WTF: Weekly Trivia File

WTF: Weekly Trivia file.

• 'I think I'm more monkey than Nina' Nina Conti.

• Following the fallout over Harry Shearer leaving The Simpsons, the Independent yesterday ran an opinion column by Mollie Goodfellow complaining that 'The Simpsons has been dying for a long time' and reporting that: 'Show creator Matt Groening… said in 2013 that he should have "ended it all years ago". He told KBBL-TV: "I don't know why Fox keeps renewing it. The jokes aren't good, the storylines are a mess and episodes are forgettable", and he's completely right.' Only a simple Google will reveal that KBBL-TV is the fictional station in The Simpsons and that she was quoting a hoax article. Groening said no such thing to anyone. Not even Kent Brockman.

• American comic Forest Thomer has been getting some publicity for his new ebook in a none-too subtle way: Driving around Cincinnati in a converted police cruiser with rather aggressive decals, in which is rather hopefully described as an 'art project':

My car has paparazzi. This is a thing. #MOTHERFUCKER pic.twitter.com/xa0WPfthea

— Forest T-Rex Thomer (@humanpuppet) May 8, 2015

Thomer – who previously ran in to trouble by promoting a disabled comic at his comedy nights by inviting would-be punters to 'laugh at the crippled girl' – has been questioned by police over the car, and while they acknowledged his First Amendment rights to say it, asked simply: 'Why?'

• Michael McIntyre is on the Graham Norton Show tonight – talking about how he's lost weight. He said that before he shed the pounds 'I was very unfit and kept hurting myself. I actually pulled a muscle in my back reaching for food in the fridge – and I finished the food before calling [my wife] for help.'

• American stand-up Moshe Kasher has set up a Go Fund Me page to pay his rent – not because he needs it, just because… well, he'd just rather not pay. Highlighting the self-serving nature of many crowdfunding projects, he posted: 'I in no way need this money and am in a very stable place financially. In fact, from an economic perspective, I have never been doing better…. Rent is never a slight problem for me to afford. BUT it is a HUGE inconvenience. I like my money and I want to keep it. I want to keep it very much.If you can give anything, even as little as just one to seven hundred dollars, it would go a long way towards me being able to not spend even ONE DOLLAR on my own personal expenses.'

• Tory MP in 'doesn't understand jokes' shock. In the wake of the election that defied opinion poll predictions, David Schneider tweeted: 'Latest YouGov poll finds 63% of people still trust opinion polls as opposed to 59% who don't.' While most people saw it as a joke on the unreliability of the polls (and the fact the figures added up to 122 per cent might have been a clue), Richard Graham, who has just been re-elected as MP for Gloucester tweeted back in all seriousness: 'Why would anyone believe such an obviously self serving finding after the evidence of the election?' Dur. No wonder it was picked up by the Twitter feed @YesThatsTheJoke.

• Last week we reported – courtesy of Malcolm Hardee's ghost-writer John Fleming – how the alternative comedy godfather stood for election in Greenwich. Now Mike Croft, who was at the count, recalls via Facebook, 'the frantic couple of minutes before the cameras went live to the nation for the count, when Jane (Malcolm's wife) spotted that he had stripped naked and was lurking in the wings to take his butt nekkid place on the grand staircase of the Town Hall as the nation watched. We wrestled him to the ground and into his clothes JUST in time.'

• You should probably watch this video of Jenny Eclair. Why? Because for every play, nPower will donate £1 to Macmillan Cancer Support:

• A 92-year-old pensioner got a shock when she started reading Spike Milligan's biography… and saw a 60-year-old picture of herself in its pages. Joan Kidby, from Hove, was inadvertently captured in the background of a picture of Spike and Eric Sykes in Uxbridge Road in Shepherds Bush, West London, where they had an office, in 1955. She told the Brighton Argus she was surprised to see the picture in a book by Milligan's former manager Norma Farnes: 'I was a fan of Spike back then but I can't remember recognising him there on the road. It is a nice surprise after all these years to see the picture.'I was aghast to see myself. I have even more reason to treasure the book now."

• The hideous statue of Lucille Ball is to be removed from public view after six years of being mocked for its 'zombie eyes and deranged grin'. The 'scary' bronze will be taken from a park in her hometown of Celoron, New York, and placed in the National Comedy Centre in nearby Jamestown when it opens next year. The chairman of the attraction – which will also host 'virtual' gigs of dead comedians performing as holograms – is Tom Benson, who said: 'We are excited to embrace the statue in a different light; not as likeness of Lucille Ball, but as a tribute to what she was all about — making people laugh.'

• He's been to some of the poorest, most desolate places in the world… and now Michael Palin is going to Middlesbrough. The Python-turned traveller revealed that he'd never been to the Teesside town when he was asked which corners of the globe he'd never been to on Radio 4's Today programme in December – so now he's added a date as part of his next book tour, appearing at the town hall in September.

• An American comic called Jason Frey has been busted for a scam in getting bookings. He used a string of websites to advertise established comedians as being available for gigs – without their permission. When a client booked them, the comics would always 'cancel' at the last minute to be replaced by a much cheaper, less experienced act – with Frey pocketing the difference – or Frey himself. Here's the TV news report exposing him:

• Tweets Of The Week

Bilbo Baggins was admitted to the wrong part of Middle Earth Hospital for his hernia operation. Orc ward.

— Ian Power (@IHPower) May 13, 2015

LIFEHACK: refer to household tips, recipes and good ideas as "lifehacks" so no one thinks your some kind of woman or old person.

— ~ (@daniel_barker) May 14, 2015

Ladies bailing out of an aircraft in flight, don't worry whether it makes your bum look too big. Chute first - arse questions later. #1PUN

— Rob M (@_Bankrobber_) May 11, 2015

Published: 15 May 2015