WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• ‘Comedy, in all its forms, has a very short shelf-life but every fart is funny.’ Doug Stanhope.

• On which topic, Mr Methane, the world’s only professional flatulist, has launched a service to offer personalized farts. He told blogger John Fleming: ‘All you have to do is fill out a form with details of the special oral greeting that you’d like me to convey and this will result in a personalised and very special video greeting from my rear end.’

• Shaun of the Dead fans are lobbying Lego to have an official set of figures from the film. An online campaign has more than 7,500 supporters – and if they reach 10,000 the company says it will consider doing it. But its response to the campaign does demonstrate a certain corporate reluctance, fearing the violence in the film might compromise its brand image: ‘Note that the zombie theme does put this project at the edge of what we produce,’ they said. ‘However we recognize that the LEGO Group produces other products where themese [sic] of violence and death play a significant role.’ A flickr user called Yatkuu has already made a model of what it should look like, here

• ‘I'm extremely jazzed and working hard to make it non shite’ Adam Buxton on his newly commissioned Sky Atlantic show, Bug.

• Comedian Milton Berle almost appeared in an episode of Star Trek – until the writer pulled the plug, irate at changes being made by the producer. In the 1967 episode He Walked Among Us, the comic would have played a deluded sociologist who the crew of the starship Enterprise must stop from disrupting natural social development on the planet Jugal. The story has just surfaced because writer Norman Spinrad – who complained that changes to his script made it into an ‘unfunny comedy’ – has allowed an online amateur version of the script to be played out by fans, much to the chagrin of the CBS network, which owns the rights.

• Stephen Fry has done a 141ft bungee jump off a bridge, sandwiched between two women. It was in New Zealand – where else – where he is filming The Hobbit. ‘I did it,’ he tweeted. ‘Solo and in a sandwich. I'm officially all man.’ Dominic Holland describes a gig in front of a bawdy Cardiff audience in his blog, Eclipsed, this week: ‘I’m back stage ready to be announced. I can hear but I cannot see and I register that Mick [Ferry] has identified a pregnant lady in the front row. Mick announces me and I am suddenly in to the lights, my working day has suddenly begun... All is well – until I spot the pregnant lady in the front row and I decide to chat to her. Straight away I can sense that something is wrong... My pregnant lady looks ashen and turns to her heavily tattooed husband for support. What the hell is the problem? And then I spot the actual pregnant lady sitting a few seats across to my left. This lady is blonde, pretty, petite and obviously very pregnant. I now realise that my pregnant lady is not pregnant at all. She is just fat.’ A hmbling apology was the only way to quell her rising anger... bit how many comics can say that’s a pitfall they haven’t fallen into

• Tweets of the week:
  Jacques_aih ()@jacques_aih): Revenge is a dish best spat in.
  Simon Blackwell )@ simonblackwell ): "Please enter your pin" - polite voodoo
  Simon Evans )@ TheSimonEvans ): The concept of the glass ceiling is clearly floored.

SOURCES: Portsmouth News, John Fleming Blog, Lego Cuuso, Twitter, Daily Telegraph, The Sun, DominicHolland.co.uk, Twitter

Published: 30 Mar 2012