WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• Russell Brand: ‘Booky Wook 2 is lurching into life like a big controversial Frankenstein, made from the limbs of scandal and given lustre by my think box.’

• Lionel Blair is coming to the Edinburgh Fringe, we can reveal. He’s starring in a Comedians’ Theatre Company version of Sheridan’s restoration comedy The School For Scandal, alongside Marcus Brigstocke, Phil Nichol, Stephen K Amos and others....

• Comic Kirsten O’Brien tried pole dancing for her BBC Three show Topless Ambition, which aired this week, but Peter Stringfellow was far from impressed. ‘It was terrible because you’re a comedian,’ he said. ‘Funny and sexy don’t go together - men don’t like it.’ That must be crushing, having Peter Stringfellow not fancy you….

• Sexist twaddle of the week part two comes courtesy of the London Evening Standard headline writer who declared: ‘Lucy Porter proves females are funny.’ Does that mean Jim Davidson proves men are twats?

• Stephen Fry was Twittering while recording I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue this week. During the show, which he was hosting as one of the revolving roster of chairmen stepping into Humphrey Lyttelton’s shoes, he got the audience of London’s Her Majesty’s Theatre to record a mass ‘boo’ for the social networking site. Listen here.

• Tories have been told to study The Thick Of It for tips on how to run the country, should they win the next election.

• He’s been known on the open mic circuit for years, now Joel Elnaugh has tried his hand at Britain’s Got Talent. It’s fair to say it didn’t go well...
  

• Noel Fielding is peeved about people copying his style, saying: ‘I find it refreshing I am a style icon - but get your own look.’

• The woman convicted of stalking David Walliams last year has changed her surname by deed pole so she can pretend to be his wife. She reportedly hosted a party to celebrate at the psychiatric ward where she has been sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

• Russell Brand once claimed that Rob Brydon was the only person who would go to a strip club with him while filming Cruise Of The Gods. Brydon, now a family man, says: ‘I honestly don’t remember going to a strip club with Russell. I may have done, you know, let’s not rule it out.’

• American comic Patton Oswalt has become a father for the first time, after his wife Michelle gave birth to daughter Alice Rigney Oswalt.

• Simon Pegg is hoping Coldplay will let him direct one of their music videos, saying: ‘I’d love to direct some day. Doing a music video would be a great start. I’ve said to Chris [Martin] a couple of times, if we get some time, I’d love to script a song.’ Pegg has got history with Coldplay, having played harmonica on the song Green Eyes at one of their gigs in December.

• Ricky Gervais has judged the Handsomest Male ... in a dog show near his home in Hampstead, North London.

• Jimmy Carr’s fans don't exactly go overboard in their support, as this picture shows:
  

• Al Murray isn’t exactly enamoured with Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik, who was a recent guest on his ITV1 chat show. ‘If I don't ever have to interview Lembit Opik again it would be too soon,’ he complained. ‘He was a twit. He was going out with that Cheeky lady then... I chatted her up in Romanian to annoy him.’

• James Corden’s parents are both Salvation Army members in High Wycombe, Bucks, where his father is a Christian book salesman.

SOURCES: Twitter, Chortle, BBC, Evening Standard, Twitter, Daily Telegraph, YouTube, Metro, Daily Mail, The Sun, People.com, GQ, mayhewanimalhome.org, Twitter, Absolute Radio, The Sun

Published: 1 May 2009