I must have wanted to make this thread for around two months now. Once I was invited to thebox.bz I quickly acquainted myself with the amazingness of Newswipe – basically the UK’s answer to The Daily Show. Only instead of episodes every weeknight throughout the year, Newswipe follows the usual British TV schedule of six episodes each year. This allows Newswipe to maintain its high quality throughout an entire run, except for the poetry segments (you’ll see what I mean).

I’ll go ahead and post a segment from the show — despite it already made the rounds on the internet multiple times — because it is that perfect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI

Charlie Brooker is really, really awesome. I did a little wiki’ing and I found out that Newswipe is actually a spinoff of the more popular Screenwipe, in which Brooker rips on (I assume) British television. I’m sure it’s awesome, but I’ve never had the urge to watch, due to my non-existent knowledge of the vast majority of television across the pond. Except for one show, of course. And that would be Peep Show. But I highly doubt he makes fun of that show, since it’s fucking awesome.

Since I was on a Charlie Brooker -wipe binge, I noticed something called Gameswipe on thebox.bz as well. That was an extremely entertaining 50-minute rundown of gaming history. So basically, anything Charlie Brooker is involved in proves to be awesome. Which means I need to get around to checking out You Have Been Watching. The following is the only clip I’ve seen from it, and I’m still recovering from the knowledge that BIBLEMAN is real.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EIS5_kpS4c

I also need to check out That Mitchell and Webb Look, since it’s the same guys (David Mitchell and Robert Webb) who star in Peep Show.

And then there’s The Thick of It, the television series which In The Loop — probably the funniest movie of last year — was based on. Oh oh, and Misfits, which I actually have watched. It’s been described as a cross between the British teen drama Skins (which I’ve never seen) and Heroes. That probably doesn’t sound all that good to a discerning American TV viewer, but it’s pretty fun. It’s like if Heroes starred all teenagers with superpowers, but actually featured competent writing. And there’s swearing. And tits. I hope it sounds more enticing now.

So now you have a list of shit you should download if you ask for an invite (which you obviously should do):

Peep Show
Newswipe
Gameswipe
You Have Been Watching
That Mitchell and Webb Look
Misfits
The Thick of It

Just make sure to keep your ratio above 1.00, alright?

Edit: You should probably check out Spaced, too. If only because it’s by the same guys behind Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. I really need to start taking my own advice, though.

I was watching Newswipe with Charlie Brooker –something I will probably make a future post on — and a song stood out to me during a piece, but not enough for me to remember the name or even the band. You know how that goes: the possibilities run through your mind and you’re not able to be think about anything else until you find the answer. I guess this is why there’s an iPhone app for this type of thing. I didn’t think of that solution until after I discovered the song in my iTunes, but I’m not sure it would have worked anyway, what with Charlie Brooker ranting extremely quickly over the song, which was already being played at a background noise level.

For some reason, I thought the song was by Aphex Twin, but a quick rundown of the one album I have from them resulted in a confirmation in the negative. I then just browsed through my iTunes collection looking for an artist whose style fit the song. Oh hey, Portishead! Lo and behold, the first song on Third (yet again, my sole album from the band) was what I was looking for. This then turned into me listening to the album in its entirety for perhaps the first time and enjoying quite a few of the songs — most notably this one.

And that’s the story of how one little song became the Somewhat Manly Nerd Song of the Week. It’s a high honor.