5 Other Fabrics to Celebrate like the Flag

Some people say that they should bring back the death penalty because if there's another Jack the Ripper, he should be hung. And I really have to object to that on the grounds of being pedantic here, because the word should actually be Flag the Ripper. He's only Jack The Ripper if he's hung at sea.

A little joke to be appreciated by the flag fuckers there, a market I'd love to break into.

This week Conservative MP James Wild asked the BBC's Director General Tim Davie how many Union Flags were shown in the graphics inside the BBC's annual performance report. Then revealed, much to the shock of...maybe if we're being generous the organisers of last night at the proms but realistically no one, that it was in fact zero. There were zero pictures of the Union Flag in the BBC's performance report.

So while James Wild MP, or Wild James as I imagine he's called at parties, is bringing this to the attention of the masses, I thought I would implore him to raise the case of other omissions from the BBC Annual Review, so here are

5 Other Fabrics Overlooked by the BBC Review

1. Thomas the Tank Engine Duvet Covers

Did you know the BBC report does not contain a single image of a Thomas the Tank Engine duvet cover (inc. related pillow set). Now this may surprise you to learn but back in the period of 1989-1999 when I was a child, we had Thomas the Tank Engine duvet covers almost every other week, with the rest of the time being taken up with Winnie The Pooh. Since 2008, so all my adult life, I have never once slept beneath a Thomas the Tank Engine Duvet cover. Now my choices are limited to white, yellow and with flowers. And it's not until someone points this out that you realise how few Thomas the Tank Engine duvet covers you've slept under recently. When the number of qualified Fat Controllers in this country starts to fall, I think we'll know what's to blame.

2. Y-Fronts

In recent years boxer shorts and hipster pants have become the cradle of choice for the British scrotum but at what cost? The support offered by the Y-Front has all but disappeared from British culture as a result of a direct cultural attack from America. Not one superhero in the MCU wears Y-Fronts, which was once a staple of the genre. And what's more in this day and age of Covid, it's always a decent idea to wear undergarments you can quickly whip off in an alley behind Sainsbury's and wear as a plausible face mask when you nip out having forgotten yours.

3. Hawaiian Shirts

Red, White and Blue? Well it's a start I guess, but Hawaiian shirts are the ultimate accessory no man should be without. Stand out from the crowd - not a crowd of your own friends, you may find you have quite few, but crowds in general. The term peacocking refers to a man trying to impress a lady, but these days it usually just means chinos and a haircut that you saw on The Only Way Is Essex. That's not how peacocks do it. Display your range of colours. Worried your child might get lost on a beach? Not if they're wearing a hawaiian shirt you won't be. Power cut? While everyone else is searching for candles you're lighting up the room with your own luminescent glow.

4. Hot Towels in planes and Indian restaurants

At the end of a delicious curry there's nothing quite so satisfying as sucking on a slice of orange and dabbing your head with a hot towel. I love a curry but I would honestly say it's one of the best bits. The food is over. The little hoover that looks like a blackboard rubber has been run across the table and sucked up any stray bits of rice. The table cloth is carefully picked up, folded and taken away to reveal a second table cloth that was underneath the whole time! Is this table cloth one that will only know the embrace of the hot towels and the bill or will it one day be sullied by Jalfrezi sauce too? Nobody knows. Maybe there is no table, maybe it's just an increasing arrangement of intricately folded table cloths supporting themselves. Then the hot towels come over. All individually wrapped in planet killing plastic. How are they wrapped up? They can't be single use. Which means that they must be sent back somewhere to be resoaked and wrapped again. Like poking a bruise, cricket or the female orgasm the process is a baffling mystery to us all, but the euphoria is unreal. Also they're on planes but the food is shit so they're less good.

5. The Safety Curtain

When it comes to disasters in the theatre - and I'm talking disasters in the literal sense here not Thriller the Michael Jackson musical - the insurance firm Direct Line has calculated that almost all risks of disasters: fires, intruders, terrorist acts, murders, floods and the like, occur in theatres approximately one minute into the interval and last approximately 30 seconds, and so having a defensive shield made of extra strong asbestos that can be lowered down, just for those crucial seconds has probably saved the lives of so many of our great actors. Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, Joe Pasqualie and Helen Mirren are all still here today because of the power of the safety curtain. Of course fringe venues can go fuck themselves. It's not even a legal requirement for those to have doors, seats or any kind of window or air conditioning below 80 decibels. But our West End stars are safe for that crucial 30 seconds every night.

And now back to flags:

The clip of James Wild MP talking to the BBC DG is well worth watching, it's basically a guy convinced he's cottoned onto the one insightful point that's going to bring down the Beeb making that point to a guy who doesn't even really know why it's a question. It's like arguing the government should be disbanded because the Chilcott report into the Iraq war doesn't feature any cat gifs.

And Wild James (PM?) says that his constituents would expect to see "more than one" union flag in an industry report, which is really surprising. I can honestly say that I don't know how many company's accounts, staffing contracts, health and safety audits or risk assessments have a Union Flag in them, but like Tony Davie predicting where the question was going...I could take a guess.

The Union Flag has become an increasingly common symbol across British politics in recent years. Boris Johnson announces lockdowns in front of two of them, and his new press briefing room has four (I think that makes him more patriotic than someone with 3 but fucked if he ever comes up against someone with a string of bunting). Sir Keir Starmer, has announced intentions to win back voters - after he was shockingly exposed by the Daily Mail as the kind of fucker who owns a sanctuary for sick donkeys - by "wrapping the party in the flag" and a leaked report said the Labour party would "make use of the flag, veterans and dressing smartly."  

Now all of this has blown up around the BBC over the last week since housing secretary Robert Jenrick appeared on the news with a perfectly natural Union Jack and Portrait of the Queen hanging above his sofa.

Which is perfectly normal isn't it? I mean unless the dude was Alf Garnett it's hardly a normal thing - side note: people often say "you couldn't make it up" but in this case if the flag and Queen portrait had been written into an old British sitcom it probably wouldn't get repeated today or appear on Britbox, but that's a whole other issue.

