WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• ‘I enjoy mayhem, but I can’t organise that sober, because my brain starts thinking about health and safety.’ Jim Jefferies.

• The Thick Of It star Peter Capaldi engaged in a charity swearathon with Alistair Campbell this week... which was accidentally broadcast into a creche. The actor and Tony Blair's former spin doctor, who inspired the fictional Malcolm Tucker, traded f-words at a charity day for City trader BGC which was broadcast to the whole building – including the creche. The real spin doctor claimed victory with 11 swear words compared to Capaldi’s in-character nine... but his rant was curtailed when the mics were switched off when it was realised the children were listening in.

• Everyman stand-up Louis CK was left embarrassed last week – when his swanky yacht got stuck in mud for several hours as it made its way through Inwood Hill Park in upper Manhattan.

• Food for thought for those conducting post-mortems about the state of the Edinburgh Fringe: The Scottish capital was the second most expensive place in Europe to get a hotel room this summer, with its average €109 (£87) a night for two-star accommodation only marginally lower than Stockhom’s €111 and more than Venice’s €103. And the figures were averaged by CheapHotels.org over the last three summer months – the festival means prices will be considerably higher in August.

• You have been warned. Now that his Radio 1 breakfast show has come to an end Chris Moyles is embarking on a ‘comedy’ tour of the UK threatening lots of audience participation....

• Here’s a YouTube clip with a message for comedians
  :

• It’s really not like marketing people to steal an idea from comedians, is it? Shared car club Zipcar is offering an intimate comedy gig in one of their vehicles to someone who ‘likes’ them on Facebook. So that would be the same concept that Alfie Joey brought to the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe, when he did his daily show in a Ford Escort, then...

• Russell Howard has turned down Strictly Come Dancing – to his mother’s disappointment. ‘My mum was gutted, but there’s just no chance I was going to do it,’ he said. ‘I was flattered they asked, but I really, really can’t dance. I’m like a newborn pony. And it’d probably mean my career was in trouble if I did it. I’ll stick to the comedy.’

• Comic Patrick Monahan is doing the Great North Run on SUnday, and hoping to raise £1,000 for Zoe's Place, a baby hospice in Middlesbrough,during the half marathon. Here is his JustGiving page.

• Tweets of the week
  Twop Twips (@TwopTwips): FRENCH PAPARAZZI. Make money by aggressively invading the privacy of a British princess. What could possibly go wrong? (via (@wallaceme)
  Nick Motown (@NickMotown): Yet another drunken, six hour argument with The Waterboys about how one can only see a maximum of 50% of the moon at any given time
  Maria (@Twistedlilkitty): My vagina is like jokes about airplane food, no comedian will touch it because they assume else everyone has. Also it comes in a foil tray.

Published: 14 Sep 2012