Charlie Brooker - Lockdown Special [split topic]

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Yes, he finally got his wife out - alas, at the late stage where no rational man would find her desirable, though maybe that's the point.

What a lovely, charming thing to write, you nice fellow.

[jobotic]

Yes, he finally got his wife out - alas, at the late stage where no rational man would find her desirable, though maybe that's the point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31mlEEs9_Vk

Arse as you are this is a bit below you.

[chveik]

nah it's perfectly in character

[chveik]

I think Brooker should've dedicated half an hour to make death threats to Colonel Tom Moore

[pigamus]

What a lovely, charming thing to write, you nice fellow.

It's as horrible as it is insane

She barely looks any different

[Crabwalk]

Yes, he finally got his wife out - alas, at the late stage where no rational man would find her desirable, though maybe that's the point.

Oh just absolutely fuck off you total and complete cunt.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Ouch, you know it's bad when LJAMC is rightfully telling you pack it in.

[ImmaculateClump]

Woah! What?
Konnie is as cute as she's ever been!

There was a weird bit in one of the Limmy's show commentaries where he was talking about Davina McCall and about her being attractive and he goes something like "of course, this was five or ten years ago now".
Regardless of how "problematic" or cancel-worthy you might think that comment is, it was a good five or ten years before she hit peak milfery. It was just plain wrong.

I'm not trying to make some clever ironic point by fighting sexism with sexism, but bowls full of good, barely ripe women are being slung into wheelie bins all across the country every day and it's mind boggling.

It might be true that Brooker can't really pull off the misanthropic everyman nowadays. I imagine the world is a much brighter place when you've got Konnie Huq wrapped around you, a pretty stable cushy career, a family, a nice house, and so on.

He won the nerd lottery, he's living the dream. If I have to stretch my credulity to believe that he's genuinely angry about the new series of doctor who, well I'm happy to pay that price.

[jsgibble]

I'm not sure it's entirely true he's softer now. He could be quite mean in his old stuff but he'd talk about stuff he liked as well, unlike the news Wipes or Black Mirror which are only caustic, even though they're not as sharp as the TV columns or Screenwipe.

[Hand Solo]

%uD83D%uDE02 %uD83D%uDE02 %uD83D%uDE02

"Blatantly" faked having Covid to... make himself look like more of an idiot for initially being extremely blase about it, shaking hands etc. ?? And you think no one from the hospital, team of intensive care doctors/nurses etc. would have leaked anything

Conspiracy theory wank

Like all the famous leaks in the papers when Jimmy Savile was alive about him having his run of the hospital, vulnerable patients, quadriplegic kids, morgue and all.

Oh.

[sambwel]

Finally watched this and thought it was okay, after a couple of years of not hearing the Wipe theme even just the intro was good enough to make the whole thing feel like a nice warm bath. Shame it ended on the weak note of a Cunk moment but I've never been a fan - to be fair, I did get a snort-laugh out of the onions line because it was so audaciously stupid.

Yeah he was soft on Boris but I'm not sure what people expected. Is there a threshold of satirical evisceration that would bring some kind of justice for all the blood he has on his hands? I admit though I was a bit disappointed he didn't commit to rolling out the £350m bus footage through the entire episode like he did the bum-talk dubbing bit.

[phosphoresce]

Is there a threshold of satirical evisceration that would bring some kind of justice for all the blood he has on his hands? I admit though I was a bit disappointed he didn't commit to rolling out the £350m bus footage through the entire episode like he did the bum-talk dubbing bit.

I didn't see an evisceration of any sort? Nothing about that time Hancock tried to blame PPE shortages on NHS staff being wasteful, nothing about neglecting care homes then denying doing so, nothing about dropping the international death rate comparison chart around the time we ranked the worst in Europe...The worst Brooker could think of was the silly bus?

It more like some observational humour about quarantine: "Corr, this lockdown eh?".

