greasy chins as the prospect of Scottish independence.
This year, let the message go out from England, Wales and Northern Ireland to everyone in Scotland.
We want you to stay.
Yes, or to put it in terms you'd understand.
Och aye the noo.
Please don'tgooo.
On the other side of the ideological curtain, Labour's head firebrand Ed Miliband starred his own New Year's message, bits of which resembled Where's Wally.
There he is, the sexy one.
Red Hot Ed was shown posing for snapshots with delighted members of the public who couldn't believe they'd met a future Prime Minister because they hadn't.
And he articulated their angry voices in his own sort of dorky one.
People are thinking, look, I have made the sacrifices, where is the benefit? The Government keeps telling me that everything is fixed.
It doesn't seem fixed for me.
He is just like Nelson Mandela, isn't it? Sadly irrelevant in 2014.
It being a New Year, the mystery of time is on everyone's mind.
Well, to properly explore that mystery, you need an expert, and luckily, we have one in the form of our very own Philomena Cunk who will explore time for us and you in the first of her landmark mini documentary series, Moments Of Wonder.
Time is precious.
Well, it's not like other precious things.
You can't hold it's like a necklace or taste it like money.
Time has existed since before time began, and today, it is all around us.
On our phones, in the corner of the news.
But once upon a time, if you wanted the time, then you had to come here, to the headquarters of time.
Greenwich Clock Museum.
All the clocks in the world are set from here, which must take ages.
So, what is clocks? Clocks was invented by the ancient Mesopotamians in ancient Mesopotamian times.
But they did not know it was ancient Mesopotamian times because there were no clocks to see what the times was.
Because of the shape of clocks, you might think that time goes in a circle.
But it actually goes in a line.
This is the famous Greenwich Marillion Line, named after the band Marillion, who were named after this line.
Every day that's ever happened starts exactly here, coming out of that time transmitter, and running along this metal line on the ground.
That's why this is the only place in the world where I can be in the past and the future, with the present running right up through my middle bits.
No wonder time is such a mystery.
Literally, no-one can understand it apart from science men.
One science man who knows all about time is this science man.
Hello, Science Man.
Who are you? I'm Dr Stuart Clark.
I'm an astronomy writer and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
What is time? We don't actually know.
There are a couple of possibilities.
Either time could be a physical thing that flows like a river, or it could be more of a psychological thing When you say it's like a river, what do you mean? I mean that time flows like the water in the river and that the events in our lives are like things in the river that that water encounters.
Like fish and stuff? Yes.
You know when you store time on a clock? How do you get it back out again? Because when I was winding my watch up, I accidentally put it forward, so I'd got two hours more in my clock.
But then I put it back but I thought, "Is it still in there? Is the time still in the clock?" - So your watch doesn't actually measure time.
- Well, it does.
- Cos it's - It measures the oscillation of a crystal, and the change in the physical state of that crystal has to happen in what we call a certain amount of time.
So, from one moment to another, physical systems everywhere in the universe changes its state, and that change takes place in what we call time, and that's the only way we can infer the existence of time, but actually, what time is we don't know.
Right.
So even the people who understand time don't understand what time is.
It'll always be an unknowable mystery, like why the seasons change or how a telephone works.
Next time, I'll be asking, "What are these? "And why are they everywhere?" Gambling! And in a chilling online bingo advert, London is invaded by pop giant Mel B clomping through the streets like Godzilla-zig-ah, terrifying pedestrians with the biggest camel toe in history Not that it's that unusual a sight.
The City is full of massive twats.
Actually, I don't know why they've shown her playing bingo in the City.
It's not a place anyone associates with huge destructive idiots mindlessly gambling and crushing the man on the street.
She is massive.
You think I'm massive? Get a load of this jackpot! Looks like someone's sitting on a full house.
Bingo joke! Furniture! And in an alarming promo for a sofa and chair emporium, a woman enjoys a domestic date with a two-faced kind of fella.
I got it for the design.
And it's really comfy.
- That and the fact that we saved a bundle.
