A light-hearted week of comedy trivia...

• The BBC's Gavin Esler this week solemly announced the passing of Bernard… Matthews. Oops.

• Patrick Kielty said he feared for his life when a teenager pointed a gun at him while filming his installment of the ITV series Tough Gig among the youth gangs of Hackney, East London. The comic – whose father was killed by Protestant terrorists in Northern Ireland - ran for cover when the boy turned up on a BMX bike, lifted his top to reveal a gun, then aimed it at him. 'He was a kid - that made me more scared,’ he said.

• Joe Pasquale owns a Russian Yak aircaft, which he bought for £40,000.

• Noel Fielding wound up Sunday Mirror showbiz hack Zoe Griffin at a recent bash, by snatching her cloakroom ticket away from her – and eating it. Her pleas to the coat attendant, ‘Noel Fielding ate my ticket,’ fell on deaf ears, so she had to plead with the Boosh star before she could retrieve her handbag. Apparently, Fielding turned scarlet trying to digest the giant cardboard ticket anyway – and needed a vodka and orange to end the choking.

• Russell Brand has had a 'panic alarm' fitted in his house, just next to his bed.

• Steve Martin has revealed that he suffered abuse at the hands of his violent dad, Glenn, who would beat him with a belt during rages. Writing in his new autobiography, he recalled one beating: ‘The next day, I was covered in welts and wore long pants and sleeves to hid them at school.’ The beatings led to years of estrangement once Martin left home. He wrote: ‘Only the most formal relationship would exist between my father and me, and for 30 years, neither he nor I did anything to repair the rift.’

• Horror film director Wes Craven is suing tenth-rate comedian, and next-door neighbour, Pauly Shore, claiming water from his Los Angeles home seeped down a slope and damaged his property.

SOURCES: BBC, The Sun, The Mirror, The Independent, The Sunday Times, the New York Post, CNN

Published: 22 Jun 2007