The point is some people - traitors, commies, scum and that - don't have union flags beside their sofa and a portrait of the Queen. This was commented on by BBC Breakfast presenter Charlie Stayt, who made fun of the flag a bit. So naturally his co-host Naga Munchetty received widespread abuse on Twitter. Now who knows why Naga Munchetty received more abuse that Charlie. I'm not saying there might be a link between people who get really upset over a joke about a flag and racists, but that's because they're exactly the same people most of the time.

Look, the Union Flag sends out a message. The background of that zoom call is as carefully curated as all these book-shelves of Stephen Hawking and Oxford Classics books that have been shipping in to MPs homes to replace 50 Shades, Mills and Boon erotica and Oswald Mosley's memoirs. And there's nothing wrong with curating your zoom background, but in a world of politics obsessed with authenticity anything that feels like it might be done for show is going to get rightly called out. And you can't deny the Union Flag and a picture of the Queen is a choice, and it's a powerful symbol of Britishness while actually being fairly weak on substance. It's like the free T-Shirt I got from Macmillan Cancer Support, it looks good, it wins me brownie points in the eyes of certain people I might want to impress, but in itself it's a pretty meaningless distraction from the fact that I didn't donate to Comic Relief this year.

This isn't about patriotism by the way. I'm all for waving a flag around at the last night of the proms while singing about all the countries whose resources we pillaged and people's we enslaved. Ok, the "reasonable paragraph" hasn't got off to the best of starts but, no, people should be proud of where they are from, and having a pride or love for your national symbol is not an inherently bad thing (it does lead to some people's unwillingness to discuss some of the uncomfortable failings of this country which is a problem, but patriotism itself isn't really an issue).

What I'm complaining about it more the faux-shows of patriotism to score political points while doing very little. And trust me, I should know, I'm a leftie. Oh we are the best at half arsed slogans. There's a sticker someone stuck on a lamp post near where I live that says "No-one is illegal." To which I added my own important caveat "except Bank Robbers" bank robbers are illegal. Now the original point of that sticker (one about immigration) is a fair and valid one but the slogan itself is fairly meaningless. And that's what's happening here, figures right across the board of politics have adopted the Union Flag as a means of saying "Look how much I care about Britain" and a certain type of nationalist and patriotic people have gone "yeah, anyone without a flag is a traitor!" But the politician isn't actually doing anything to show they care for Britain. They're not making the world a better place. They're not making meaningful change. It's like a restaurant being accused of having a dirty kitchen and you go back in the next week and they've changed the colours of the napkins to red, white and blue. It's a pretty empty gesture that does nothing to put things right.

Meanwhile because it's the ultimate symbol of Britishness if anyone questions it, or asks them what they're doing to make Britain better they can be shut down as being "unpatriotic" as if that's a crime or as if liking the flag is the only way to be patriotic, when a better way might be to knock the futile gestures on the head and improve the country for everyone.  

When Boris Johnson makes those lockdown speeches in front of flags the subtext is partly that he's speaking for the country but also that criticising the content of those briefings is an attack on your country and not "pulling together". When Keir Starmer focuses on flags and "dressing smartly" it's about presenting an image but if there's nothing there to back it up, the image is fairly pointless. It's dumb political symbols not smart political policy, and as an aside, "dressing smartly" is an odd choice. Most politicians dress reasonably smartly anyway, and anyone who saw Dominic Cummings give evidence to a select committee in a smart shirt, or do his big garden press conference knows why he doesn't dress like that more often. He looks really weird.

It's also part of a wider thing right now. The last year has really seen us reckon with our past. Statues have been torn down, statues which themselves are symbols of British history. Heritage sites have put more honest and open accounts of some of the unpleasant things that happened in the country's past on little plaques and then been told by the government that it's an infringement on their free speech to be allowed to express whatever they know to be true. One of the smartest scientists the planet will ever produce (for he's not been born yet) Lt Commander Data in Star Trek: First Contact said "believing oneself to be perfect is often the product of a delusional mind," and questioning our past and our symbols is an important part of that. Fly the flag by all means, just don't let it become the thing that matters. Don't become America. David Mitchell once said on Mock The Week that the difference between Americans and the English is that Americans give a massive shit about their flag being burnt, while British people would react "You paid for it, so it's your flag, you're burning your own flag!" So lets stop focussing on the symbols and go away and google all the bad stuff that James Wild doesn't want us to notice the government is up to.

That said, I do think siding with these flag people is the best way to get The Goodies repeated on the BBC...so Rule Britannia

Unpresidented

So I went to America and Washington DC last week and came across what I mistakenly thought was a Black Friday sale. But it turns out I'd got my days wrong and Black Friday in America actually always falls on a Friday. And this was a Wednesday. It turns out that that I'd stumbled upon a riot in the capitol building. Literally a once in a lifetime event - unless you were 207 years old.

And on a side note, I bet if you were 207 years old, you'd be interviewed on the ITV Evening News and putting your longevity down to whisky, fine wines or smoking 20-a-day. If there's one conspiracy theory that I absolutely buy into it's that all of these things that the "man" tells us are bad for us are definitely what's keeping us alive, and they tell us sugar is bad for us because the post office staff can't cope with a population with an average age of 150.

Anyway, I was storming the capital and I was following a man with a flag who claimed to be a victim - and to be fair, he did seem like a loser, but that's quite possibly because he was carrying the flag of a side that lost a war.

Now some people get the wrong idea about these guys. And I think the confusion arises because what these fellas want is to find out who won the election and to make sure everything was fair and above board. Now there is a flag for American democracy and it looks like this:

but it's actually really hard to get hold of these in America because, for reasons that will never really become clear, they are often bulk bought in American schools where children have to pledge allegiance to them every morning in a thing that is in no way like a cult. Seems completely unnecessary to me. Flags don't need allegiance. They're flags. They don't want anything. If I went to an American school, I would be writing instructions on flags every night so when people came in the next day and pledged allegiance to them, the whole class have to stand on their desks and dance like Elvis whenever the teacher took a sip of their coffee. Really batshit instructions written on a flag so that all of the students had to obey it or break their pledge. "Move all of your desks to the playground and arrange them in the same rows out there but you may not step outside the classrooms!" Real Taskmaster style stuff.

