WTF: Weekly Trivia File

WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• Charlie Brooker has hit back after a Twitter user branded Weekly Wipe 'lazy' because last night's episode was a compilation show. Brooker tweeted back sarcastically: 'We chiefly do the comp for the positive viewer feedback.' Then added that the new material in the show was a bonus: 'We do 5 regular eps then a comp ep because that's what we're commissioned to do, btw. So the 'new' stuff is on the house. THAT'S MY SPIN.'

• The target of BBC Four's new mockumentary The Life of Rock with Brian Pern is thinly disguised… but it seems he doesn't mind too much. Many of the laughs are at my expense,' Peter Gabriel posted after the first episode aired this week. 'But it also had me laughing a lot. I think you will enjoy it'

• Boothby Graffoe is currently touring a show about luck… but he's not having much of it. The musical comic is appealing for the return of The Wheel Of Almost Certain Misfortune, a vital prop in his show Scratch about scratchcard culture. It went missing after his show at The Stand in Edinburgh on Wednesday night. Described as 'purposely shit and worth nothing', the prop is nevertheless crucial to the show. Nearby workmen told him that a couple of 'student types' saw the Wheel and made off with it. Graffoe is offering a scratchcard reward to anyone who can reunite him with his lost property, with The Stand throwing in a couple of tickets to an upcoming show.

• Mystic Ricky has done it again… with another scene from Extras coming true. In one scene from Mr Gervais's 2005 comedy, Ashley Jensen's character Maggie mistook Samuel L Jackson for Laurence Fishburne. And this week US news anchor did exactly the same when, in an interview to promote Robocop, he asked Jackson about his Superbowl commercial… which actually starred Fishburn. 'We don't all look alike,' Jackson exclaimed. Extras has previously predicted thatKate Winslet would get an Oscar for a Holocaust movie, and Lionel Blair would wind up in the Celeberity Big Brother house.

• When stand-up turns nasty (again):

• It's the one conspiracy theory that even ultra-right-wing commentator Alex Jones doesn't believe. That he is actually Bill Hicks in disguise. The radio host – who believes the Moon landings were faked – has been 'outed' on the internet as being the comic, who did not actually die of pancreatic cancer 20 years ago this month. The pair have some physical similarities, but other 'proof' claims that Hicks's best friend and producer Kevin Booth is now Jones's friend and producer; both have links with Austin, Texas; and that Jones has 'no verifiable history' before Hicks's 1994 death. Here's a video where Jones talks about the claims:

• 'The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, he was a genius.' Sid Caesar.

• Tweets of the week
JRehling (@JRehling ): If you look in the background of the Olympic Opening Ceremony you can see Sarah Palin watching it from her house.
Jason (@NickMotown): It's Valentine's Day and I've just finished leafing through my psychiatrist's notes. So.. y'know.. neuroses are read.
Adam Hess (@ AdamHess ): If I was ever sentenced to death by lethal injection, I'd ask for my last meal to be the antidote.

Published: 14 Feb 2014