Earn yourself ‘get out of Hell free’ card

WTF: Weekly Trivia File

Micky Flanagan says there’s a drawback of being famous: he’s had to stop shoplifting. ‘You can’t nick things any more,’ he said. These are the problems of being successful. Apparently crime and success don't go hand in hand.’ Someone tell his namesake Helen...

Oh, the irony! Ralph Jones this week wrote a Chortle Correspondents article berating culutral commentator Mark Lawson for misquoting the great lines Eddie Braben wrote for Morcambe and Wise, such as the classic Andre Previn sketch. But what he himself got wrong (and we also failed to pick up) was that Braben didn’t even write the ‘all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order’ line. The scene was based on a sketch Sid Green and Dick Hills originally wrote for the duo in the Sixties, and their script first included the timeless line.Click here to listen to the original.

Eddie Izzard has revealed how he overcame his fear of flying – by getting a pilot’s licence. ‘I could actually take the bloody thing down if necessary,’ he says. ‘It’s fear management, you see.’

The ‘Andy Kaufman faked his death’ stories have been revived, thanks to a video purporting to show him alive and well in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The comic died from cancer in May 1984, there’s a death certificate and most of his friends believe he would never have subjected his family to unnecessary. But fans take at face value the master prankster’s claims that he always wanted to fake his own death. What has been released now is a few seconds of grainy footage, interspersed with several minutes of TV and film clips, with little explanation. It has been posted on a website registered to Stephen Maddox of Indiana, who claims to be Kaufman’s son. Make of this what you will...

Alan Carr is going to be the godfather for Adele’s son Angelo James. According to The Sun, ‘she went with the chat-show host as he’s been spending most of his spare time with her family’.

London 2012 may have gone, but the Olympic spirit lives on! Macclesfield’s own Mr Methane – known to the Inland Revenue as Paul Oldfield – is representing Britain at the World Farting Championships in Utajärvi, Finland, in July.

Doug Stanhope is leading a campaign to raise $50,000 for one of the victims of the Oklahoma tornado – because she is a fellow atheist. Rebecca Vitsmun became something of a heroine when she pointed out her beliefs on CNN, after presenter Wolf Blitzer said to her ‘You have to thank the Lord’ for saving her from the disaster. The crowdfunding page Stanhope set up in her honour has already topped $10,000, with the comic promising such benefits as a phone call from God, a ‘get out of Hell free’ card and The Holy Grail (dishwasher safe) to those who donate. Here is Vitsmun’s clip:

Tweets of the week
Daniel Maier (@Danielmaier): Yoda reckons he's friends with Eddie Large's comedy partner. Little does he know
Stewart Darkin (@stewartdarkin): What about his Blue Peter gun? RT @TelegraphNews: Richard Bacon had to hand back his Blue Peter badge after being fired for taking drugs.
Benedict Farse (@Benedict Farse): I've been bitten by a radioactive Welshman and now have super Powys.