- Would you like some popcorn? What's worrying is he comes across like he's suffering from a split personality disorder.
I like a man that's cost conscious.
You can thank me later.
Would you like me to take your coat? I'll wear your skin like a coat.
Breaks! With 2014 already proving too miserable to bother with, holiday companies are doing their best to make us temporarily emigrate with this uplifting tale of a family in which Dad is a monster.
Not a monster in the sinister tabloid sense, but a sort of cuddly ogre.
After a bit of fun chillaxing on holiday, he finds out he no longer has the horn in bed with his wife and attempts to run into the sea in a bid to end it all, only to find himself transformed into a sort of climaxing Chippendale.
It's all quite heart-warming, until you realise they'll have to fly back to Gatwick in 48 hours for the whole soul-shitting cycle to begin all over again until next year, when another holiday makes him human again.
He's only got a few more years of that left until his daughter wants to go to Ibiza with her real mates, leaving him and his poxy wife alone to bicker and read books in lonely silence on the beach Actually, maybe I'm reading too much into this.
I need a holiday.
Hmm.
Well, that's all we've got time for this week.
Till next time, go away.
Things like this Britain angers Neptune, god of the sea.
Turns out Britannia might not rule the waves after all.
Snazzily-directed detective show Sherlock returned.
Some viewers were left confused as to why Sherlock didn't die at the end of the previous series.
Well, the simple answer is, he was recommissioned.
Meanwhile, a freak polar vortex in America has created some astonishing images.
Critics are praising this charming Broadway production of The Snowman.
But we start with Britain.
Britain's brilliant, isn't it? It's got everything, it's got Paddington Bear and Stonehenge and regular bin collections But all of this hangs in the balance, thanks to immigration, which is out of control.
These days everywhere you look there's a Polski Sklep selling weird foreign food, like eggs.
What the hell is an egg? Well, no more.
Britain is full, and we need to keep an eye on anyone new who wants to come here.
Which is why it's helpful that for over a year the news has kept us informed of the imminent threat of inbound Romanians and Bulgarians set to flood the country once EU restrictions were lifted on New Year's Day.
But who exactly are these people? First, Bulgarians.
Bulgarians, as a series of eye-opening reports made devilishly clear, live in a kind of medieval realm twinned with Game Of Thrones, consisting entirely of horses and carts and people lugging giant sacks around, like they were in a live recreation of a Breughel painting.
Their world isn't entirely backward - I mean, they do have, say, cars - but only shit ones.
In fact, as Channel 4's footage made clear, Bulgaria's a kind of open-air shit car museum, where the only form of entertainment is driving over the nation's one speed bump.
Romania, meanwhile, is apparently also a medieval Game Of Thrones Breughel-painting squalor-pot, according to this news footage, apparently beamed live from the year 1386.
The news certainly painted a graphic picture of deprivation and hot horse-on-cart action.
I mean, look at this bleak existence, no utilities, squalid conditions, people lugging sacks around everywhere.
And the only way to get about is on horseback.
They'd be better off in Britain.
Little wonder a tidal wave of immigrants was predicted by some, and it didn't seem they were going to be welcomed with open arms.
It's hard to shake the suspicion that much of the hostility towards immigrants who haven't even migrated yet might have something to do with the level-headed, non-judgmental and factually watertight reporting surrounding the issue.
Some of the language about floods and swarms is reminiscent of dehumanising, anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda likening Jews to rats.
They are cunning, cowardly and cruel.
And usually appear in massive hoards.
And when not being compared with vermin, they're routinely painted as scroungers or criminals.
Many Romanians were unimpressed with the coverage and tried to redress the balance.
Sky News found an articulate Romanian barrister who pointed out Romanians have been allowed to work here since 2007, and apparently aren't all thieves.
I know lots of doctors, nurses, scientists, lawyers like myself.
We have integrated in this wonderful country, and we have been contributing.
Yeah, whatever.
Come on, turn your pockets out! Even statistics showing immigrants contribute more than they take don't help, because, as the news demonstrated, statistics don't really mean much to most people.
