YouTube's killing my whore stories...

WTF: Weekly Triva File

Ross Noble wants to buy some military hardware. He Twittered: ‘Hi does anyone in the UK know where I can buy a tank and how much they go for second hand? I don’t mean hot water or fish.’

Russell Brand wishes sex was a competitive sport – as he reckons he could pick up plenty of silverware. ‘It’s a shame there is no public forum in which to compete sexually, because football – at which I am not gifted – is done very publicly. Were there other areas of physical expertise displayed in a similar forum, I could benefit from that!’

Doug Stanhope thinks YouTube is ruining comedy. ‘If people were just putting up old shit I’ve already released, I’d be fine with it,’ he said. ‘But now at any show you’ve got some sneaky cunt with a cell phone camera. I don’t know how long it took Carlin to make the seven dirty words, but if there was video footage of the growth of that every week, by the time it got great, you’d be so sick of it you’d write him off. It might have taken three months to perfect that bit. Someone’s there in the front row but they’d prefer to watch it later on video so they stare through a cell phone camera for an hour? There are a million reasons it’s terrible. It kills punch lines. It doesn’t allow me to be as honest as I used to be. Say I was in a room with that kind of anonymity, I could talk about my girlfriend’s cunt sister, some whore I fucked last night when I was coked up and my girlfriend wasn’t on the road with me. Because who’s going to tell? I’ve got some stories recently that I just can’t tell because they’re wicked illegal, and if they got taped I could get in a shit load of trouble.’

Of course some people choose to put their own bad gigs up on YouTube. Exhibit 974:

Neighbours star Craig McLachlan played ThermoMan in the pilot episode of My Hero before Ardal O'Hanlon took the part.

Omid Djalili once made the ultimate theatrical insult to Griff Rhys Jones – who takes over from him as Fagin in the West End version of Oliver! in a couple of weeks – by falling asleep in his show. Djalili recalls the embarrassment of dozing off while watching Jones in The Rise And Fall of Arturo Ui in 1987. ‘I was in the front row and really enjoying it,’ he said. ‘But I was very tired and fell asleep. I was woken with a jolt to find Griff shouting at me. I don’t suppose he’ll remember that. But I’ll never forget. Oh, the shame of it!’

David Walliams pulled out of buying a dream £2.4million beachside house in Brighton - after discovering that Heather Mills would be one of his neighbours.

In other property news, Michael McIntyre has spent £3.2million on a six-bedroom, three-bathroom home in north London.

Boosh duo Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt agreed to surprise Curb Your Enthusiasm star Jeff Garlin’s son on his birthday. Telling the pair the youngster was a big fan, Garlin asked them: ‘I want you to hide behind a bush, and jump out and surprise him’. They did... and the boy didn’t bat an eyelid.

Here’s some video of where Miranda Hart’s BBC Two series started: at the Sitcom Trials at the 2001 Edinburgh Fringe. It features Miranda, working in a joke shop that sells penis pasta, with a diminutive blonde sidekick and lusting over a local hunk – exactly as the current BBC show: