WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• Simon Pegg couldn’t trust himself to write his autobiography Nerd Do Well unsupervised – so had to lock himself away in an office next to his editor, who could keep a watchful eye on the work. ‘You cannot write a book at home. There are too many DVDs,’ he said.

• Brilliant. A lecturer at the school of contemporary media at Fanshawe College in Ontario, Canada is called Laurel-Ann Hardie, a name she got after marrying James Hardie. There's also a computer programmer who worked on video games in the Eighties called Mark Spruthers.

• Robert Webb wasn't too pleased to be put up in a Ramada hotel while he was filming in Manchester last night, sending various disgrunted tweets about the state of the accommodation. He started with: ‘Doing a few more days filming in Manchester. Homesick like a dog. Bountiful Objective have put me in a Ramada. Oh fuck.’ And it didn’t get better, with complaints including: ‘Dull restaurant thinks it's the Ivy but is more expensive. Loos on different floor. Staff say yourself instead of you & customers all shout’ and ‘The ground floor entrance has a bouncer who gives you a warning look. The room phone doesn't work and hasn't been fixed. I want to go home!’ He concluded with: ‘So to recap - I'm in a room of a hotel that I've been slagging off for two hours watching a sex documentary narrated by me. This is it. It.

• Noel Fielding made a surprise appearance during Kasabian's set at last weekend's Isle of Wight festival. He joined them on stage for the song Vlad the Impaler, wearing the same cloak he wore when he appeared in the music video for the track. He bit the guitarist’s bum before running away. 'The crowd went crazy,' said one festival-goer.

• Now available for children’s films? Bernard Manning was considered for the part of Tweedledum (or Tweedledee) in the 1972 film adaptation of Alice In Wonderland. But stand-up Matt Roper – whose comic dad George was up for the role of the other twin – told blogger John Fleming that Manning made such a bad impression at the audition, with all his effing and blinding hardly going down with such theatrical nobility as Dame Flora Robson, Sir Ralph Richardson, that he never got the role.

• What would the American version of The Office be like if it had been made in the Eighties. One enterprising fan has come up with the answer:
  

• Jimmy Carr reckons the Prince of Wales could do with cracking out the Nivea.  'Prince Charles has a really rough hue to his hands,' he said. 'It is like shaking the hand of a farmer.'

• Is Nick Clegg becomig a comic? At a Westminster lunch yesterday he cracked a couple of decent gags, including ‘Whatever people say about Chris Huhne, I don't know any politician better at getting his points across’ and ‘Look at Ryan Giggs, look at Ed Miliband. One is a fading left-winger who's upset his brother and is having a difficult time with the press ... and the other is a footballer.’ He also done that great joke about not introducing tuition fees that one time.

• Last week we reported how stupid Fox News were morons to a man for being duped by Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin impression. In unrelated news, the clip we showed of Billy Connolly taking apart a heckler was, in fact, a tribute act, possibly called Silly Connolly. One reader thought we were doing a clever meta-joke, so let’s go with that excu... explanation.

• Here is the REAL Glenn Wool taking it to a 'hit-and-run' heckler in Dublin:
  

Tweets Of The Week:
Richard Kirby (@_L_M_C_): Since the Pratchett documentary I'm trying to write an assisted suicide joke. I like the concept, I just need some help with the execution.
Gary Delaney (@GaryDelaney): I can count the number of DIY accidents I've had on the fingers of one hand. Two.
Benedict Farse (@BenedictFarse): My mum has never been outspoken. Believe me I've tried.

SOURCES: New York Post, Metro/Chortle, Twitter, Beehive City, thejohnfleming.wordpress.com, Gorilla Nation, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, Chortle , YouTube, Twitter

Published: 17 Jun 2011