Anyway the problem is because of all the schools buying these they can be really hard to come by, but luckily nobody wants the confederate flag on account of the fact that they were the losing side in a war and generally accepted to be the side of the dickheads. Unfortunately that means that those turning up just to see a fair counting of the ballots takes place do carry the flag of the side of the civil war who were fighting to preserve slavery and it's all too easy for the media to see a bunch of white people carrying a flag that was adopted by the people who wanted to own black people and leap to the conclusion that actually they're not really into democracy they just want to beat the shit out of someone, ideally someone they own. They're probably just the cheaper flags. We know how much these protestors love a bargain. Just like in the UK you can get a bag of broken or misshapen biscuits cheap in some supermarkets, in the USA you can buy hoodies for the third Captain America film cheaply if they've got the wrong release date for the movie on them.

Weird that they made such a basic mistake when Civil War came out in 2016, before the merch had to be pulled due to the wrong release date and the decision not to rebrand Marvel and Marvels Awesome Great Adventures after all, so this guy picked up a bargain, purely because he couldn't afford to buy a Black Widow or Black Panther 2 sweatshirt with the dates of actual films - being led by women and black actors who I'm sure he'd like to support - that might actually be released in 2021.

Mistakes were made at the Capitol protests. For a start they this confusion could have been avoided if they'd tied the slave owner flags to the railings outside and believe me this was the original plan. We even asked one guy to bring his cable ties in order to do this, but weirdly at the last minute the police moved the very barriers they had planned on attaching them to. And you wouldn't want to argue with a police officer now would you. I mean you could end up dead or receiving directions to the office of Nancy Pelosi, depending on if you were black or white.

Because of course the police are a very powerful presence in America. But it's important to know, in times like these especially, where the source of power lies in a country. Is it with the President or the House of Representatives or the Senate? Well reassuringly the most powerful force in America is actually the same as it is in the UK and the most powerful thing ever created is the velvet rope.

It is genuinely reassuring to know that even during a coup everyone stayed between the velvet ropes. It's the one rule nobody ever wants to be caught breaking and in a way that's good. Sure our next president may be fair game for assassination attempts, mob justice and beatings, but we can sleep a little safer at night knowing that the wax works of the former presidents are safe in Madame Tussauds. 

The truth here is that these people just wanted to make their voices heard, and they would have quite happily peacefully kneeled down before a football match if that wasn't the worst kind of protest possible, so really vandalising the home of your nation's proud democracy is the only way.

The capitol building was placed in a state of lockdown! Which meant that rioters were only allowed to steal the art works if they had a substantial meal first.

Joe Biden, a man who shares his name with a van that took all those Trump votes to the recycling plant, went on TV and told the president that he should speak out and tell the rioters to stop, which very unfairly distracted Trump and he missed the putt and the ball went straight passed the hole. So everyone agreed, at the president's insistence, that it was very unfair and they just put it down as a hole in 3, although some fake newser he was playing with pointed out he'd already taken 5 shots getting the ball to the green.

And to be fair to Trump he did go on TV and said "the election was fraudulent and we love all the people rioting in Capitol Hill." Now Trump is "not a stupid man" (source: Donald Trump speaking in 2018) and "has all the best words" (Source: Donald Trump speaking in 2016) and so sometimes you have to read between the lines. Whenever my wife says "Dan, I love you but..." it usually means that I should stop doing whatever it is I'm doing.

But the problem with rioters is that very often nuance and reading between the lines don't stand a chance. That's why Donald Trump had to spell out for them exactly how and when to march on the Capitol building in a public speech before hand rather than be more subtle about it or try to pass off the responsibility to Alex Jones or one of the other right wing thugs - honestly why they still let her host the One Show, I do not know.

If you missed the footage of Donald Trump stoking up the crowd by calling the election results "bullshit" by the way, then please don't worry, as it will not the last time that you see an angry mob in front of Donald Trump chanting "bullshit."

But I know we don't want to give Donald Trump credit for anything, but he did actually come out on TV and ask for rioters to stop what they were doing. He did that on Wednesday 13th of January, just ONE WEEK after the rioting. ONE WEEK! That's literally the lowest number of weeks. How could someone be expected to act sooner? I mean, yes I guess you could have minus weeks. He could have said "please don't start rioting" on 31st December 2020 minus one week after the riots happened, but honestly is he supposed to be able to predict the future? Look none of us could have acted quicker. The first indication that anything was even going to kick off was right at the very last minute...of 2016.

I don't want to come over all Fox News here, but Donald Trump's election that he won happened during the Obama administration, so isn't all this really Obama's fault?

Look the President really didn't have time to address the rioters any sooner. He was too busy on the phone to the president of Iraq who was sarcastically calling every 20 minutes to ask if he should send peace keepers to America to secure it's democracy. Meanwhile Trump considered mobilising the national guard, to attack Twitter who it was claimed had a little blue exclamation point they could deploy in 45 minutes.

Twitter had an interesting role to play in this as people across the globe spent the night glued to their smart phones doom scrolling through the latest developments on Twitter. And it made you realise what an astonishing future this really is. We were able to see what was going on live from the scene as it was happening thanks to reporters and bizarrely the people committing the illegal acts taking photographs of the people committing the illegal acts. And this is where crime has really gone down hill these days. Back in the good old days of wholesome Victorian prostitute murders (you know the kind of family friendly thing you could build a tourist attraction around, not these new grizzly murders that happen to people today and which absolutely nobody should profit off except for podcasters) back in the glory days of the Victorian Prostitute killings when a murderer did in a prostitute they might leave a calling card by which you would know it was them but not know who they were like a single rose petal, an origami ostrich or a glove that only fits OJ Simpson's hand if he really tried but he doesn't. You know the kind of mark that nobody could trace back to an individual. They didn't leave their literal calling card with all the details you'd need to trace them along with photographic evidence of them committing the crime. The Great Train Robbers would have been a lot easier to catch if Ronnie Biggs had been on Instagram.

