Charlie Brooker’s Gameswipe: Paper Edition Part 2

Gameswipe - quite good wasn’t it? We loved the chiptune version of Grandaddy’s AM180 at the start, along with references to Turbo Esprit, the ZX81 and Your Sinclair. Hamstrung a bit by rebuking lazy media coverage of violent games, but then spending much of the show showing...

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Charlie Brooker’s Gameswipe: The Prequel

So, hopefully-not-just-a-one-off BBC Four videogaming special Gameswipe, hosted by loveable curmudgeon Charlie Brooker is broadcast tomorrow night (or tonight, by the time you probably read this). In the pre-show bumph, Brooker has mentioned how he “started [his] writing career...

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Data Week Day Two: Sky One And An Alarming Photo Of Rupert Murdoch

Look, there’ll be a more interesting update along later today, okay? Anyway, we’ve taken a look at Sky One’s weekly top ten viewing figures over the last 52 weeks. BARB doesn’t have any data for two of the weeks in that period (for some unexplained reason), which leaves us...

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Data Week: BBC Three (and Sexy Governors)

So, after not updating for a while, what better way could there be to return than with a big list of lovely numbers? (Readers voice: “Oh bloody hell.”) We’ve been scouring the ever useful BARB website, and we’ve been looking into viewing figures for a number of channels over...

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What IMDB Says, And What It Ought To Say

Who watches a Pixar film, and instead of being enthralled by the magic within, simply sits there taking mental notes of things that might not be 100% realistic? IMDB contributors, that’s who. It’s a animated movie about an old man who FLIES HIS HOUSE. We don’t think...

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BrokenTV Movie Club: Special Bulletin (1983)

This is something quite special. Special Bulletin was a TV movie broadcast on NBC in 1983, depicting a threat from US-based intellectual-pacifist terrorist cell to detonate a nuke in a Charleston harbour. At this point you might be mentally composing a Photoshopped screen-grab plastered with the words PACIFISM FAIL, but bear with us. The twist is,...

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So, Derren Brown’s Lottery Prediction Thing

So, Darren “Stop Calling Me Darren” Brown’s lottery prediction stunt passed over without a hitch – he actually did successfully predict the numbers before they were drawn. Well, something like that anyway. Luckily, because we’re astonishingly farsighted*, we recorded both the...

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First Of The Summer Skins, Plus A Lottery Prediction Prediction

In precisely the kind of channel-hopping stunt that we absolutely love, Darren “No, I Think You’ll Find It’s Derren” Brown is going to appear simultaneously on Channel Four, Film4, E4, More4, 4Music and 4-Tel (one of those is a lie) at 10.30pm on Wednesday (or, by the time you...

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