WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• ‘It’s never appealed to me to be big in my own country. I have a fear of celebrity here. Danny Bhoy.

• Incidentally, the ‘h’ in Bhoy’s surname came about when he was choosing a stage name. The comic – real name Danni Chaudhry – said: ‘My gran called me Danny Boy when I was growing up so, when I had to register with Equity, it seemed the perfect stage name. But when I rang up, I was told the name was already taken. By a dancing dog.’

• Robin Ince has given Shappi Khorsandi hundreds of pounds of sex toys. They were an unwanted gift, contained in a ‘goodie bag’ he received for performing at a charity gig. At the Latitude festival last weekend, Ince revealed that he took the freebies after the show, unaware what they were, and only realised what he had picked up when he got home – leaving him with the dilemma of what to do with them. ‘I usually take my unwanted items to the charity shop,’ he told the audience at Early Edition. ‘But they don’t take electrical goods.’ Eventually, he found a taker in Khorsandi.

• Surely unrelated is the news that Khorsandi got trapped in a pub toilet cubicle for 15 minutes last week – only getting rescued when the darts team heard her cries for help. Staff at the pub in Southsea, Hampshire, passed a screwdriver over the door so she could remove the lock. Barmaid Rachael Stevenson told a reporter: ‘She was pretty sheepish when she came out.’

• We often feature videos here of comedians battling difficult customers. Here’s American stand-up Eliot Chang facing one particularly awkward opponent:
  

• Rory McGrath has applied to enter the conger cuddling contest at the Lyme Regis Lympic Games on August 1. The game involves swinging a large dead eel from a lamp-post by a rope, in an attempt to knock over nine contestants, standing like skittles on flowerpots.

• And Stewart Lee has pedalled a giant swan-shaped pedalo along the Thames with the comic book writer Alan Moore. It was for a small part in Iain Sinclair and Andrew Kotting's new film Swandown, which opens today. Lee said: ‘The film is a mythic meditation on the Olympic project. Or is it?’

• Comic and impressionist Jeff Dunham – known for his Achmed The Dead Terrorist act – owns the original Batmobile from the Michael Keaton movie. He admits: ‘I take it around town with my fiancée, and it is so much fun. It is the ultimate in cool.’ He’s 50.

• Jason Manford has given some free advertising for Nivea after mocking their Powerfruits shower gel in a short online video. Thousands of people watched his spoof, which eventually attracted the attention of someone in the company’s marketing department. Rather than getting angry – Olympic sponsors please note – they joined in on the joke, mocking up a limited edition bottle rebranded Nivea for Manford Manfruits.

• Sarah Silverman has promised to have ‘traditional lesbian sex through to climax’ with a – male – casino billionaire. But only if he gives Obama the $100 million he had pledged to Republican rival Mitt Romney’s campaign. In an ‘indecent proposal’ video directed at Sheldon Adelson, the comic said he would get great bragging rights if he took her up on the offer: ‘Do you know how many Republican billionaires are giving to Romney? All of them. How many of them are getting scissored by a bikini-bottomed Jewess with big naturals? How many, Sheldon?’
  

• Tweets of the week:
  Simon Blackwell (@simonblackwell): Under Olympic branding rules if your mum says "Give us five rings when you get in" she can face up to a year in prison.
  Adam Hess (@adamhess1): My alarm in the morning is an American voice saying 'Previously on Dexter' so my entire day seems far more important.
  Chris Hibble (@ChribHibble): Just made my very own Andrew Lloyd Webber action figure by repeatedly slamming my scrotum in a letterbox
  

Published: 20 Jul 2012