WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• ‘Sometimes things you’ve thought of as a joke seem to not become funny any more because they become what people are actually saying.’ Stewart Lee.

• Nick Frost has recalled the time six armed policeman raided his house while a sniper pointed a gun at his head. Speaking on tonight’s Graham Norton Show, the star of new movie Cuban Fury said he was the subject of the swoop after being given a decommissioned machine gun for his role in Spaced. ‘I was [playing] a weapons expert and had to strip a MP5 machine gun blindfolded, so they gave me one to take home,’ he said. ‘I’d done it a few times when I pulled off the blindfold and there were six armed policemen streaming in and screaming at me. A woman had seen the barrel of the gun sticking out of my bag and called the police. My voice went very high and I said, “I’m an actor!” I was told later that they had blocked the road off and had a sniper and if I had pointed the gun at them, they would have shot me…’

• In case you didn’t see this earlier in the week, here’s an article from The Spectator arguing that you can learn a lot about how dictatorships work by watching a mid-level stand-up do crowd work.

• As oddball comedian Chris Lubey, known for his Battle Of Britain impersonations, was laid to rest this week, juggler Steve Rawlings recalls one gig they shared together. ‘At the end of the night, I found him at the bar totally drunk doing his impersonation of the songs and chants of the Zulu army – as in the movie Zulu – when they attacked Rorke’s Drift, complete with spear and shield motions,’ he told Richard Pryor or Jerry Seinfeld or Billy Connolly or Tommy Cooper or Spike Milligan or Woody Allen or Les Dawson or Tony Hancock. Their entire list from which you can choose is Bill Hicks, Dylan Moran, Chris Rock, Dave Allen, Joan Rivers, George Carlin, Zach Galifinakis, Mitch Hedberg, Jimmy Carr or – probably oddest of the lot – Australian comic Fiona O’Loughlin. She’s good, but better than Richard Pryor?

• This heckler is so drunk, he was quite happy to be defaced by comic Seven Briggs:

• The creators and voices behind Spitting Image are to come face-to-face with some of the politicians they lampooned. Lord Roy Hattersley and Lord David Steel will be among the guests at an event to mark the 30th anniversary of the puppet satire later this month. They will share the stage of the BFI on London’s South Bank with performers and writers including Harry Enfield, Ian Hislop, Kate Robbins and Steve Nallon, who voiced Hattersley as well as Margaret Thatcher. The forthcoming BBC Four documentary Whatever Happened To Spitting Image? will also be screened as part of the February 27 event, followed by a Q&A with the show’s creators Peter Fluck and Roger Law, producer John Lloyd.

• Tweets of the week
Prof Bison Sexhorn (@Brainmage): Can I boycott the Winter Olympics out of principle but still watch the luge? It's a slippery slope.
Adam Hess (@adamhess1): It's so weird how zombies are fit enough to dig up through 6 feet of crushing soil but can't run.
James Martin (@Pundamentalism): Apparently "I used to know shorthand" is an 'inappropriate' way to say you were mates with Jeremy Beadle.

Published: 7 Feb 2014