If you read the statistics, most of the Romanians who are here have got jobs, are doing well Living here, it's The statistics can't be right.
And when people aren't doubting statistics, they just make them up on their own.
The majority are here to claim their benefits, innit? - You think the majority are here to claim benefits? - Yeah, the majority.
- Yeah, definitely.
- So you want to see a clamp down.
Big time! Given the nature of the news coverage, you'd think the Romanians would be rubbing their hands together, looking at the clock and booking their tickets.
But weirdly, as some reporters pointed out, they're just not that into us.
Having spoken to people here, it's clear that contrary to popular myth, Romanians have no wish to go to the UK to live on benefits.
Yeah, I know, I read about it in the paper.
They can't wait to come here and STEAL from us.
Just listen to them.
"I would never leave my country," this woman says.
"For what? I'm a patriot.
" Give me back my wallet.
What would be the pint of leaving Romania just for social benefits? Yeah, whatever.
Have you got a receipt for those kids? I make my money here, I have my family here and my friends here.
I feel at home here, I would never go.
You lying thief.
Even their own officials denied they wanted to come here.
I can see at least one factor that makes the UK far less attractive, and that's certainly the weather.
What? How dare you? What's wrong with our weather? More disruption and misery after powerful gales and heavy rainfall hit the UK for the second time this week.
Yes, in an apparent bid to scare off the great Eastern European invasion scheduled for New Year's Day when the floodgates would open, Britain's weather spent much of Christmas demonstrating what it would look like if there were no floodgates at all.
Suddenly there was an intense sense of deja vu about some of the coverage.
Look at this bleak existence - no utilities, squalid conditions, people lugging sacks around everywhere and the only way to get about is on horseback.
They'd be better off in Romania.
As New Year's Day arrived, the press pulled out all the stops to welcome the expected horde of newcomers, while in a last-ditch attempt to put anyone attempting to enter the country, the Government stationed MP and publicity tag nut Keith Vaz at Luton Airport.
In fact, as Sky News clearly proved when the much anticipated planeload of Romanians arrived, it turned out most of them already worked here.
But the news did find at least one new Romanian.
This guy, Viktor, who'd come to get a job washing cars while wearing a green hat.
I don't come to rob your country, I come to work and you open the border.
I hope you've paid for that hat.
Ironically, while Viktor the one-man horde flooded Britain and bravely withstood a coffee with Keith Vaz, there were more British newcomers working in Romania as reporters than new Romanians in Britain.
Anyway, now the country is ruined.
I miss the traditional British way of life, you know, before we had the Bulgarians and Romanians and the Polish and the Russians and the Australians and the Kurdish and the Turkish and the Bengalis and the Pakistanis and the Indians and the West Indians and the Africans and the Huguenots and the Jews and the Normans and the Vikings and the Angles and Saxons and the Romans and the Jutes and those - bloody Celts who were first in the door, the foreign - BLEEP - idiots.
It's been downhill ever since.
Still, who cares what I think about immigration.
Let's ask a foreigner, specifically US comedian and shambles, Doug Stanhope.
Here's his view.
ROUSING MUSIC PLAYS I'm Doug Stanhope and that's why I drink.
Immigration, again, really? Who is it this time? The Bulgarians are coming, the Bulgarians are coming, bar the door and lock up the wives and hide the children and put your pants on backwards so they don't get their mitts in your zipper.
You know what? Honestly, I was surprised to find out the UK even had immigration laws of any kind.
As shitty and miserable and dire an existence as you live, you think you'd welcome anyone willing to live there with open arms and ask them stories about the outside world.
All the stereotypes you hear about immigration are always, "Oh, they're lazy and they steal and they don't speak the language," and then they turn around and go, "And they're stealing our jobs.
" "Hey, Kevin, we'd like to keep you on, you've been great, "but we've just found a slovenly, illiterate thief "and we think he might do a little bit better than you, "so you got to go.
" Besides, I thought the Polish people already stole all your jobs, so maybe the Bulgarians are just going to come in and steal Polish jobs, so you can relax.