[sambwel]

Of course there is much he could, and arguably should, have taken the government to task for, but my point is that his failure to do so is ultimately of little consequence. The Wipes, in my view, only ever offered the same kind of hollow, fleeting catharsis that The Daily Show and its countless spinoffs offer to the yanks - Brooker's just generally much funnier, or at least he has been. It's almost always been silly observational humor with hints of satire.

I'm not saying it's wrong to be disappointed or even a bit pissed off, my attitude is simply 'a couple of chuckles is better than nothing' because I didn't expect much more than that.

[ImmaculateClump]

Yeah, that moment when he was hosting hignfy and he slipped so effortlesly into the Corbyn smearing machine like a well oiled cog, I stopped expecting anything more from him than mildly diverting nob gags.
I enjoyed this because it was a serious topic that we're all currently living through but it made light of it and that was enough to give me a couple of chuckles.

I get people saying that he's in the perfect position to make something more worthwhile and do some proper research and kick some ready testicles. I can't disagree, but like sambwel says, I don't think that's ever been his remit.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Yes, he finally got his wife out - alas, at the late stage where no rational man would find her desirable, though maybe that's the point.

Go fuck yourself, you nasty piece of drivelling shit.

[thr0b]

It's not even controversial to point out that if he'd needed intensive care, there's no way he'd have recovered so quickly, so he definitely didn't really need intensive care and certainly didn't have a brush with death like he's since tried to make out, is it? I mean that's just a fact.

Days after "leaving" "intensive care" where he "needed" oxygen, he was giving a live speech first thing in the morning on the steps outside Downing Street, in cold air.

As anyone with any respiratory issue will confirm, cold air can really make you gasp for air. He gave a long speech and showed no ill-effects.

He had definitely been ill. But...I don't buy that he was desperately ill. Unless he discharged himself, he was discharged ludicrously early for that.

[olliebean]

Do you know at what stage this hospital decides to put people in intensive care? And you think they were pressures by some Conservative spin doctors or something to move him there, and that that hasn't come out because... nhs doctors famously love the tories? (or maybe you think there's another reason, but I can't see what that would be)

If someone from the hospital comes out and says he didn't need to be there according to their guidelines, then it's just a fact.

Absolutely the 'brush with death' spin is annoying. But trying to turn it into a conspiracy thing that he didn't need to be there just rubs me the wrong way. I just hate unproven armchair expert conspiracy theory shit, even when its used against people who are terrible.

Based on what I have read, the threshold usually used for deciding whether to move someone to intensive care for possible ventilation is that they are receiving about 15l/minute of oxygen. Johnson was receiving 4l/minute.

I think usually people are moved to intensive care when they have an immediate or likely imminent need for it. Johnson appears to have been moved there on the offchance that he might need it at some not especially imminent time. And if he had indeed received ventilation (and I don't think I've seen any suggestion that he did), it's very unlikely he would have recovered so quickly, based on what I have seen doctors and nurses saying about recovery after being on a ventilator.

[HAVANAGILA]

Enjoyed most of this, but in the final Cunk interview I couldn't help thinking "Oh, just let him get back to hunting for a vaccine FFS".

"Ooh, *someone's* got a garden!" got the biggest laugh from me, as did the Tintin and Penfold lines.

I agree it's very welcome to have someone holding the government to account for their shambolic handling of the crisis - but I reckon the Gogglebox clips of reactions to Johnson's speeches that have done the rounds on FB/Twitter have had criticisms that are just as valid and cutting tbh.

(Not meant as a slight on Wipe, I was just surprised at the amount of righteous vitriol coming from Gogglebox...)

[Sony Walkman Prophecies]

I think Brooker should've dedicated half an hour to make death threats to Colonel Tom Moore

True. And by the topsy turvy logic of this forum, this would have scarcely raised an eyebrow.

[Rainbow Moses]

True. And by the topsy turvy logic of this forum, this would have scarcely raised an eyebrow.

Yes, you committed the cardinal error of not being politically correct about your political incorrectness.

[chveik]

sigh

[Jim Bob]

I didn't think much of this.  Found it to be weak sauce on the whole.  I was particularly annoyed when the footage of the news reporter came on talking about Tom Hanks being diagnosed with the coronavirus and she said "we think of Tom Hanks as a positive kind of guy, not a guy who tests positive" and Charlie Brooker somehow completely failed to respond with something along the lines of "oh, I don't know. I saw Philadelphia".  I mean, come on!  How do you miss an opportunity to make a gag there?!

[Noodle Lizard]

I didn't think much of this.  Found it to be weak sauce on the whole.  I was particularly annoyed when the footage of the news reporter came on talking about Tom Hanks being diagnosed with the coronavirus and she said "we think of Tom Hanks as a positive kind of guy, not a guy who tests positive" and Charlie Brooker somehow completely failed to respond with something along the lines of "oh, I don't know. I saw Philadelphia".  I mean, come on!  How do you miss an opportunity to make a gag there?!

Isn't the point of showing that clip to demonstrate how weird and callous some of the US news reporting has been? It'd kind of negate that point if he threw in a cheap gag himself to join in. Not that he's above cheap gags, but it might've seemed a tad reductive then and there.

[Jim Bob]

Isn't the point of showing that clip to demonstrate how weird and callous some of the US news reporting has been? It'd kind of negate that point if he threw in a cheap gag himself to join in. Not that he's above cheap gags, but it might've seemed a tad reductive then and there.

I think the callousness of that report had more to do with the follow up to my quoted line where they tastelessly threw in a clip from Forest Gump of the titular character saying "life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get".  Still, I hear what you're saying, but ultimately it still seems like a missed opportunity for a decent gag to me (and like you say, Brooker's sense of humour isn't exactly known for being classy and considerate).  So; would it have been a tad reductive to have made that gag?  Yeah, I guess but it still annoyed me that the joke wasn't made.  It was just one of those moments where I was bewildered that they squandered the opportunity.

[thenoise]

😂 😂 😂

"Blatantly" faked having Covid to... make himself look like more of an idiot for initially being extremely blase about it, shaking hands etc. ?? And you think no one from the hospital, team of intensive care doctors/nurses etc. would have leaked anything

Conspiracy theory wank

They were quite careful about the way they reported it - not quite saying that he required intensive care, but that he had been moved to the ICU as a precautionary measure.  Which was probably a decision made by the doctors - yes, they should treat anyone equally, but I imagine there may have been a little whisper of concern about being hauled over the coals if they refused a ventilator for King Boris while some anonymous Grandma from Streatham got one instead.  So he did as he was told and sat in bed watching DVDs in ICU until they sent him home.

He definitely wasn't at death's door, but I can't really blame the media/public for thinking so, for whom generally 'ICU' means 'dead soon'.

The closest anyone got to actually lying was Boris saying 'it was touch and go' or whatever the fuck he said when they let him out, but I think everyone knows that was just his usual bluster.

[PeasOnSticks]

It was ok. It's kind of gone the way of HIGNFY - a complacent, inoffensive version of its former self that barely raises a laugh.

[keir]

The short amount of time which has passed since the events it's describing meant that it had less chance than an annual wipe to get me to think "haha, I'd forgotten about that". It only did it once, with Elton John. But yesterday I noticed that Matt Hancock was wearing one of his stupid CARE badges and I thought "haha, I'd forgotten about that", so that's another one he could have had.

[olliebean]

It was ok. It's kind of gone the way of HIGNFY - a complacent, inoffensive version of its former self that barely raises a laugh.

Brooker is helming HIGNFY again this week, btw.

[Puce Moment]

Brooker is helming HIGNFY again this week, btw.

Sadly, I think he fits in much better with this media luvs simulacra of a real satirical show holding power to account.

[Jim Bob]

I only laughed once throughout the entire special; when Cunk chugged a large helping of squirty cream straight from the canister.