And other unlikely comedy trivia

• Is Russell Brand starting to believe his own hype? Or is this a story a gossip columnist just wants to be true? According to one report, he had his ‘people’ ring up the Southampton Guildhall ahead of a gig with a list of demands including: he would only use the disabled toilet, wanted only girls in the VIP area and that no one was allowed to address him directly…

• News for stalkers: Lenny Henry and Dawn French have paid £2.4million for a white-bricked 19th century mansion overlooking a Cornish harbour. And Lee Mack has moved from North London to Surrey.

• Stand-up Michael Legge ended up duetting with Moby on an acoustic version of Freebird as he hobnobbed with the stars at MTV’s European Music Awards at the weekend. The comic, who was presenting backstage footage from the mega-bash said: ‘I’ve got visions of some avid fans watching me and Moby on their iPod. Not only that, P Diddy admired my clothing! It’s true!’ Pictured: Legge and Diddy

• Peep Show writer Sam Bain’s grandmother was one of the resident ladies at Fawlty Towers and his mother, Rosemary Frankau, was in Terry and June.

• After Pat Condell’s show about religion at London’s Etcetera Theatre on Monday, an elderly gentleman approached him – and introduced himself as the Messiah. Condell says: ‘He said he would be revealed to the world by the end of this year, and when that happens he wants me to go on television and do my show for the benefit of mankind. How's that for a lucky break?’

• Not-at-all racist Borat quote of the week. ‘We are huge fannies of U.S. and A movie films. And we have shown this by manufacturing pirated DVDs of many of them. We like movies of funnyman Edward Murphy. We in Kazakhstan love very much when we see his chocolate face, yes? It is unusual, the colour. Not so funny?’

• Following our story about the perfect funny face this morning, TV’s Danny Wallace emails us to say he’s found the perfect match: Laurence Howarth off of Radio 4’s Laurence and Gus. Judge for yourself…

• The Wikipedia wags strike again. According to one of the users who edited the online encyclopedia: ‘A little known fact about Jimmy Carr is that he owns the largest collection of Seat Ibizas in Britain.’ Right. As his agent tells us: ‘As far as I am aware Jimmy owns no Seat Ibizas at all.’

• SOURCES: London Lite, Sunday People/Mail on Sunday, Chortle, Independent, Chortle, Time OutLondon, Danny Wallace, Wikipedia/Chortle

  Published: 10 Nov 2006