...and the rest of the Weekly Trivia File

• ‘Most people in comedy are saying so little and risking so little. You’ve got to fucking risk something, you’ve got to have some opinions.’ Frankie Boyle

• Talking of Mr Boyle, he has been speaking about his alcoholic past. He said: 'The most I had in one go was about 20 pints. One time I woke at a friend’s in a panic because I couldn’t see. I eventually realised I didn’t have my glasses on. I looked everywhere until I noticed they’d fallen out the window and were in a pool of vomit from the night before. I carried on like that for years. It didn’t bother my friends or family—in Scotland everyone is fucked.'

• John Cleese has undergone a £10,000 hair transplant because ‘I’ve got a very strange shaped skull, very pointy - and I don't like wearing wigs.’

• Russell Brand has stolen from the grave of beat writer Jack Kerouac. He said that among the tributes left at the ceremony 'someone had left a jar of peanut butter’. He added: ‘That's no use in the afterlife is it? I was hungry. I took it. I asked the crew, “is that respectful to steal from a grave?” [But] I was able to argue that in the spirit of the beat, in the spirit of rebellion and revolution he wouldn't mind if I had that peanut butter. So I took it.’

• Dame Edna Everage has created a range of cosmetics forr MAC, saying: ‘The audience’s applause was a little louder when I was wearing MAC on stage, so I was a convert. They didn’t have to coerce me.’

• A little gem from YouTube: Simon Amstell when he was a geeky video-games freak, appearing on Gamesmaster:
  

• Steve Punt wants to be a soap star. He said: 'I wouldn't object to being in one, I'd certainly quite like to write one. There's a real skill to that sort of genre of writing. That's the aspect of soaps that's very heavily underestimated.'

• Johnny Vaughan compering a charity gig: ‘I’ve been getting a lot of these corporate gigs since Brand and Ross disgraced themselves. I’m booked up until Christmas. In fact, if Jimmy Carr happens to make a racist comment and Graham Norton does a George Michael, I’m going to be sorted out for the whole of 2009. Still, I shouldn’t  be too mean about Ross because I am shagging his mum.’

• Supermodel Tyra Banks, 34, has an unlikely crush on Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David, 61, saying: 'I have a crush on him. I know he's single.'

• Steve Coogan says touring is the best thing he’s done in years. ‘It makes you up your game,’ he said. Tell that to thelondonpaper, which gave his show a cruel one-star review this week.

• Sacha Baron Cohen has recruited porn stars for a scene in his new movie, Brüno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt. David Forest, who was recruited to find X-rated actors after more conservative thespians turned down the work, said: ‘There's a scene where Bruno comes to the hotel with some guys. They're all trying to get Bruno to come upstairs for an orgy. Bruno apparently doesn't want to join the party, but he watches through the window. I'm told it's hilarious.’

• Click here to see any web page as read by Family Guy’s Quagmire.

• Ricky Gervais says he feels more at home in New York than in Britain. 'I just bought an apartment on the Upper East Side. My home is London, but New York is my favourite city. I love it,’ he said. ‘ When I'm not here I miss it. In London, I watch programs about New York. I actually feel more normal here. In America, success is celebrated. America knows the difference between a reality show and De Niro. In England it's, "You? Success can't happen to a person like you!" The British press can be nasty. They don't like anyone getting above their station.’

• Up-and-coming stand-up Simon Jenkins was bumped from his slot compering at Outside The Box on Kingston this week, because Robin Williams wanted to pop in to try out some material, and the poor student comic was considered too inexperienced to introduce a Hollywood star. The next day, an unsuspecting Williams was asked on the Graham Norton Show if he would ever muscle someone out of the way to get onto a club bill, which he denied – only to find it was an ambush, as Jenkins was in the audience. So did Jenkins, who is taking part in Channel 4’s Year Dot project following young talent, get some vital exposure BBC Two chat show? No… with perfect irony he was bumped from that final edit, too.

• Noel Fielding wears a T-shirt that was a hand-me-down from Courtney Love and, before her, model Helena Christensen

SOURCES: Shortlist, News Of The World, Richard And Judy’s New Position, The Late Show With David Letterman, WWD Beauty, YouTube, Press Association, Popbitch, imdb.com, Metro/thelondonpaper, New York Daily News, Quagmire-it.com, New York Post, Chortle, NME

Published: 14 Nov 2008