I do think part of the reason a coup like this wont work though is because we're amazingly privileged to be able to watch events play out in real time on our mobile phones. I can't imagine what it was like for my parents generation who, when Watergate happened for example, would have had to gather in the hallway to read twitter on the landline.

A man called @Jack, the CEO of Twitter, was being deluged with tweets about how badly behaved twitter was being. Kind of like a letter writing campaign complaining that there were too many pictures of the Queen's head in profile. Eventually Mr Atjack displayed all the financial ingenuity you would expect of a man who's twitter bio just reads "#bitcoin" and took one of the most talked about people on his platform off his platform for 12 hours. Now in the old days someone who committed treason could be hanged but I take comfort from the fact that as a more enlightened civilisation, I can sleep through two thirds of a man's punishment for treason these days. Again, could twitter have acted sooner? Maybe. I mean, I guess if someone had previously tweeted an explicit threat such as "when the looting starts the shooting starts" you could then look at whether this person is the right "look" for your company, but again there were no signs that anything like this was going to happen until it was already half way through...the year 2016. And Twitter are strict! I once got a week long ban for telling people that they should leave stable doors open. Admittedly the horse was 1,600 miles away in Estonia by the time I got the ban but my point still stands.

Twitter is an interesting platform. One of the best things about Twitter is it never forgets, so it would be really embarrassing if the president of the USA who started these riots had tweeted say threats of harsher jail sentences for anyone who vandalised public property or had said say "when the looting starts the shooting starts" because imagine if people found those during the riots, you'd be quite red in the face if you forgot to get out of your sunbed while reading the news.

Right wing nutter Tomi Lahren tweeted in November that "If @realDonaldTrump were to lose (he won’t) his supporters will go to work tomorrow just as we do everyday. When Biden loses, his “supporters” will likely loot and riot. Tells you everything you need to know! #Trump2020" Well she was half right and also alt-right.

Washington DC bought in a curfew, and told the Qanon guys it was passed their bedtime and they weren't allowed any supper. So the business of counting the votes could continue. But not before Mike Pence gave a lovely speech about how much of a dick "a certain someone" was without naming names. He was just slower than Twitter but took well under six years to condemn a bully so good for him. Mitch McConnell even said some nasty things about the same certain someone and over here Boris Johnson was also having trouble remembering the name of Donald Trump when it came to calling out his actions. A lot was said about the disgusting scenes, but failing to directly name the man who caused them. Like if there was a racist painting or a scene in a play where an audience member was tied to a radiator while their life was threatened, you wouldn't just say "I don't really care for the painting" or "I felt the second act suffered a bit from the lack of musical numbers and the threat to rape Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," would you not just complain about those scenes but also call out the artist and play write who wrote and painted those scenes?

Around the world people reacted to the news. Inspired by what they'd seen Lawrence Fox, both members of his fan club and a member of the Billie Piper fan club who never unsubscribed from the newsletter, stormed the Didcot Sainsbury's Local, and posed for photographs with their feet up on the fish counter demanding to know why one of the actors they employed was black.

Meanwhile Virgin #72 turned to her fella and asked "Why so glum?"
"Because I told them they were silly when they said I should play the long game and host The Apprentice instead," replied Osama Bin Laden with his head in his hands.

Of course others around the world were not surprised. I don't know for a fact that foreign powers were interfering but this guy clearly has a French flag painted on his face

You may think that a French Flag might be the stupidest thing to wear to a riot. Or maybe a hoodie that advertises the date and time of your riot (honestly, how could the police ever have seen this coming?). Or a Camp Auschwitz T-Shirt which is very very disgustingly stupid but in a slightly different way to our competition winner, who wore the stupidest thing to the riots:

His work ID. He was subsequently fired. I don't want to pander to pre-existing prejudices here but I think we all secretly knew already that people who wear their work lanyards after work were twats.

It's all over now and that just leaves one question: What next for Donald Trump?

While the president's immediate plans are obvious: hiding mouldy fish behind every radiator in the White House, shitting in the bottom drawer of his desk and dialling a premium rate number before leaving the phone off the hook until Joe Biden moves in, it seems like he may not have as much time for that as he wants.

You see it turns out that if you incite armed rebellion against the lawmakers of the country you govern, you might get impeached. Democrats - and Republicans numbered into the double figures (lets just leave it at that, it could be 99, it could be 10, I'll let you work it out) - voted to impeach the president an unprecedented second time, and this time America could be unpresidented.

With only 10 Republicans backing the call for impeachment, you wonder what could make the party of law and order and the constitution actually indict a president. Well again, this is maybe a good thing. A sign that America is becoming a more lenient and accepting place. You'll remember they were particularly harsh on Barack Obama during his term for sins such as wearing chinos. So perhaps they've rightly decided to lighten up. In fact when we broke into the offices of the senators we found a document in a Republican desk that they drew up outlining a softening of the rules in 2016. Remember at this point they hadn't named Donald Trump as their candidate and so their first choice of candidate appears on the document.

I guess the question now is, with just a week to go, will Donald Trump try for the hat trick? I think he should, but where can he go from here? As I see it he has three options to guarantee making history for the impeachment hat trick:

1. Use his Myspace page to tell an angry mob of thousands of armed men and women to storm and desecrate Tom Hanks

2. Use his Habbo Hotel to have a "perfect email exchange" with Boris Johnson offering a post-Brexit trade deal if Boris Johnson seduces Dr Gill Biden.
(Incidentally, Sir Kier Starmer did ask the Ukranians for any dirt they had on Boris Johnson's children. The Ukranian's are still working on the report and expect to have it ready within the century)

3. Put the nuclear codes in his MSN messenger name.

So one way or another that would appear to be the end of the Trump presidency. We hope we wont see much more of him. We already know he wont turn up to Joe Biden's inauguration, but fortunately at short notice the "what a sad little life Jane" guy from Come Dine With Me was available to replace him.

Let's see what happens next. Hopefully a return to civilised debate and reasoned politics, but if all else fails I guess we could just shout "Hunter Biden's Laptop" for a year and hope that makes a difference.