In the States, when we say immigrant, it's just another word for Mexican.
We live on the border of Bisbee.
We see the fucking border patrol hustling all these guys up, 11 at a time, coming out of Ford Tempo like a fucking clown car.
After wandering the desert for six days and they just get over, and they're dehydrated and filthy.
Yeah, you're probably right, they don't speak the language and they probably have minimal education and if that guy can show up like that as qualified for your job as you are, you're a fucking loser of such dynamic proportions, I would be ashamed and humiliated if anyone found out that guy just took my job.
How simple and menial a job do you have where they can do the job training in pantomime? "Here, crank, crank, crank, crank, crank?" "Oh, si, crank, crank, crank, crank, crank.
" "Yeah, you got it.
" "Can you go?" "Oh, no, no, you go" "Yes, you're hired.
" You never hear people with legitimate skill sets complaining about immigrants taking their jobs.
You don't hear brain surgeons sitting round the Beverly Hills Hotel lounge going, "You know what chaps my arse, Patrick? "These fucking Guatemalans come up here.
Don't speak the language, "they steal all of our neurosurgery positions.
"Let's go thunder down some Jack Daniels "and put on our steel-toed boots "and go out tonight, stomping Guats, what do you say?" And the Romanians.
You see, I don't even think that one's a real country.
It's like from a fable or something.
Reality and grisly prick observation chamber Celebrity Big Brother kicked off once again with a star-studded line-up.
This year's twist saw faded celebrities handcuffed and incarcerated in front of a jeering crowd, a gimmick they've stolen from Operation Yewtree.
This year's housemates include Judy Finnigan and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
A Bratislavian prince from a 1920s silent film, Madeleine the rag doll, a young David Hasselhoff, an old David Hasselhoff, some atoms in the shape of a woman, thingy off thingamajig, Dorian Gray and his picture, a typical American, businesswoman of the year and Jennifer Aniston.
Highlights thus far include Dappy's surprisingly successful mating ritual, which has echoes of Hannibal Lecter.
Mmm It's too early to saw which ones are worth hating and which ones aren't worth hating yet, so you're best off hating all of them and then retrospectively withdrawing some of that hate if they break down or die or piss in Dappy's cornflakes.
Food! And with the horse meat scandal behind us, the new year got off to a grizzly start as a Chinese branch of Walmart discovered its donkey meat was tainted with fox.
These days you just don't know what the fox you're eating.
The sad news was expertly reported on the slightly odd Blue Ocean Network, anchored by the world's first Lego human.
A man that bought a package of what he thought was donkey meat at a local Walmart turned out to be fox meat instead.
Talk about Fox News! The report rounded off with a helpful Jamie Oliver-style austerity cooking tip.
To be on the safe side, boil fox meat with spices before consuming.
And to be on the really safe side, throw it away.
Still, if you think fox meat's bad, what about the North Korean scandal where dog food has reportedly been found to contain traces of uncle meat.
You know, it was this sort of nature show about dolphins.
It was just like a normal natural history programme, but set underwater.
Sort of like Finding Nemo, but if fish were real.
Dolphins live downstairs where the sea is, and the programme was really clever because they'd filmed it underwater using magic robot animals.
It was like a game where you had to guess which things were the real sea animals and which were the robot animals, and sometimes it was like an advert for robots, you know? Spy Dolphin reaches 50mph and also has HD cameras for eyes.
The thing is, the robot sea animals were so sophisticated, they were loads more interesting than the real sea animals, so some of the real sea animals got jealous and attacked the robot sea animals.
It was like a war between robots and the sea, which is something I didn't expect to see in my lifetime, if I'm honest.
But then I was surprised when wi-fi came out, so maybe that's just me.
It told you all this stuff you didn't know, like the dolphins talk by making noises like a squeaky floorboard, which gets on your tits after about six seconds.
Usually dolphins are pretty, which is why unhappy people have big posters of dolphins jumping over sunsets on their walls with slogans that pretend life's worth living printed on them.
But in this, because the dolphins didn't know the cameras were there, they were filmed from all these unflattering angles.
