WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• ‘Interesting things tend not to have punchlines.’ Billy Connolly.

• Several obituaries of Sir Norman Wisdom this week – including those in the Mirror, Independent and Guardian – stated that he co-wrote the lyrics to Dame Vera Lynn's wartime hit, (They'll be Bluebirds Over) the White Cliffs of Dover. But he didn’t … some prankster had added the, erm, ‘fact’ to Wikipedia, from where it was dutifully cut-and-pasted by the journalists.

• Josie Long, has protested against arts cuts in her own way this week – delivering a cross-stitch sampler to Culture Secretary Ed Vaizey bearing the words: ‘The Cuts Won't Work. Fight these Tory cuts!’

• Many have commented on Inbetweeners star Greg Davies’s similarity to ‘a fat Rik Mayall’ – but the resemblance landed him in hot water when he was a drama student. ‘Buying lunch in Marks & Spencer, I pathetically began doing my Rik Mayall impression, “Ooh, which sandwich will I have?”,’ he recalls. ‘My friend began nudging me, going, “Don’t do that! Don’t do that!” I turned round to see the man himself standing behind me with a trolley, wearily shaking his head. I ran out of the shop and I’ve never seen him since to apologise.’

• Fighting impoliteness with racism...
  

• England cricketer Graeme Swann, who’s currently in court on a drink-drive charge, named his two cats Max and Paddy, after Peter Kay's series.

• Comic Phil Cooper has lost his entire routine after leaving all his notebooks in the back of a Swansea taxi. The 21-year-old said: ‘I admit it, I'm an idiot! It was such a basic error, but in that fleeting moment, everything has gone. All the other bits and pieces in the bag can be replaced — but not my jokes! I am desperate to have them back.’ Also in the missing rucksack was his ‘lucky comedy T-shirt’. ‘People always say, “You’re a comedian, tell us a joke”,’ he says. ‘I am not sure I will be able to now!’

• Tommy Tiernan doesn’t believe the old ‘comedy is the new rock ’n’ roll’ cliché. ‘I’d imagine being a rock ’n’ roll star is like flying a fighter jet, with this roar of noise behind you, this energy,’ he says. ‘I’m more like one of those guys who make their own wings and try to fly by jumping off a pier and floundering in the water – it’s very different.’

• Tweets of the week:
  Rob Rouse (@robrouse ): RIP Norman Wisdom. I hope the pall bearer lower his coffin into the grave crossways like his ladder through the door routine. Bless him.
  Rodney Marques (@Rodney_Marques): “I have nothing to declare but my genius.” Saying stuff like that at customs, you'd think Oscar Wilde WANTED another man's hand up his arse
  Gary Delaney (@GaryDelaney): I saw a man with a board saying ‘Repent for you’re sin’s, the end of the world is nigh’. I thought ‘That's a bad sign’.

SOURCES: Time Out Chicago, Various, The Independent, Scotland on Sunday, YouTube, The Independent, South Wales Evening Post, South Wales Echo, Twitter

Published: 8 Oct 2010