  

Last Week Tonight Best Bits

In order to increase the general levels of people understanding my references, I've decided to occasionally list some things that I like - especially things I've noticed most people I speak to haven't seen - to increase the quality of your conversation with me. But mainly to celebrate people and things I like. So this time, I'm doing John Oliver. A British comedian, who never really got anywhere much over here, until Ricky Gervais recommended him to The Daily Show host Jon Stewart. After years of writing for The Daily Show and appearing as a correspondent, he guest hosted the Daily Show in Jon Stewart's absence one summer and off the back of that got his own show: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. It's an extremely political show that does serious politics and comedy very well, and because it's HBO - unlike The Daily Show - there's no advert breaks allowing him enough time to delve really deeply into the issues. So here are the 15 best Last Week Tonight episodes, based on how funny they are, how important the story is, and how memorable an episode it was.

15. FIFA

The various scandals of FIFA became a recurring feature of the first two seasons of Last Week Tonight. It's the first episode that I recall getting media coverage and reaction, and also the first I remember trending, possibly because it's a story that has particular impact in the UK, because it's about football. This first clip was shown just before the 2014 FIFA world cup, and I think for many people, me certainly, it is the first time they'd realised just how completely fucking evil FIFA is. I think certainly it's the first time that I had seen so many FIFA scandals detailed in one place. It's eye opening and it's funny, but it's also done by a real football fan and that personal angle helps John Oliver to keep a perspective throughout the piece that means it's angry in all the right places ("The most deadly middle eastern construction project..." is a particularly powerful gag, that deserves a bigger laugh as a joke but brilliantly shocks the audience into silence) but still fun and not having a go.

14. And Now... Roger Ailes

The "And now this" section is a montage of clips, usually a bit fun, taken from national and local news broadcasts - local news anchors doing crap Irish banter for St. Patrick's Day, that sort of thing - and it's usually a bit of a palate cleanser, used to bridge the gap from one subject to another. But this one, which aired in 2016 after the resignation of Roger Ailes as CEO of Fox News following sexual assault allegations, uses just a few very short clips to really paint a picture of just what an awful organisation Fox News is in under two minutes.

BONUS CONTENT: The LMFAO Eulogy (from The Bugle)

When John Oliver found out that LMFAO and Right Said Fred were amongst dictator Bashar Al-Assad's favourite bands it was really funny. So you can imagine his disappointment at LMFAO splitting up.

13. Russell Crowe, the last Blockbuster in Alaska and Koalas

Last Week Tonight and John Oliver have something of a reputation when it comes to spending silly money at auctions on ridiculous stunts so when news around the world was made by the fact that someone spent $7000 on the jockstrap worn by Russell Crowe in Cinderella Man, as part of his infamous The Art of Divorce auction, a lot of people and media companies were asking "Is this John Oliver?" and of course it was. In a lovely move HBO bought a whole load of Russell Crowe's props and costumes and sent them to one of the very few remaining Blockbusters in Alaska, to make it more of a tourist attraction and keep it open.

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!! Which is all a great deal of fun, but it was Russell Crowe's perfect reaction to this in a follow up piece a couple of weeks later that is really the best thing about this story when Russell used the money to open the John Oliver Koala Chlamydia Clinic.

12. Coal

This next one on the list is a great example of how John Oliver can often take a very dry subject matter and spin it into 20 minutes of accessible comedy for his audience. This piece on the problems facing workers in the coal industry - who Trump spoke a lot about in his election campaign - has a lot of numbers and economics to get your head around but John does it in a pretty entertaining way. It's also the only time he has so far been - unsuccessfully - sued by the subject of one of his shows and the first time he's received a cease and desist letter and been threatened with legal action. And I think it gives you an idea of how seriously he takes the job that such a threat only spurs him on to lay into the man who threatened him further and the fact that HBO won the case gives you some idea of how well researched all the information they quote in the show is and how precisely they work for script accuracy. You can feel John watching his words when discussing Bob Murray, but still never holding back.

11. SLAPP Suits

And having been sued by Bob Murray, John followed up two years later, after finally winning the case, with a discussion about SLAPP Suits. After Bob Murray sued them claiming being described as a 'geriatric Doctor Evil' caused him more stress than anything else in his life 'an odd thing to say, given that, he oversaw a company whose mine collapse in Utah resulted in the deaths of nine people.' The response understandably has a lot of fun at Bob Murray's expense, while discussing a wider issue of using SLAPP Suits to silence opponents and how that works in a world of comedy, satire and free speech. Of course it all ends in a brilliant celebration in the form of the Eat Shit Bob musical.

Here's the full bit on SLAPP suits

And for those who don't have much time, here's the musical on it's own:

10. Campaign Songs

People who have seen Game of Thrones will know that HBO has a vast amount of money and it's likely that series 8 of the HBO show wont appear on this list, and in the last episode some annoying child you've not cared about for 8 years will take over from John Oliver at the end whether you want it or not or even if it makes no sense.

But to focus on the bit where HBO have money here, it means that they can get some brilliant and big name guests to help make points fun on the show. This episode on the Republican National Convention from the 2016 election campaign, is the first time the show really talked about Donald Trump in any depth. They'd previously ignored him thinking he wasn't to be taken seriously, and while he still isn't to be taken seriously, unfortunately we now have to take him seriously. But rather than give you another long speech on the subject of how awful Trump is, I thought I would just share the final segment of the episode in which John and a range of guests who've had their music used by election campaigns, on both sides, without their permission deliver a catchy message back.

9a. Boris Johnson & The Mating Foxes of Kent

Sometimes it's interesting to see what foreign news programs make of events in the UK, particularly when those events are as completely mental as electing Boris Johnson Prime Minister of the UK. I kind of swerved the clips talking about Donald Trump on this list, as there's little we don't already know about Trump. It's been fairly well documented. The same is true of Boris Johnson but it's interesting to watch this clip anyway. Because it's aimed at an audience who might not be fully aware of Boris Johnson and is on a show that doesn't talk about British politics every week, it's in some ways a complete guide to Boris. It follows his journey to the top of British politics, discusses his carefully constructed public image, his manipulation and his role in some of the reporting and bullshit that led us to Brexit. There's also a couple of good Last Week Tonight pieces dedicated to Brexit itself but we're bored of hearing about that for now.

