Comedy trivia round-up

• As Noel Fielding lives the wild life with Courtney Love in LA, his Mighty Boosh partner Julian Barratt is about to become father of twins with his girlfriend, Nighty Night star Julia Davis, expecting this summer.

• Stephen Merchant has admitted that he is appalling at learning lines – so bad, in fact, that he had to hide them around the Extras set. Which perhaps explains why for most of his scenes, he was sat behind a desk covered in papers. He admitted: ‘I don’t remember lines very well. I’m often sat down so that I can have the lines printed up around me or hidden under notebooks and stuff. So I was quite pleased that I got away with it.’

• Meanwhile his Extras co-star Ashley Jensen says she was mistaken for a prostitute in Los Angeles – because she was walking down the street, and absolutely nobody walks there. She says: ‘I got picked up because people thought I was a hooker! Mind you, it was a man in a Porsche, so it could have been worse.’

• Prince Charles is said to have become a huge fan of Borat after William and Harry set up a private screening of the movie. He apparently said he ‘couldn't believe the Americans even understood why it was funny’.

• Ricky Gervais on the British Press. ‘There's not a day goes by when I don't go, "You fuckers!"’ He told that to an American publication, naturally…

• Talking of Ricky, his partner of 23 years has written her first book - but he hasn’t read it. In fact, he has previously admitted that the only novel he’s ever read is The Catcher In The Rye – and girlfriend Jane Fallon is so worried that her effort, Getting Rid Of Matthew, will compare unfavourably to the American classic that she hasn’t dared show him.

• At the peak of Only Fools and Horses’ popularity, exclusive-hungry newspapers put hookers in the hotel where the stars stayed as honey traps.

• Russell Brand has been dating Scottish folk singer Harriet Glover, but he’s worried she’s not famous enough for him to be seen with. So he has emailed friends asking her to buy records so it becomes ‘morally acceptable’ for him to buy her dinner.

• Oh, and Brand describes himself as looking ‘like a scarecrow who’s robbed a bondage emporium’.

SOURCES: News Of The World/The London Paper, QuickStop Entertainment, The Mirror, Popbitch, The Onion, The Mirror, Sunday Times, News Of The World, The Times ’

Published: 12 Jan 2007