WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• ‘I have to throw my clothes away every three months because I get too fat for them,’ Ricky Gervais

• Russell Brand was seen on a dinner date with Britney Spears in Hollywood last week, and later said: ‘I did describe one very basic sexual technique to Britney, which I think she would have hugely benefited from. But I wasn't able to demonstrate, so it was a dismal failure.’ But it’s not just the ladies he can charm, as Terry Wogan has declared: ‘We get on very well together. He's a one-off, he’s terrific.’ Meanwhile, Mr B has been seen hitting London nightclubs with a burly bouncer in tow… perhaps he’s finding it too strenuous to fight off the girls himself.

• American stand-up Doug Stanhope has offered Bristol Palin, the pregnant teenage daughter of Republican vice-presidential hopeful Sarah, $25,000 to abort her child and ‘move out of that draconian home’. He’s also appealing for more donations, and in an open letter to Bristol said that even if she does not take up his offer, ‘I will still use my money or money donated through this page to pay for at least one abortion for a disadvantaged teenage girl each year for the rest of my life in the name of your mother.’

• A dog called Borat – named after Sacha Baron Cohen's creation - won the $15,000 greyhound Canberra Cup in Australia this week.

• Stand-up disaster of the week. Here’s some kid trying – and failing to rip off Canadian comedian Jeremy Hotz’s material:
  
  And, for comparison, here is the original in action:

• ‘I think Bernard Manning was, technically, one of the finest comedians Britain has produced. Some of his jokes were hilarious.’ Reginald D Hunter.

• Rhod Gilbert complains his if.comedy nomination was ignored back at home: ‘I was the first Welshman ever to be nominated, but down here [in Wales] there was hardly any fuss about it – not even a mention in my local paper. It’s very frustrating. We shout like fuck about being Welsh and our national pride, but when one of us does well on a bigger stage or something we’re never really that bothered. I find it totally remarkable.’ (Besides, he wasn’t the first nominated Welshman: John Sparkes was nominated in 1987)

• The Daily Star Sunday has run a poll to find Britain’s worst joke. The winner was: ‘I could tell it had been raining cats and dogs – I nearly stepped in a poodle.’

• Dawn French says she his written her autobiography because she was so upset by an unauthorized version, which she calls ‘… a sort of rape. It lied about my mum and dad's marriage, saying they split up when they never did. My mum still cries about it.’

• ‘He's honest and real. He's a man of the people, a working class hero,’ Pamela Stephenson on husband Billy Connolly.

SOURCES: Daily Telegraph, Sawf News/imdb.com/Daily Mirror/thelondonpaper, Chortle, Canberra Times Australia, thelondonpaper, Wales on Sunday, Daily Star Sunday, London Evening Standard, CNN

Published: 19 Sep 2008