All The Witty Banter That's Fit To Print (or, erm... watch)

i have to say that for as much crap television as there is here in the UK (about the same amount, if not more, depending on your feelings about antiques and auctions, as there is in the States) there are a few shows that i had never seen before that are quite funny.
the best of these (i feel) are the panel shows that deal with things like general information (in the case of 'QI', hosted by the one and only stephen fry) and weekly news (in the case of 'mock the week', hosted by some guy's whose name i forget and who isn't really all that funny). these are now my two favorite of this type of show.
'QI' (again, hosted by stephen fry) is a sort of quiz show that covers a dizzying array of knowledge and information. each episode has a panel of four comedians (alan davies of 'johnathan creek' fame is a permanent panelist and bill bailey of 'black books' fame is a regular participant). mr fry holds court in each episode and asks the panelists questions to which very few people actually know the answer. of course, they're all set up to lead into witty banter flying across the table from comedian to comedian to fry to comedian, and so forth. i would say that only a scant bit of information is actually revealed in each show thanks to the number of jokes and how far they can spiral out of control. points are awarded and deducted on some arbitrary scale that i have yet to work out (other than the fact that it is known that alan davies WILL score the lowest amount of points in each episode as he either knows fuck all or is always willing to sacrifice the correct answers for the sake of the joke (i have yet to work that one out)). the shows can be watched on any number of bittorent things or on iplayer on the bbc website or bits can be seen on youtube, although bits hardly do the show justice. having said that, here is a bit that i thought was funny. i've seen the whole of this episode and i must say that it was a particularly funny one...

now, to 'mock the week'... it's a show that deals with different newsworthy topics that have happened in the week preceding the show. it has two teams of three comedians with that host guy whose name i don't know sitting in the middle. again, the points are awarded pretty arbitrarily but it's quite the same in that the questions lead more to banter than to actually uncovering the facts (although those do come out in the end). there are some regulars on the show, but i only know the name of one of them, frankie boyle, a glaswegian comedian who i think is ridiculously hilarious now that i've seen him on this show. again, the shows can be found in the usual places. here's a taste from youtube...

and just because i know you found him to be hilarious in that clip, here's a little taste of my new man frankie boyle's stand-up...