The Weekly Trivia File

• Stand-up Markus Birdman says: 'My greatest achievement to date was getting Noel Fielding to bump-start my Capri in his pixie boots after we broke down near Lancaster.'

• Talking of Mr Fielding, he and Mighty Boosh costar Julian Barrat have been immortalised in plastic, pictured. Four-and-a-half-inch vinyl models of the duo – plus Naboo and Bollo – have been released, just in time for Christmas, at £14.67 a pair. And with commercial nous, the Vince Noir and Howard Moon dolls aren’t paired together, so you need to spend nearly £30 to get them both from the Mighty Boosh’s official website.

• Stephen Fry sent a link to a Johannes Vermeer painting and the cryptic message ‘d euzie’ to the 25,000 fans who follow his activities on Twitter. He later admitted he’s sent the message by accident from his new BlackBerry, which was in his pocket at the time. ‘Sent by nut pressure?’ he suggested. Even Stephen Fry’s testicles are erudite, it seems.

• Condescending poll of the week: Dawn French has been voted Britain’s Favourite Fat Person.

• Does this story sound familiar? In an interview with Q magazine only this week, Stephen Merchant said: 'I did give 20 pounds to a homeless guy recently... I only had one note and you can't ask for change can you?' Is he not confusing fact with his own script?
  

• Before her affair with Gordon Ramsey, Sarah Symonds had a fling with Jim Davidson.

• Ricky Tomlinson says he came close to turning down the new revival of The Royle Family. He told producer John Russell he didn’t want to take part in the Christmas special, as last year’s Queen of Sheba special was a perfect end to the series. But, he told Watch TV’s Richard and Judy: ‘When I read the script I couldn’t wait to go; it was fabulous. It’s absolutely wonderful.’

• David Walliams and Matt Lucas were once stood up by Madonna. The pop superstar invited the pair to dinner, but on the day, one of her lackeys called to say: ‘Madonna may or may not come for dinner. She may just come for dessert.’ Walliams said: ‘We had to decide whether we wanted to sit in a restaurant waiting for Madonna to turn up.’ In the end they decided not to bother.

• Frank Skinner can't swim and is scared of water.

• On Sunday, Graham Norton said stories that he was to take over hosting duties at the Eurovision song contest were ‘just rumours’ and that no one had approached him about the job. Today, the BBC announced that the man replacing Terry Wogan next year will be…. Graham Norton. ‘I just couldn't say no,’ he said.

• Dannii Minogue attended Pam Ann's comedy show at the Hammersmith Apollo, even taking part in a sketch on stage.

• Richard Herring suffers from a condition called Benign Positional Vertigo, which affects the inner ear and can make him feel dizzy at certain angles. And this week it hit him on stage, just as he was bending over to mime the act of anal sex with his hands. 'I thought I might actually go down,' he said. 'Would this be my Tommy Cooper moment? Would my last act be to spit on my own hands and pretend my finger was a penis penetrating a resistant anus? A fitting epitaph to my life? Perhaps.'

• There’s a fine line between deliberately bad stand-up, and trying to make light of the fact that your stand-up is just plain awful. We’re not entirely sure on what side of the fence this week’s offering falls:
  

• Paul O’Grady has been bitten on the arm by a 2ft adder at his home in Kent. It drew blood, and created a swelling, but the comic was fine.

• After performing a gig in Eastbourne when he was aged about 20, Russell Howard was attacked by a furious punter, who yelled ‘Oi! Are you shagging my wife?’ before punching the young comic to the floor. ‘No I’m not!’ is all he could yell back in response. ‘Sorry mate, I thought you were shagging my wife,’ came back the obvious excuse…

SOURCES: The Guardian, Metro, themightyboosh.com, Daily Express, Q magazine, Daily Star, Richard & Judy’s New Position, Capital Radio, The Independent, ITN/BBC, Mirror, New Statesman, YouTube, thelondonpaper, Comedy Demon

Published: 5 Dec 2008