Stanhope skewers cut-and-paste journalism

WTF: Weekly Trivia File

•'I can't imagine anyone going to a John Oliver show is going to be a prick.' Celia Pacquola, who supported him in Australia.

• He's comedy's king of social media, but Russell Howard had admitted: 'I don't even use Twitter. I don't have access to my Twitter or Facebook account.' Instead, he told 6 Music's Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie that someone at his agent's office looks after the Twitter feeds (1.14million followers) and the Facebook page (3million likes)

• Here's a curio – a photograph from the 1982 World Cup finals in Spain showing one fan cutting his mate's hair in the England fans' campsite… That fan being one Bob Mortimer from Middlesbrough. Thanks to footy fan site Who Ate All The Pies for finding this.

View image | gettyimages.com

• Doug Stanhope is offering a subversive response to lazy journalism with some cut-and-paste mischief of his own. Fed up of being sent stock Q&As by newspapers without any thought, he's been replying with nonsense that's subsequently made its way into print. In an 'interview' with the Manchester Evening News, he answered emailed questions about his favourite hangouts by pasting in answers that DJ Krystal Klear gave in an interview to the Guardian earlier in the year, making the Arizona-based comedian seem remarkably clued up about the city's club culture. The newspaper had him gushing about Soup Kitchen having 'a great sound system' as 'it's been a location for all the me and you and Swing Ting parties. So many DJs say it's the best place they've played'. And he was quoted as saying of Manchester: 'On any night you could be listening to African music, jazz, funk and soul 45s or in the midst of a massive rave like the Warehouse Project…' As well as the cut-and-paste job, Stanhope fabricated further nonsense about hanging out with the Man Utd players when they visited Chicago, which the newspaper used as the basis for their article. Stanhope further made his point in answers to London Evening Standard reviewer Bruce Dessau's standard questions for his Beyond The Joke blog, which made no secret of his contempt for the laziness of the format. He answered Dessau's 'What is the last thing you do before you go onstage?' with 'It's off-putting that this Rarely Asked Interview series is always the same questions. It feels like instead of an interview, they've just handed you a form to fill out. Like it might not even get read. You may as well just give me a page and say "write whatever you want here." It feels very lonely.' An in response to Dessau's 'What irritates you?' question he replied: 'You could have made it even less personal by making it multiple choice. That would be more expedient. Or maybe I could just put 5 answers to arbitrary questions on my website and send you a link.' The answers were published without comment…

• 'I once saw a duck sneeze' Jason Byrne

• Is Russell Kane finally getting in on the jokes about his age? The comic's 2016 tour is called 'Right Man, Wrong Age' – with blurb that includes the line 'Are you 40, but tragically faking 25?' Earlier this year, the tabloids reported that Kane was nearly 40, rather than the 35 he claimed – and the mystery of his real age has long been a running joke in Jonathan Ross's monologues at the British Comedy Awards. What next? The 'date of birth' part of his Wikipedia page getting filled in without being redacted?

• Michael McIntyre has won a planning battle to extend his £5.6million home in Hampstead, North London, despite the local conservation society branding his proposals 'crude and destructive'. He'll now be allowed to enclose the first floor terrace to increase the size of his study, then put a new terrace on its roof.

• A New York bar has opened, themed entirely around Will Ferrell. Stay Classy New York opened in the city's Lower East Side earlier this month, offering cocktails based on his utterances such as Milk Was A Bad Choice, Great Odin's Raven, Smelly Pirate Hooker and, of course, A Whale's Vagina. Co-owner Zach Neil told People magazine: 'In business, there's always a chance that you lose your money and fail, so we said we might as well do something that we think is funny… that way if we lose we can still laugh about it.'

We are open Monday -Saturday from 4pm and starting November 12pm! #stayclassybar #stayclassynyc

A photo posted by Stay Classy New York (@stayclassybar) on Oct 11, 2015 at 12:26pm PDT

• Telly trade magazine Broadcast asked BBC comedy commissioning editor Chris Sussman for his most hilarious faux pas. 'When I met actress Miranda Raison,' he said. 'I was so blown away by how beautiful she was that I stood up and said, "Hello, I'm Miranda."'

• Dawn French says she found working alone on stage after decades with Jennifer Saunders took some adjustment. 'It was very odd to begin with,' she tells Graham Norton on his BBC One show tonight. 'I really missed Jennifer. I even had to be told to stand in the middle of the stage because I was still making room for her.'

• Singer Lorde says she wanted to be a comedian as a child. In an online interview she said: 'I actually found an old scrapbook from when I was maybe seven or eight that said "future job" and I had written "COMEDIAN???????????" which is so mental. I'm not even funny… Who did I think I was? Bloody Any Schumer or some shit?'