My Week In Media: Ed Byrne

Last week I read...

The Independent's Red issue on Thursday. There was a fascinating article about George Clooney. It was an interview he'd done before going to the UN to talk about Darfur. I didn't realise his dad was a TV journalist and that was why he directed Good Night, and Good Luck. I'm a fan of the man, and I'm big into the whole Bono idea of celebrities getting involved in politics.

I also read about the new Tory logo in the Daily Mail, which I don't usually read. It's an oak tree and cost £40,000. Oak trees are very much an English thing, but they thought it was a symbol of Britain. There are very few in Scotland and I don't think there are many in Wales. I also read Men's Health in order to make myself feel bad about how little I exercise. It's a monthly and there's always a new exercise plan, but really you need to stick to an exercise plan for about eight weeks to see any results, so you're better off just buying it every two issues.

Last week I watched...

Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe, a very clever BBC4 show all about television. It was an American special, slagging off old stuff like Automan and Manimal, which most people haven't heard of. I remember them because, growing up in Ireland, we got all the shit American TV that no one got in England. Even the shows where they just made a pilot.

Last week I listened to...

I've been listening to BBC6 Music while I've been unpacking all my worldly goods in my new house. Tom Robinson plays quite an eclectic range, mainly guitar-based, rocky kind of stuff.

Last week I surfed...

I've discovered a fantastic website called Pandora (www.pandora.com). It's based on something called the Music Genome Project, where you put in your favourite song or band and it analyses that artist's music or that particular genre and then plays you other songs that are similar. If you're into one grunge band, you probably know other grunge bands, but it's not based at all on what scene they're from or what their political values are. It's based purely on the chord structures, the way the melody is done, and the mixture of acoustic, electric and vocal sounds.

Ed Byrne is a stand-up comedian