9b. Brexit Anthem

Ok. Just one brief clip on Brexit because it's a catchy song from an episode before the Brexit referendum.

BONUS CONTENT: Osama Bin Laden Fuckeulogy (from the Bugle)

This clip is not from Last Week Tonight but it is John Oliver from the podcast he made with Andy Zaltzman, sadly John had to give up the podcast to focus on making the TV show. Though the podcast is still going and Andy Zaltzman is an absolutely brilliant host. This clip however is their response to the assassination of Osama Bin Laden for which John Oliver coined the term a 'fuckeulogy' which they would return to when other horrible people died.

8. Televangelists

John Oliver's televangelists episode took a subject I knew and cared very little about and blew my mind. This is not an attack on Christianity or preachers in general, but is a brilliant expose of the way in which televangelists operate and how their greed targets incredibly vulnerable people. It starts mad by showing some of the crazy televangelists on TV, then gets weirder as John Oliver explains how easy it is to set up your own church by legally turning Last Week Tonight into a church. But the absolutely insanest part of this all is the letters he received when he wrote to one of the televangelists asking to join his church.

7. Wax Presidents

A lot of this list is fairly hard hitting political stuff - and I left out the episode about family separation which they did the week of the midterm elections - so it's time for something just plain silly.

The Hall of Presidents Wax Museum shut down and auctioned off their models, and the former Daily Show cast entered into a bidding war against each other to win some. I mentioned before that Last Week Tonight has a habit of spending large amounts of money on stupid stunts, and having found out about Warren Harding's love letters in a previous series, this was irresistible and the Harding movie they made with the wax model is brilliant. Enjoy. It's no politics for once. It's just silly.

BONUS CONTENT: Gun Control Whoop-De-Do (from The Daily Show)

Before landing his own show John was a correspondent on the Daily Show where he often went to meet and interview people about the important issues of the day. It's one of the things I miss him doing on Last Week Tonight. This is a real highlight. The first of a three part series where he tackled Gun Control by meeting a member of the Virginia Citizens Defence League who are pro-guns, and it's just fun to see exactly how quickly John Oliver manages to tear apart his argument.

6. The Dalai Lama

Well I know I just posted a clip of John Oliver meeting Phillip Von Cleave of the Virginia Citizens Defence League so this might seem like it's not a big deal after that, but John Oliver does still occasionally get out of the studio to meet people, and in this clip he interviews the Dalai Lama. There's nothing more I need to say.

5. Gilbert Gottfried reads Theresa May's Brexit Proposal

This is another one where John Oliver talks about British issues. Or rather he doesn't. This is really about a very important issue to the UK, the fact that you cannot use footage from the houses of parliament in a comedy show. That's right. The likes of Have I Got News For You cannot make fun of politicians using actual clips of them in parliament, which you'd think in a democracy would be fairly fucking important. Anyway, when John Oliver discovered that the British broadcast of his show on Sky Atlantic had had sections cut out of it because they showed parliamentary footage, he ran a piece on his show about it being fucking stupid. Of course we in the UK had to enjoy this instead and I think it makes it's point pretty well.

Interesting update to this story: the law has since been changed and it is now legal for comedy shows to use footage of events in the houses of parliament.

BONUS CONTENT: Maggie Thatcher Death Catcher (from The Bugle)

Ok, this is an interesting one, particularly as a fan of a left-wing comedy and for John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman as makers of left-wing comedy. A few high-profile Fuckeulogies after the Osama Bin Laden one Margaret Thatcher died. In this clip, rather than present a fuckeulogy, John and Andy wrestle with the complicated question of whether or not Thatcher deserves one. It's a much more balanced discussion than a lot of the news or the comedy at the time showed.

4. Brett Kavanaugh

Now strangely for a show that's quite happy to put most of it's content on youtube (even against a cease and desist order as mentioned earlier) this episode isn't on there, most likely because rather than break the show down into segments like they normally do, John Oliver dedicated the whole of the episode to talking about one issue: Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court and the hearing he went through to get there once the sexual assault allegations about him emerged. It's a brilliant argument from John Oliver. The way the media and the panel tried to discredit the victim was laid bare. In one moment they even ask the victim who paid for a polygraph test on her, when she flounders the judges prepare to jump on her, only to have to have it explained to them that it's standard procedure as they well know. The whole process is exposed for being as unfair as it is. But the main moments from this story come from Kavanaugh himself. His defence is frankly mad. He cries over his dad's collection of calendars (weird in itself but also as John points out the dates don't really match), he seems to play some kind of improv game where he has to make up innocent explanations for the clearly drunk or sexual stuff he wrote about doing at college, he gets really angry at the process a few times and even turn his questions back on those questioning him as if accusing them of something. The whole thing is very weird to watch, but I think I learnt something about how to argue a case from watching John Oliver handle this story. He doesn't try to convince you that Brett Kavanaugh is guilty or innocent. That would be pointless anyway. We're all so entrenched in party lines these days that if Donald Trump set fire to a kitten the MAGA fans would say 'he's our kitten burner' or if Jeremy Corbyn was photographed writing the scripts for the last episodes of Game of Thrones, the Momentum crowd would be like "actually we wanted to be underwhelmed by the whole thing. It's better that way." Instead John Oliver makes the point that even if you think he's innocent of all the crimes he stands accused of, even if you think that, clearly his performance during the hearing makes him unsuitable for a role of this importance. It's a logical and reasoned argument. Sorry logic and reasoning are old fashioned things we apparently used to have.

3. Chiitan

Well after Margaret Thatcher and Brett Kavannagh, I think we need a palate cleanser. One of the great things Last Week Tonight occasionally does it take a local story from somewhere in the world and shine some light on it. This is the second time they've mentioned Japanese city mascots on the show, but it's also just completely joyous.

