The week's comedy trivia

• Rob Brydon is intolerant of yeast.

• The office of the BBC's head of comedy has become an unofficial doss-house. On taking over the job, Mark Freeland, pictured, was disturbed to discover that someone was sleeping there overnight. ‘It got ridiculous: the blinds were down, the television was turned round and there were crisp packets on the floor,’ he said. ‘I came within a whisker of hiding in the cupboard because I became really obsessed about who it was. But then I thought that if someone found me in a cupboard, it could be construed as a nervous breakdown. So I didn't.’ The corporation’s human resources department eventually evicted the mystery guest.

• Talking of sleeping in inappropriate places, comic and adventurer Tim FitzHigham landed in difficulties after the boozy Chortle Awards on Monday night, dozing off on the train and overshooting his station, a couple of stops outside London. He takes up the story: ‘I eventually woke up somewhere near Peterborough. Torrential rain kicked in and a howling gale blew. I'd not worn a coat... bugger. After consulting the timetable it was obvious there were no trains that night so I scoured that godforsaken town for hotels or taxi firms. Establishing there were none I found a building site and due to the inclement weather thought the best thing to do was build an igloo and bed down for the night. I was woken by Pete - the world's cheeriest builder - asking if he could fix the leaking roof on my igloo. I've always said it's not a truly great night unless you wake up on a building site having gone roughly 172 miles out of the way.’

• Vic Reeves won the Best Log Book of the Year Award when he was a mechanical engineering apprentice in County Durham in the Seventies. But he has confessed to cheating during his O-levels. ‘I had really long hair so I Sellotaped notes to the inside of my long locks,’ he admits. ‘Unfortunately, I couldn’t focus on them as they were too close to my eyes.’

• Scottish stand-up Karen Dunbar says she fancies becoming Scotland’s first entrant into the Eurovision Song Contest, now the country is allowed to enter on its own, rather than as part of the UK. ‘I am going to give it serious consideration,’ she said. ‘I'll have a serious think about that.’

• Stand-up Janey Godley: ‘I read an article about Josie Long and Kristen Schaal saying, “Isn’t it lovely that female comedians are returning to being quirky and nice?” How fucking insulting is that? So my strong, political viewpoint isn’t valid because I possess a vagina? You’d rather I came on stage, stroked a budgie, made a basket and told a story about butterflies?’

• Where would this column – and indeed the entire tabloid press - be without Russell Brand? This week’s Russell ‘fact’ 1: He has started keeping a weather chart by his front door so that he can protect his hair from wind and rain.’ Russell fact 2: He wants to do costume dramas, saying: ‘I have the look for period dramas and thought I might be great in Cranford with Dame Judi, but I was cruelly overlooked’. Russell fact 3: He reckons he 'pulled' Marilyn Manson's ex-wife Dita Von Teese at a pre-Oscars party in Los Angeles. Brand, said: ‘I saw Dita von Teese at the Chateau Marmont Hotel. At the risk of looking incontinent, I walked past her several times to the toilet to get her attention. Eventually she saw me and we started chatting. I was saying some brilliantly funny things, slowly tempting her into my web.’

SOURCES: Sunday Times, The Independent, Chortle, The Journal/Daily Express, Glasgow Daily Record, The List, Daily Star/Daily Mirror/The Sun

Published: 29 Feb 2008