WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• ‘I function at the highest level of my art form, and I smoke pot every day.’ US comic Ron White calling for a change to drug laws.

• Who’s aging best? In one episode of  Nineties comedy series Murder Most Horrid,  Joanna Scanlon and Dawn French plays sisters. In  Sue Perkins’ new sitcom Heading Out, French plays Scanlon’s mum.

• Jason Manford made front-page news about his sexting on the very day he recorded a pilot episode of ITV’s new panel show Good News, Bad News. He posted on Facebook: ‘That's the secret of comedy; timing!"

• We won’t dwell on Manford’s  misfortunes – dubbed a ‘cyber romp’ by The Sun – but were drawn to this quote from Stacey, 32C, who he contacted, anonymously initially on a sex-chat website, for revealing so much about a comedian’s personality: ‘He got turned on by wanting to know what TV I watched and what comedians I liked. I said, “Russell Howard and Jason Manford”.  He seemed really pleased by that.’

• When John Bishop was asked to tip some comic newcomers for the top for the comedy edition of GQ magazine, out next week, he namechecked Rob Rouse – who started comedy in 1998 – and Roger Monkhouse – who started in 1991. Bishop himself first took to the stage in 2000.

• Rufus Hound has promised to break 25 eggs using a mallet sellotaped to his penis if he raises £2,500 during Mark Watson’s ongoing 25-hour show for Comic Relief. He’s got about £500 so far. Donate here

• Both Jamie Carragher and Joe Hart have competed in the ongoing Chortle Student Comedy Award heats. Not a change of career for the Premiership stars, sadly, just some namesakes.

• The Londonist website has plotted a map of all the places in the capital used as sitcom settings. Have a look:
  
  View London sitcoms in a larger map

• Classic comedy book The Meaning Of Liff almost had a different name, co-writer John Lloyd has revealed. The QI creator penned the glossary of words that should exist, but don’t, with Douglas Adams and wanted to call it The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Dictionary … but Adams thought the Liff title might lure people into thinking it had something to do with Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, which was out the same year.

• ‘A new twitter feed has been set up to capture those moments when broadcasters slip into Alan Partridge mode. This week @AccidentalP caught TalkSport’s Mark Parry asking: ‘Is the M6 Toll - the M6 Expressway - the world's greatest motorway?..’ and the obligatory Richard Madeley: ‘Just heard a great new song on 't'radio. Thought 'who's this cool new artiste?' It was Petula Clark..’

• We here at Chortle were slightly baffled to receive some spam email this week from the Guangdong province of China saying: ‘Kindly see below Infaltable Helmet tunnel pictures, Use for advertising , sport , exhibition, show … What quantity on which item do you want to order?’ We didn’t see why we’d been targeted until we saw it was addressed not to us, but directly to a stand-up show, we had listed. The email began: ‘Dear Adam Hills: Inflatable’

• Tweets of the week
  Robin Flavell (@RobinFlavell): My Amazon delivery has finally arrived. That's a turn-up for the books.
  Bec Hill (@bechillcomedian): Before Chris Brown did a concert with them, they were just known as "The Peas".
  Tom Fox (@TomFoxTom): I don't seem to be able to picture the penultimate letter of the alphabet. I can't imagine why.

Published: 1 Mar 2013