BONUS CONTENT: The first ever episode of Mock The Week

I mean, you just don't get line ups this good on Mock The Week anymore: Frankie Boyle, Hugh Dennis, Linda Smith RIP, John Oliver, Rory Bremner and Jeremy Hardy RIP. What a great line up. It's a little rough around the edges because it's only a first episode and also because it's Mock The Week, but it's a rare chance to see John Oliver on British TV so worthy of inclusion in this list. I particularly like the moment he calls out Dara O'Briain (well the writers) for making a very obvious and racist joke. The writers clearly listened to his words, took on board what he had to say about that kind of lazy comedy, and promptly never hired him again and forced him to find work in another country. Boy did we fuck up. Thanks Mock The Week.

2. The Confederacy

Time for a white English man to explain how bad the Confederacy was. This is a proper in depth look at it. At a time when there was a huge debate going on about tearing down statues of figures from the Confederacy, John Oliver pulled no punches in explaining just how bad a part of American history it was for many people. What do I mean by "pulled no punches"? Well he calls it America's Jimmy Saville and that's just the start. For those of us living outside America who are perhaps not so well aware of the history, as I wasn't fully to be honest, this is illuminating. To those who maybe thought "what's so bad? It's just a statue," this is a compelling counter argument. It's particularly interesting when John discusses one of the key problems at the heart of this kind of debate: when people today are confronted with what their ancestors may have stood for.

1. Alex Jones

The horrifically racist, pro-guns, conspiracy theorist, 9/11 was an inside job, Sandy Hook denying American right wing political commentator. Not Alex Jones from the One Show who is not American (everything else there still applies but the BBC keep her in the wrong forum to air it). In the opening episode of the season John Oliver showed a funny clip of Alex Jones ranting about "they're putting chemicals in the water that turn the freakin' frogs gay." Rather than simply ignore it Alex Jones decided to attack John Oliver back on his own show and accused John of making him look like a loon by taking his words out of context. This turned out to be a big and predictable mistake. As John and his team spent the next few months listening to all of Alex Jones' shows and getting to know the full context. In this piece John Oliver presents the full context of the Alex Jones show. Alex Jones goes from seeming like a mad and misguided idiot to seeming actually pure evil. It's obviously personal for John, but it's a lot of fun too this one.

And finally...Here's the sequel to the story of ChiiJohn which was the season finale to the 2019 season.

Ok, and a couple more songs too.

Right Said Fred on Bashar Al-Assad

Weird Al on North Korea

Pointless Immigrants

Theresa May and David Davis have announced that Britain will not be adopting the Australian style points based immigration system. Whether it's because after months of debate they realised that system was originally created to encourage immigration not curtail it, or whether it's because it's foreign - and therefore terrible - is unclear. May and Davis did have an alternative system that was sure to prove popular with the British public. The new system is the complete opposite of the Australian system. May and Davis have unveiled the Pointless based Immigration System. I used the I Heard It Through The Dan Vine's annual investigative journalism budget to see a film at cineworld, but I did manage to get a transcript from border control where the system is being trialled. Transcript below.

ALEXANDER:         Hello and welcome to Pointless Immigrants, the gameshow where we’re always striving to find the most desirable people to enter the UK. Before the show we asked a sample of the British public to name the types of people they hated and the reasons the country was going to the dogs. Of course the aim of the game is to find those all important Pointless answers, those skills and people that nobody can find any objection to. Now yesterdays contestants won the jackpot so we start off today with a prize of six years before you can use the NHS and a council house in Stevenage. Right lets play Pointless.
Round 1 is jobs. We gave 100 people 100 seconds to name as many kinds of undesirable professions as they could and remember you’re looking for the answer none of our 100 people object to. Contestant 1 what’s your profession?

CONTESTANT 1:    I’m a doctor

ALEXANDER:         You say doctor. Let’s see if you’re right and how many people said doctor.

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING

ALEXANDER:         Not bad. 3 points for doctors. Richard?

RICHARD:              Yes, doctors are one of the more desirable professions to have in the country aren’t they? But there’s still some people uncomfortable taking their trousers down in front of a foreign doctor.

CONTESTANT 1:    I should say I’m a junior doctor

SOUND:                  WRONG ANSWER.

RICHARD:              Oh, that’s best left unsaid right now.

ALEXANDER:         Contestant Number 2?

CONTESTANT 2:    I’m a footballer coming to play for an English club for millions of pounds, which will probably end up back in my home country.

ALEXANDER:         Foreign footballers, let’s see if it’s right and how many people said footballers.

SOUND:                  POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING. POINTLESS ANSWER. APPLAUSE

ALEXANDER:         Congratulations thats a Pointless answer which means you’re one step closer to being granted entry into the UK. Richard?

RICHARD:              Yes foreign footballers a Pointless answer. Often the most high profile immigrants of all but nobody really thinks about them that way. Strange that.

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. Contestant 3. What do you do for a living?

CONTESTANT 3:   Well following a similar trail of thought to the last guy, I'm a tennis player?

ALEXANDER:         Tennis player?

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING

ALEXANDER:          15 points, Richard?

RICHARD:               Yes, that's actually the lowest you can get if you're a tennis player.

ALEXANDER:        Very good indeed. Contestant 4, what do you do for a living?

CONTESTANT 4:   I work in the kitchens at Byron Burger

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING. POINTLESS ANSWER. WILD APPLAUSE

ALEXANDER:          Pointless answer. Richard?

RICHARD:               Not necessarily someone you'd expect to be top of the list, but since they were shown on the news that time, people really got behind them. Someone gave a quote to a newspaper saying "yes, we want immigrants kicked out and sent back to war-torn hellholes but we don't want to see it or think about it or be reminded that they're real people."

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. Round 2 is people. We gave 100 people, 100 seconds to name the kind of people they don’t want coming over here. What kind of people are you? Contestant 1, what kind of person are you?

CONTESTANT 1:    Er...Human being.

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING.

ALEXANDER:         97 for human being

RICHARD:              Yes, that’s just not good enough for some people. Human beings cost money to look after you know. More than dogs.

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. Contestant 2, what kind of person are you?

CONTESTANT 2:    A child.

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING.

ALEXANDER:         75 for child.

RICHARD:              A bit more sympathy than for an adult but people prefer not to be reminded of you.

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. Contestant 3?

