WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• ‘I smoke so much pot sometimes I forget to smoke it’ – Zach Galifianakis

• Talking of which, Whoopi Goldberg admitted she was stoned when she accepted the best supporting actress Oscar for her role in Ghost in 1991. In a video interview from the following year, which has only just leaked out, she said: ‘Smoking cigarettes and pot every now and then are my habits. And I thought, “I've got to relax.” So I smoked this wonderful joint that was the last of my home grown. When he [presenter Denzel Washington] said my name and I popped up, I thought, “Oh fuck.” Okay, up the stairs, around to the podium, there's millions of people, pick up the statue, get the statue’

• Keith Allen is no fan of Charlie Brooker, blasting his satirical programmes as ‘vacuous nonsense’. ‘There is nothing that would encourage me to watch that man,’ he said. ‘He's a type, and I can't bear what those people do. It's a modern creation. Vacuous nonsense. I'm not interested in your opinion, mate. There seem to be lots of people like that, in print as well as in television.’ He was also strangely angry about shows about the coast, harrumphing: ‘I get physically ill now when another young man who's been to university with a northern voice starts telling me about the coastline. It's just space and rocks. Shut up!’

• Do you live in Andover? Then Alan Carr thinks your town stinks. ‘I wanted to stick a giant Glade Plug-in into Andover,’ he tweeted after a gig there on Wednesday.

• Russell Brand has been offering sex tips to Prince William and Kate Middleton. He sent them a message in an interview saying: ‘Hi William and Kate, it's Russell Brand. I've got some marital advice. Spice up things in the bedroom by pretending to be French.’

• Bad audience member of the week:
  

• Russell Kane had something of a gig from hell last night, at the shambolic launch of the Nintendo 3DS at HMV on London's Oxford Street. After a countdown to the tills opening, he said: ‘That lets us know when it’s been launched – unlike my corporate career that’s just died on its arse.’ Then, as the technology to show the first sale on a giant video screen failed, he said: ‘What's going on? I feel like Stephen Hawking at the top of the stairs here.’ He then muttered: ‘I’m being humiliated up here,' he muttered. And as he signed off, he said: ‘I’ve been Russell Kane. I’m off to self-harm in the toilet.’ Witness it here.

• A customer rang up the theatre in Merthyr Tydfil where Mark Steel was performing, to ask what time the show started. The venue manager told him, to receive the reply: ‘Oh that’s a shame. I won’t be able to come to that as I’ll be drunk by then.’

• John Oliver has taken a pop at muddled, unambitious stand-ups, saying: ‘You can watch stand-up and think, "What is the point of this? What is this person trying to achieve? Laughter is certainly not one of them."’

• Tweets of the week:
  Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman): The good news is hopeful doesn't mean dumb. The bad news is cynical doesn't mean smart
  Adam Kay (@amateuradam): Flying with BMI. Your baggage allowance depends on how tall you are
  David Schneider (@davidschneider): I hate abbreviations. I never use them and am appalled that LOL, OMG and FYI have made it into the OED.

SOURCES: Saturday Night Live, TMZ, Radio Times, Twitter, Access Hollywood, YouTube, Metro, Norwich Advertiser, The JMU Breeze, Twitter

Published: 25 Mar 2011