New episodes of Black Mirror are out, and once again has some great episodes about Wot If Ya Mum Ran on Batteries. As an anthology show, each story is separate, but many people have spotted references between episodes.
This post contains some light spoilers for earlier episodes of Black Mirror.
It all started in The National Anthem when Prime Minister Michael Callow got piggy with it. He’s then mentioned in loads of episodes, including Hated in the Nation where robotic bees cause a few issues. These events both appear in Black Museum, which also features a lot of other episodes. And so on, and so on.
There’s one reference everyone misses, and it’s from one of Charlie Brooker’s early works - Nathan Barley.
Nathan Barley is a show about mid 00’s media people who work in Shoreditch. The titular Barley describes himself as a “self-facilitating media node”. His main enterprise is Trashbat.co.ck, said aloud as “trashbat dot cock”. The original content is gone, but it was a satire of websites that were common at the time - collections of flash toys with assorted videos of pranks, and of people hurting themselves and each other. In between this he makes films, DJs, and runs club nights. All in an effort to stay cool while constantly teetering on the edge of anxiety over irrelevancy.
Even in 2025, it’s worth a watch. Some of the jokes are a little dated, but it mostly holds up. You’ll have fun spotting a lot of now very famous faces during the beginning of their careers. Like Black Mirror, it was a show about predicting the future, but unlike Black Mirror, it was accidental. It even used the phrase hand-held twit machines a full year before Twitter was launched:
They babble into hand-held twit machines about that cool email of the woman being bummed by a wolf. Their friend made it. He’s an idiot too.
Julian Barratt, who plays Dan Ashcroft, said they would need to approach a 2nd series differently because “everything from it kind of came true”.
Onto the link.
Well weapon
In the 3rd episode of Nathan Barley, Nathan and Claire return from the pub to find Nathan’s housemate enjoying himself with some dirty late night TV. The TV mentions the male performer by name, Rod Senseless.
And where else does Rod Senseless show up?
He’s the male pornstar that the UK Government try to use as a body double for Michael Callow right back in The National Anthem.
So not only do many episodes of Black Mirror exist alongside each other, they exist alongside Nathan Barley.
Totally fucking mexico.
Honourable mentions
It’s been a while, so I’ll try to remember everything.
- 📖 I finished Children of Dune and found it to be quite a slog near the end. It might be a long time before I read God Emperor of Dune.
- 📖 I also read This Is How You Lose The Time War. A very unusual book that didn’t quite click with me at the start, but by the end I loved it. If the adaption ever gets made I’m very curious to see how it’ll work.
- 📖 For the first time in many years I bought a magazine. (Side note: there’s no magazine emoji?) The Fence is full of great articles, some funny, some depressing, and some insightful. It’s got some of my favourite authors in it so I thought I’d give it a whirl and I thoroughly enjoyed it with a beer in the sun on Friday.
- 🎙️ Revolutions is, unsurprisingly, a podcast about revolutions throughout history. However this season is about a Martian revolution more than 200 years from now. Produced like a historical documentary it really scratches that itch the The Expanse has left.
- 🎮 I’m nearing the end of Avowed and it’s good, although not as awe inspiring as Skyrim. Bethesda games are (usually) great exploration games with RPG elements, while Obsidian make great RPGs. The melee feels good, the quality of life stuff is so much better than Starfield, at times writing is funny, and the companions make a real difference to combat and story. I’m enjoying it a lot, despite the downsides.
- 📺 Last One Laughing UK and Ireland were so much fun. I’m a fan of the format from the original Japanese show Documental.
- 📺 Common Side Effects is a show about a man discovering a magic mushroom that can heal any ailment and the efforts the US healthcare industry goes to cover it up. It’s from some of the same animators as Scavenger’s Reign so it looks fantastic.
- 📺 Kings of Tupelo is a documentary about one of those crazy stories that you would not believe unless you watch it - one of the 2 brothers who do an Elvis impersonator double act uncovers a conspiracy to harvest organs in a hospital and is then accused of trying to kill Barack Obama.
- 📺 Like everyone else, I watched Severance and enjoyed it.
- 🎨 I managed to catch the Electric Dreams exhibition at the Tate. Unfortunately it was during half term so it was like an Hieronymus Bosch painting, but I still enjoyed it.
- 🇻🇳 I’m leaving for a 3 week trip to Vietnam in 20 minutes.