‘Damaging vegetation without authority’

WTF: Weekly Trivia File

‘I spent most of my time at university so drunk I couldn’t remember my own name, but I can just about recall playing a monkey while wearing a policeman’s helmet.’ Greg Davies on his drama course.

At a round-table interview for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, last week one journalist asked Billy Connolly: ‘You're so funny, you make us laugh so much, have you ever considered stand-up comedy?’

Sarah Millican has, perhaps surprisingly, come out in favour of Page 3 girls – claiming the daily dose of nudity is a lot less damaging to women than the snide coverage of people’s appearances in other media. ‘It is celebrating women,’ she said. ‘As opposed to saying, “Oh my God, she went out without any make-up on, isn’t she disgusting.”’

The demise of Harry Hill’s TV Burp also means it’s the end of the line for Knitted Character. The only official supplier of the woollen cult figure has ended production, Hill’s fan site reports glumly.

A goat – and his comedian owner – have become unlikely celebrities in Australia, after they were fined almost £300 for ‘damaging vegetation without authority’. Stand-up Jimbo Bazoobi was pulled over by cops back in August after taking Gary The Goat through the streets of Sydney. The matter is going to court in the new year, but the case has attracted a storm of publicity, exacerbated by police superintendent Anthony Bell posting a po-faced Facebook message this week defending his officer’s actions. Bazoobi labelled the case a ‘ridiculous’ use of police resources, saying: ‘My goat wasn't damaging vegetation. He was simply taking the top off some grass plus some leaves off some bushes, next to some council workers with a lawn-mower and clippers who were doing the same thing.’ But acting Supt Bell, insists: ‘It's alleged that freshly planted flowers were destroyed by the goat,’ Meanwhile, Bazoobi is planning a protest march, with goat in tow, across the Harbour Bridge next Saturday. The now notorious Gary The Goat may also now star in a TV documentary, as British production house Brown Eyed Boy filmed him, his owner and UK comic Bob Slayer on tour through the Outback earlier this year.

According to press reports from Australia ‘reformed’ sex addict Russell Brand had his crew sift through the audience of his Perth show to find good-looking women to introduce him to. During the show he asked three to go back to his hotel room. Two said yes.

Paddy McGuinness is the celebrity more people would like to spend Christmas dinner with than anybody else, except for Stephen Fry, according to a truly depressing poll out today.

Chris Rock admits that having a wife and kids has changed his stand-up act – ‘but only in the best way’. He said: ‘It gives you weight and authority. It also makes you closer to the audience because the audience is married and has kids.’

You know the old cliche of defining a comic as like XXX ‘on acid’? Well, here’s what stand-up on acid really sounds like, according to intrepid Joshua Haddow, who dropped a tab before going on stage at an open mic night:

Hugh Grant has been banned from returning to The Daily Show, after host Jon Stewart said he was the most unpleasant of all the guests he’s interviewed ‘...and we’ve had dictators on the show’. Stewart said the actor – currently leading the Hacked Off campaign against dodgy newspaper practices – was very demanding, always complaining that he had other places to be. ‘He’s giving everyone shit the whole time, and he’s a big pain in the ass,’ Stewart told a fundraiser for the Montclair Film Festival in New Jersey.

Tweets of the week
Milton Jones (@ themiltonjones ): Missiles don't even sound very accurate
Sean Tejaratchi (@ShittingtonUK): So no Gremlin ever figured out it could simply piss on itself. I see.
Quintin Forbes (@QuintinForbes): Please tell me there's an all-female roofing company somewhere called All The Shingle Ladies.