WTF: Weekly Trivia File

•'Dapper Laughs claiming that he is satirising moronic sexist men is like Rangers claiming that they're satirising badly run football clubs.' A tweet from Oldfirmfacts this week.

• Omid Djalili says that when filming Gladiator he demanded that Ridley Scott give his slave dealer character a name – because he had got so frustrated with playing anonymous bit parts. 'I did eight parts and never had a name,' he told the Chortle Comedy Book Festival this week. 'In Dressing For Breakfast I was "Turkish Man"; in Notting Hill I was "Cashier Number 2"; and in Dead Man Running I was "Bald Fat Twat". So I asked Ridley Scott if I could have a name, and he said no.' Eventually the director said Djalili could give himself a name if he wanted, so he claimed to be an ancient Roman slave trader called Simon.

• Has Jason Manford got the most incontinent fans in comedy? Pranksters have filled the Amazon page for his new DVD First World Problems with 'shitty' reviews saying the gig was so good 'we literally pooed ourselves' and variations. Mr OD Rowe was typical, saying: 'Don't get me wrong, this DVD and live show was brilliant. The 1 Star review is only because there was no warning on the box... we watched this and laughed so hard we s**t ourselves... Unfortunately I was commando, and in shorts, and wearing sandals so had no socks on either. Epic disastor.'[sic]

• This is an interesting experiment. A Chicago comic has set up a gig where the stand-ups cannot see or hear their audience – beaming in their set from a soundproof room next door. 'it was way more strange than I would've expected,' Ian Abramson told DNA Info 'Somebody could be yelling something out. Nobody could be paying attention. Everybody could've reasonably just groaned at something I'm saying. There is a response, but I don't know what it is. It's kind of an out-of-body experience. It feels like you're bombing, and you just kind of hope you're not.'
Here's how it went:
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• Just in case you haven't seen it yet, Aardman Animations response to the Kim Kardashian pictures is priceless…

• Bob Dylan once signed up to appear in a slapstick comedy show for HBO – but suddenly lost interest in the idea. He planned to work with Seinfeld and Borat director Larry Charles back in the Nineties – and got a green light from the broadcaster, thanks to an exec who had hoped to see him at Woodstock. But speaking on Pete Holmes' You Made It Weird podcast this week, Charles revealed that Dylan backed out, suddenly saying the show was too corny.

• Ben Miller got to stay in a lavish five-star hotel at the Cannes Film Festival one year – after staff mistook his name for Ben Stiller's. He stayed for three days, and when Stiller eventually turned up, the hotel was too embarrassed to throw Miller. The comic tells the story on Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled, which is currently filming its second series for Dave.

• Jack Whitehall did a day's work experience at a branch of B&Q in aid of Children in Need.

• The word 'pussy' will no longer be censored from Comedy Central shows in the states, thanks to a campaign by Inside Amy Schumer's executive producer Dan Powell. The team behind the show told the New York Comedy Festival how they appealed to network executives that it was unfair that 'dick' was allowed, but not 'pussy' – and they backed down. Here is the historic moment that the ban was lifted:

• Al Murray is to receive an Honorary Doctor of Arts from the University of Bedfordshire next Wednesday. Meanwhile, this tweet speaks for itself:

@almurray Al I just found the best cosplay at Cardiff Comic Con! pic.twitter.com/pc0xVziOZf

— Amy Blackburn (@amy_blackburn) November 9, 2014

• Jerry Sadowitz has challenged Dynamo to a magic showdown with his friend and support act Caspar Thomas, who he's reduced Dyno-Rod. In a tongue-in-cheek YouTube vide he challenged the street illusionist to show up at London's O2 – not the arena but the shopping centre in Finchley Road – on December 1 at 7.30pm to perform one card trick, one coin trick and one illusion. 'If you don't show up, Dynamo, that is a public admission of failure,' Sadowitz said:

• 'Unfortunately, with regret, we have had to disqualify the people's first choice,' Dunfermline nightclub Lourenzos wrote on its Facebook page after a scandal hit its Halloween fancy-dress competition. The venue had posted pictures from the night online and invited its customers to vote for their favourite costume. When polls closed, James Jack and Kieran Pierce were the runaway winners, after dressing up as the mischievous pensioners Jack and Victor from Still Game. Their prize? Free passes to the venue for a year. However the club had to make a swift about-turn after discovering that Pierce had previously been banned – but had managed to use his costume to sneak in past the bouncers. And what's more the pair were thrown out of the fancy-dress party itself for 'adverse behaviour'.

• Tweets of the week
Josh Howie (joshxhowie): Accidentally deleted my playlist of mid-90's East Coast hip hop. No Biggie
Barry Arif (@BarryArif): Trainee mathematician wanted: knowledge of the symbol used to indicate addition would be a plus.
Twitflup (@Twitflup): Dog walkers. Worst flavour crisp ever.

• And for one time only (probably), a particularly apt Vine Of The Week from Darren Walsh:

Published: 14 Nov 2014