So you saw that dolphins are actually sort of ugly.
Like a grey undersea pig.
You wouldn't want that on your wall.
The thing is, it was really magical and fascinating with all this incredible footage of dolphins jumping in the air, and you're like, "That's amazing," you know.
And then they're jumping in the air again and you're still amazed, but not as much.
And then they jump and spin at the same time, and you're like, "OK, that's clever.
That is clever.
" And then they jump and spin again and you're like, "Do something else.
" But they don't.
They just keep jumping and spinning and jumping and spinning, and just landing back in the sea.
And they don't stop doing it, it's all they do.
Fucking dolphins! Fuck 'em! And fuck everyone who likes them! If dolphins are the best thing the ocean's got to offer, they might as well concrete over the sea.
EastEnders, the BBC's expertly realised ongoing simulation of what London might look like if human beings spoke and behaved in unrealistic ways, has been facing a crisis.
Viewers were turning away in droves, even though no-one knows what a drove is.
It's not quite clear why people haven't been enjoying this tale of downtrodden proletarians suffering endless miseries beneath a battleship-grey sky.
It can't be the fault of the richly-drawn characters like Purple Ronnie here, or Ian, or Kat, or Ian, or Dot, or Ian or, I don't know, who's that? Colin? Or the bald one, or the other bald one, or the sort of newer bald one.
Actually, there's so many bald heads in it it's like watching Finding Chemo.
Seriously, when two of them meet, they must think they're looking in a mirror.
Anyway, now there's a new boss driving the East End bus and the square's being sexed up, literally, with some mature erotica.
They've paired Phil Mitchell up with Sharon again, which is good news for anyone who's ever wondered what it might look like if scientists made a woman mate with a giant thumb, and bad news for anyone who doesn't want to witness his delighted post-coital gasping.
HE SIGHS Just like old times, eh? "Oh, thanks for that, love.
"Just going to go pat me dick dry on a tea cosy.
" But these thrilling developments were nothing compared to the news that Cockney actor Danny Dyer, the thinking man's Dick Van Dyke, was joining the Square to play the exotically named Mick Carter, a mystery wrapped in an enigma cocooned within a bloke.
Git Carter has purchased the Queen Vic, an iconic Walford landmark used for absorbing meaningful looks from characters as well as housing countless brooding grudges and impromptu shouting contests.
What?! Maxie! Swear down, touch me again and I'll rip your bits of! Despite buying the Vic late in the afternoon on Christmas Day, Carter apparently had a licence to sell alcohol granted by the 27th, which makes Walford Council more efficient than the Nazis.
Contrary to popular opinion, Danny Dyer can act although he seemed uncertain at first, openly asking other cast members how he should perform each scene.
I was thinking, how do I play this? Do Itry tears? I don't know, Danny, what does it say in the script? How am I going to tell Linda that tomorrow our little girl is getting married to a man we hate? Oh, you are supposed to do it gruffly, apparently.
Dyer is surrounded by a supporting cast of Carters, including a wife who walks around in the street in curlers like she has just wandered out of Birds Of A Feather, a daughter who inexplicably dresses like she is in EMF, a son who is gay but won't talk about it, and a sister who's gay but won't talk about anything else.
Right, that is it, I am splitting the room, building a les-zanine.
No-one is building a les-zanine.
Shirley there is Mick's other sister, and her sex life has been horrible because in the past she has also been filled in by the human thumb, hence their loaded glances, but then she is not picky.
It won't last, Shirley.
You'll blow it.
Just like you blow everything.
And everyone.
SHE VOMITS Nice.
Not all the language is that racy.
In fact, most of the time there is no language at all because the inhabitants of Albert Square chiefly seem to communicate by staring mutely at each other in some sort of weird silent theatre of the mind.
SHE SIGHS Prompt! To be fair, this is some of the best dialogue Albert Square has seen in years.
Anyway after a couple of episodes, something disturbing happened.
The old soap osmosis kicks in.
Before long, I was caring about what happened to the characters.
