WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• You might have thought female comedians were condescended to enough without needing to turn on themselves… but US humorist Alisha Gaddis is about to release a book entitled: Women's Comedic Monologues That Are Actually Funny. Nice.

• Paul Daniels says Have I Got News For You stole one of his jokes. Complaining about his gags being lost in the edit when he appeared on the show, he recalled a 'good gag about Bush and Blair ... having "wargasms"' that didn't make the cut. 'But one week later, my wargasm joke was in the show told by the presenter [Angus Deayton],' Daniels told comedy blogger John Fleming this week.

• In the light of Rolf Harris's conviction, you might have seen this prescient sketch from Not The Nine O'Clock News resurface. Aired in 1980, it shows young children being abducted and put in a BBC van bound for Harris's TV studio. Producer and co-writer Jonn Lloyd said: 'It makes the blood run cold to watch it now.' He adds that they knew nothing of the allegations against Harris at that time, and that the 'pathetically mild' gag was merely about drumming up an audience for a 'terrible Saturday show'.

• John Cleese has topped up his alimony fund by co-writing and appearing in a series of adverts for Australia’s BankWest:

• Meanwhile, Rich Fulcher is starring in Spinal-Tap-style ads for Greyhound Buses in the States:

• David Walliams met Prince Harry after a charity gig at the Royal Albert Hall in London this week – and invited him to a Peter Andre gig coming soon to the venue.

• Katt Williams’ whole life may be a car crash... and now he's bee involved in a real one, after his Rolls-Royce hit the back of a Honda on California's Pacific Coast Highway on Monday night. And on Tuesday, his security guard allegedly used a stun gun on a stranger who was kicking the comic's car. He was last in the news after being suspected of pulling a gun on a punter at the LA Comedy Store. There are a lot fewer reports of his pulling out an actual joke on anyone…

• It was used as a setting for Phoenix Nights – and now Blackpool's Lyndene Hotel has been caught in a bust worthy of the Peter Kay sitcom. Trading standards officers seized around 40 boxes of counterfeit vodka from the hotel and are now considering whether to prosecute. In the Channel 4 series the venue stood in for Le Ponderosa, run by Jim Bowen's character Frank Cartwright, which was selling non-brewery made beer.

• ‘Even the most demanding audience member doesn’t smear banana all over my legs or inexplicably punch me in the head.’ Lucy Porter on motherhood.

• A couple of weeks ago Bill Burr went on a rant about electronic dance music (or EDM for the initiated) during his Monday Morning Podcast, complaining how it was lazy yet bafflingly popular. At one point he sarcastically hummed a half-hearted tune and said that was enough to make a dance track. In response, DJ and producer Raffael De Luca did just that in around 40 minutes to prove how he agreed with Burr about 'how screwed up the EDM scene is and how little to no work needs to be done to make the songs'.

• Tweets of the week
Diversion (@Diversion50): A Toblerone makes a wonderful temporary bike stand for commuting mice.
ParkerBats (@ParkerBats): Sharon Stone has never been a blood donor.
Friz Frizzle(@FrizFrizzle): Take me down to the paradox city where the girls are pretty and the girls aren't pretty.

Published: 11 Jul 2014