WTF: Weekly Triva File

• 'I wish I wasn't so damn funky. It gets in the way of all the rocking.' Brendon Burns

• Antipodean comic Julia Morris has launched her own short film festival – but with the proviso that every entry must feature her own face. The idea started after she attended a charity auction and ‘after a few too many champagnes’ made the winning bid for a full-page ad in Australia’s Daily Telegraph. So, she decided to use it to print a full-size cut-out-and-wear mask of her face… and now she’s inviting fans to make films of under three minutes featuring the masks, which are also available as a download from her website. There will be a screening event in Sydney and winner gets an HD camcorder.

• Robert Schimmel, who died last weekend following a car crash, bought a pubic wig – or merkin – after losing his hair down there following chemotherapy. The 1994 Perrier nominee said: ‘It looked like a donut that somebody dropped on a barbershop floor. And they had different models. It wasn't just one. There's like the executive, the adventurer, salt and pepper, the surfer. It was really the craziest thing that I ever bought in my life.’

• Bill Murray may be a fine comic actor, but he has no ambitions to be a stand-up, saying: ‘They all just seem so unhappy; they seem miserable. If you were at the end of your life and you couldn't move, they could roll you out in Vegas and you could do a show. But it's really about hating the audience. It's weird.’

• Our bad comedy of this week comes from, erm, Channel 4. Who have this daily show on their website. Joke one – Anne Widdecombe is like a whale! Ha!
  

• The on-off Koran-burning stunt has got Richard Herring thinking. ‘It's amazing to think that in this huge world, all you have to do to get all this publicity is threaten to burn a book,’ he wrote on his Warming Up blog. ‘I wish I had thought of this for Edinburgh. My PR people (who measure success in column inches rather than in whether what is written is positive or constructive) would be delighted. Next year's show might be called “Burning the Koran: with the Bible for an encore”.’ But he admits: ‘I suppose I committed a worse crime by ripping up a copy of Stewart Lee's book. After all he is considered by many to be a living God. I am surprised I am still able to walk the streets.’

• Billy Connolly has warned wife Pamela Stephenson not to flash too much flesh on the new series of Strictly Come Dancing – as he’s always telling her to dress more modestly. ‘He's always telling me my clothes are “too tight”,’ she says. ‘ He says to me to put my boobs away - in words just like that but worse.’

• If you’re a fan of the Ray Peacock podcasts published via Chortle, you’ll be interested in this…
  

• Tweets of the week:
  Paul Sinha (@paulsinha): Book Burners : Start with Angels and Demons , and you'll garner considerably more support.
  David Schneider (@davidschneider): To balance out the Pope's visit it seems only fair that we spend £12m on a parade for Richard Dawkins.
  Gary Delaney (@GaryDelaney): To those who have accused me of being an apologist I can only say sorry.

SOURCES: Scotland on Sunday, Chortle, npr.org, Melbourne Age, Channel 4, Richardherring.com, Daily Mirror, YouTube, Twitter

Published: 10 Sep 2010