CONTESTANT 3:    A child who has been seen on the news?

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING.

ALEXANDER:         5 for child on the news. Richard?

RICHARD:              Yes, the public love you, but will very quickly forget you.

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. Contestant 4?

CONTESTANT 4:    A child who was on the news being held by a celebrity who visited the camp?

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING. POINTLESS ANSWER. APPLAUSE.

ALEXANDER:         Pointless answer! Which brings you one step closer to that council house in Stevenage. Richard?

RICHARD:              We love a celebrity don’t we?

ALEXANDER:         Don’t we just. Round 3 is language. We gave 100 people 100 seconds to name as many undesirable languages to hear in this country. Contestant 1?

CONTESTANT 1:    I speak English.

ALEXANDER:         Speaking English, let’s see if it’s right and if it is how many people said English.

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING.

ALEXANDER:         5 points for English. Richard?

RICHARD:              Yes. A very good answer there. Most people say they’re happy for immigrants to come over here as long as they speak English don’t they, but it seems like a percentage of people are just using it as an excuse.

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. Contestant 2?

RICHARD:              I use emoji’s.

ALEXANDER:         Emoji’s. Let’s see if its right and how many people said Emojis.

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING.

ALEXANDER:         87 for Emoji users. Richard?

RICHARD:              :(

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. Contestant 3?

RICHARD:              I speak Eton Slang?

ALEXANDER:         Eton Slang. Let’s see if it’s right and how many people said Eton Slang.

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING.

ALEXANDER:         98 for Eton slang. Richard?

RICHARD:              Yes, 98 out of 100 people said Eton slang was absolutely undesirable in Theresa May and David Davis’s poll. Incidentally Theresa May and David Davis took the poll to test it, so...I’m not saying we know who the two people are but...

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. Contestant 4?

CONTESTANT 4:    Well since English has gone. I’m gonna say Welsh.

SOUND:                 WRONG ANSWER

ALEXANDER:         Oh no! Wrong answer. Richard?

RICHARD:              Yes. Welsh not a real language I’m afraid. What you may have seen is a plate of alphabetti spaghetti that’s all Welsh is.

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. Round 4 is words. We gave 100 people, 100 seconds to name as many words and phrases they hate hearing, remember your job is to find the Pointless answers that none of them objected to. Contestant 1?

CONTESTANT 1:    This is one the young people use, Bae.

ALEXANDER:         You’re saying Bae. Let’s see if you’re right and how many people said Bae.

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING.

ALEXANDER:         98 for Bae. Richard?

RICHARD:              Yes, not a popular word amongst some people. Again I think the two people were probably Theresa and David.

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. Contestant 2?

CONTESTANT 2:    I’ll go with the phrase, ‘I can see both sides of the argument’

ALEXANDER:         I can see both sides of the argument, is it right, and how many people said it?

SOUND:                 WRONG ANSWER

ALEXANDER:         Oh no! Richard?

RICHARD:              ‘I can see both sides of the argument,’ not something that comes up in immigration discussions ever I’m afraid.

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. Contestant 3?

CONTESTANT 3:    I know the difference between specifically/pacifically and expresso/espresso

ALEXANDER:         Sounds good to me, if it’s right I suspect this will be very desirable. Let’s see if it’s right and how many people said it.

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING.

ALEXANDER:         Ouch. 1 point. Richard?

RICHARD:              Yes, it is very annoying when people get those wrong, but also for some really annoying being corrected on it.

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. Contestant 4, what word of phrase do you think the British people like to hear?

CONTESTANT 4:    Bake Off will be exactly the same on Channel 4.

ALEXANDER:         Bake Off will be exactly the same on Channel 4. Let’s see if it’s right and how many people said Bake Off will be exactly the same on Channel 4.

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN ASCENDING.

ALEXANDER:         Well, that’s the first time the column has ever gone up. 200 points. Richard?

RICHARD:              Yes. It just won't.

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. The final round is reasons for coming. In this round all you need to do is score a Pointless answer and you win UK citizenship and a council house in Stevenage. We gave 100 people, 100 seconds to name as many objectionable reasons for coming to the UK as they could. You just need one Pointless answer in this round, that being a reason to come to the UK that no-one objected too. Contestant 1?

CONTESTANT 1:    To work

ALEXANDER:         To work. Let’s see if it’s right and how many people said to work.

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING.

ALEXANDER:         82 for ‘to work.’ Richard?

RICHARD:              Yes. People don’t like the idea of you stealing their jobs. Even though the 100 people we phoned up were all home during the daytime. Odd.

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. Contestant 2?

CONTESTANT 2:    Fleeing a warzone.

ALEXANDER:         Fleeing a warzone, let’s see if it’s right and how many people said Fleeing a warzone.

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING.

ALEXANDER:         54 for fleeing a warzone. Richard?

RICHARD:              Yes. People say it’s sad and that but we didn’t start it, except in the places where we did start it.

ALEXANDER:         Very good indeed. Contestant 3?
CONTESTANT 3:    I’m dying from a debilitating and awful disease and I believe the NHS can cure me.

ALEXANDER:         NHS treatment. Let’s see if it’s right and how many people said it.

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING.

ALEXANDER:         93 very high score for NHS treatment. Richard?

RICHARD:              Yes people really don’t like the idea of healing the sick and ending suffering if it costs them money.

ALEXANDER:         Contestant 4?

CONTESTANT 4:    I’m dying from a debilitating and awful disease and I believe Noel Edmonds and his magic box of positive energy can cure me.
ALEXANDER:         Noel Edmonds' magical box of positive energy. Let’s see if you’re right and how many people said Noel Edmonds

SOUND:                 POINTLESS COLUMN DESCENDING.

ALEXANDER:         65 for Noel Edmonds healing power. Richard?

RICHARD:              Yes more popular than NHS treatment, I think because tax payers don’t have to cover it, but still the public think we have too many Noel Edmonds fans already

ALEXANDER:         Well, I’m sorry to say that you don’t win the UK citizenship but you do get to go back to your war torn homeland with a highly coveted Pointless trophy. Goodbye