Like Ian and bald man, and Kat and Alfie, and Ian and bald man two, and Ian again.
But mainly, Danny Dyer.
And then I realised that rather than watching EastEnders so I could laugh at Danny Dyer, I was watching EastEnders BECAUSE of Danny Dyer.
He's a canny choice because of something weirdly watchable about him, no matter what blokey thing he is doing - whether he is picking up a bird, standing around looking hard or enjoying a steamy threesome.
Come on, then.
There's a good girl.
- Come on.
- Come on.
- Come on.
- Big jump.
- Yeah.
- Good girl.
You know, even if that dog joined in, it still wouldn't be as disturbing as that bit where Phil came out of the bed sheets all satiated like a manatee surfacing for air after a big underwater shit.
PHIL SIGHS Urgh.
It's a big, bewildering world, isn't it? We're just trying to make sense of the damn thing, aren't we? Well, yes, we are.
Well, here's someone who is trying harder than most.
He's trying to make sense of everything from geopolitical tensions to Russell Brand, and he is called Limmy.
This is Limmy.
Hi.
So I just started hearing Russell Brand getting mentioned everywhere.
"I saw Brand, I saw Brand.
" "Russell Brand.
" So I checked it out and he's gone on about how we shouldn't bother voting because "what's the point?" And I thought, "Good on you.
" Then I thought, "No, hold on Don't vote?" And just lot that walk straight in? Whose side is he on anyway? Is he one of us or .
.
one of them? I mean What's going on? So I tweeted him.
"What's going on?" Nae reply.
So I headed out because believe it or not I have bigger fish to fry than Russell Brand.
I'm sending a video to the council about the state of the fences in Victoria Park, I don't know if you've seen them.
Look at the state of that, look.
It was there that I remembered Katy Perry.
Katy Perry.
Katy Perry.
'The ex-wife.
She knows what is going on.
It's all there in the lyrics.
' "I see it all, I see it now and I'm wide awake wake-wake-wake.
" You can see that she is wanting to tell people but she knows that they are watching, she knows that he is watching so she is doing it in riddles and rhymes for the people who can work it out, like a code.
I sent her a code to tell her she can tell me, "I'm wide awake".
Follow me, please, so I can DM you.
Big fan.
Nae reply.
And nae reply from the council either.
The New Year began as it always does, with mankind declaring war on the sky, and exciting news reports of world leaders delivering inspiring words of hope in their thrilling New Year speeches.
SPEAKS RUSSIAN Showing the world how New Year's Eve addresses should be done, the star of the North Korean remake of Game Of Thrones, Kim Jong-Joffrey, took to an outside ornamental tissue box with seven inset microphones to swap feel-good stories about executing your own uncle.
Back home, mechanical pri-minidroid David Camero-bot stood in the factory that made him to deliver an inspiring message of hope with a slightly distracting glistening chin like he had just been fellating the devil, which I am legally obliged to assure you, he hadn't.
But he wasn't as worried about greasy chins as the prospect of Scottish independence.
This year, let the message go out from England, Wales and Northern Ireland to everyone in Scotland.
We want you to stay.
Yes, or to put it in terms you'd understand.
Och aye the noo.
Please don'tgooo.
On the other side of the ideological curtain, Labour's head firebrand Ed Miliband starred his own New Year's message, bits of which resembled Where's Wally.
There he is, the sexy one.
Red Hot Ed was shown posing for snapshots with delighted members of the public who couldn't believe they'd met a future Prime Minister because they hadn't.
And he articulated their angry voices in his own sort of dorky one.
People are thinking, look, I have made the sacrifices, where is the benefit? The Government keeps telling me that everything is fixed.
It doesn't seem fixed for me.
He is just like Nelson Mandela, isn't it? Sadly irrelevant in 2014.
It being a New Year, the mystery of time is on everyone's mind.
Well, to properly explore that mystery, you need an expert, and luckily, we have one in the form of our very own Philomena Cunk who will explore time for us and you in the first of her landmark mini documentary series, Moments Of Wonder.
Time is precious.
