Weekly Trivia File

• Sir Clement Freud wanted his epitaph to be: ‘Best before April 2009’.

• NASA has defied public opinion and named its new living quarters on the International Space Station Tranquillity, despite a campaign by Stephen Colbert to get it named after himself. Although his fans won an online poll, the space agency stuck to their own plan, but did make one concession, saying a new exercise treadmill will be named the Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT).

• South Park masterminds Matt Stone and Trey Parker have a signed photograph of Saddam Hussein that US soldiers sent him before he was executed in December 2006. While the dictator was in custody, the US Army tormented him by repeatedly screened the 1999 film South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, which saw him having a gay affair with Satan and eventually impaled on a spike.

• Sir Clement had few friends in Australia. After pouring scorn on both Sydney and Melbourne, he was asked which he preferred. 'It's like comparing leprosy with syphilis," he replied.

• Keith Harris says Lennie Bennett was ‘a Jimmy Carr of his day’.

• Melbourne newspaper The Age reports how British stand-up Alexis Dubus was furious to discover that 3,000 flyers for his festival show came back from the printers with the wrong dates on them. But the paper shouldn’t get too high and mighty about misprints… for they somehow managed to refer to him as ‘Alexis Rebus.

• Clement Freud was a liaison officer at the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War – but he was court martialled for requisitioning ducks for the mess.

• Enjoy:
  

• Graham Linehan has committed sacrilege by casting doubt on Larry David’s genius. ‘I think he has stretched himself too far with Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ the IT Crowd creator said. ‘Everyone seems to love it, but I think it is overrated. I hope he never reads this.’

• When Clement Feud stood as Liberal candidate in the Tory stronghold of Ely, he took a £1,000 bet on himself to win at odds of 33-1 – providing him with winnings equivalent to two years' salary as an MP.

• Ben Miller gets fed up of people mistaking him for Rob Brydon. He said: ‘My heart sinks, it really does. You want people to go, “Oh look, wow, it’s Ben Miller.” You don’t want them to go, “Are you Rob Brydon?” It’s childish of me to react in that way, but I’ve got to be honest, I do. He’s kind enough to say that he gets mistaken for me too. But I doubt he ever is, really.’

• Al Murray was at Talking Heads frontman David Byrne’s gig at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday.

• Sir Clement again, with a great joke:
  

• Bill Bailey says one of his worst-attended gigs was at Goole Arts Centre about seven years ago, when just ten people showed up. He recalls: ‘I remember asking what they had on the previous week there and it was a papier mache workshop and it was attended by 84…’

• Stand-up Adam Hills found himself on a plane with Australia’s deputy premier Julia Gillard the other day, while she was acting Prime Minister during Kevin Rudd ‘s visit to London for the G20. And she proved good sport, telling the comic: ‘You are my subject and I can order you to do anything I like. So I order you to be nice to my assistant over there, because she quite likes you.’

• Sir Clement Freud had already sent out invitations to 15 close friends for his 85th birthday dinner at his favourite restaurant in Soho on April 24. But the invitations warned: 'Check the obituary columns before then.'

SOURCES: Daily Mail, CNN, Daily Telegraph, Daily Telgraph, Sunday Mirror, The Age, The Times, YouTube, The Independent, The Guardian, Sunday Mirror, The Independent, Daily Telegraph, Goole Courier, Adam Hills at Melbourne Comedy Festival, Daily Mail

Published: 17 Apr 2009