Well, it's not like other precious things.
You can't hold it's like a necklace or taste it like money.
Time has existed since before time began, and today, it is all around us.
On our phones, in the corner of the news.
But once upon a time, if you wanted the time, then you had to come here, to the headquarters of time.
Greenwich Clock Museum.
All the clocks in the world are set from here, which must take ages.
So, what is clocks? Clocks was invented by the ancient Mesopotamians in ancient Mesopotamian times.
But they did not know it was ancient Mesopotamian times because there were no clocks to see what the times was.
Because of the shape of clocks, you might think that time goes in a circle.
But it actually goes in a line.
This is the famous Greenwich Marillion Line, named after the band Marillion, who were named after this line.
Every day that's ever happened starts exactly here, coming out of that time transmitter, and running along this metal line on the ground.
That's why this is the only place in the world where I can be in the past and the future, with the present running right up through my middle bits.
No wonder time is such a mystery.
Literally, no-one can understand it apart from science men.
One science man who knows all about time is this science man.
Hello, Science Man.
Who are you? I'm Dr Stuart Clark.
I'm an astronomy writer and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
What is time? We don't actually know.
There are a couple of possibilities.
Either time could be a physical thing that flows like a river, or it could be more of a psychological thing When you say it's like a river, what do you mean? I mean that time flows like the water in the river and that the events in our lives are like things in the river that that water encounters.
Like fish and stuff? Yes.
You know when you store time on a clock? How do you get it back out again? Because when I was winding my watch up, I accidentally put it forward, so I'd got two hours more in my clock.
But then I put it back but I thought, "Is it still in there? Is the time still in the clock?" - So your watch doesn't actually measure time.
- Well, it does.
- Cos it's - It measures the oscillation of a crystal, and the change in the physical state of that crystal has to happen in what we call a certain amount of time.
So, from one moment to another, physical systems everywhere in the universe changes its state, and that change takes place in what we call time, and that's the only way we can infer the existence of time, but actually, what time is we don't know.
Right.
So even the people who understand time don't understand what time is.
It'll always be an unknowable mystery, like why the seasons change or how a telephone works.
Next time, I'll be asking, "What are these? "And why are they everywhere?" Gambling! And in a chilling online bingo advert, London is invaded by pop giant Mel B clomping through the streets like Godzilla-zig-ah, terrifying pedestrians with the biggest camel toe in history Not that it's that unusual a sight.
The City is full of massive twats.
Actually, I don't know why they've shown her playing bingo in the City.
It's not a place anyone associates with huge destructive idiots mindlessly gambling and crushing the man on the street.
She is massive.
You think I'm massive? Get a load of this jackpot! Looks like someone's sitting on a full house.
Bingo joke! Furniture! And in an alarming promo for a sofa and chair emporium, a woman enjoys a domestic date with a two-faced kind of fella.
I got it for the design.
And it's really comfy.
- That and the fact that we saved a bundle.
- Would you like some popcorn? What's worrying is he comes across like he's suffering from a split personality disorder.
I like a man that's cost conscious.
You can thank me later.
Would you like me to take your coat? I'll wear your skin like a coat.
Breaks! With 2014 already proving too miserable to bother with, holiday companies are doing their best to make us temporarily emigrate with this uplifting tale of a family in which Dad is a monster.
Not a monster in the sinister tabloid sense, but a sort of cuddly ogre.
After a bit of fun chillaxing on holiday, he finds out he no longer has the horn in bed with his wife and attempts to run into the sea in a bid to end it all, only to find himself transformed into a sort of climaxing Chippendale.
It's all quite heart-warming, until you realise they'll have to fly back to Gatwick in 48 hours for the whole soul-shitting cycle to begin all over again until next year, when another holiday makes him human again.
He's only got a few more years of that left until his daughter wants to go to Ibiza with her real mates, leaving him and his poxy wife alone to bicker and read books in lonely silence on the beach Actually, maybe I'm reading too much into this.
I need a holiday.
Hmm.
Well, that's all we've got time for this week.
Till next time, go away.