WTF: Weekly Trivia File

•'I could give up and just do costumes for other TV shows. It's what my dream has been all along.' Noel Fielding.

•Anyone notice that Andrew Neill's opening rant about Islamic State on This Week last night bore a similarity to John Oliver's opening to Last Week Tonight on Sunday? Being an HBO show, few in the UK might have seen the original, but Jenny Eclair certainly did, and tweeted to Neill: 'This is a rip of the vastly superior John Oliver rant - sack your second hand script writers.' And when one blogger challenged her, saying it didn't matter, she hit back: 'The fact is he is taking credit for a second hand rant and as a writer I find it puke making - although I agree with sentiment'. Here is Neil:

A message for the Paris attackers from @afneil as he opens the show… #bbctw https://t.co/dYNQHQ3yGl

— BBC This Week (@bbcthisweek) November 19, 2015

•Michael McIntyre was so out of shape on his last tour that sound engineers had to put his voice through an 'unfitness dub' to remove all his puffing and panting that was being picked up by his headset microphone.

•Stan Boardman is hunting his dad's war medal after it was blown away in Storm Barney. The Royal Artillery service medal was one of nine attached to a board, which flew away in the gales. The comic had put it on top of his car as he opened the boot, and it flew off. By pure coincidence, the comedian is currently promoting a new play called Medals, about war memorabilia, in Liverpool.

• Terry Mynott, the star of Channel 4 comedy The Mimic, helped tackle a 'nutter' who caused a bomb scare on the Tube yesterday. The comic was one of several passengers who confronted the man, who had a metal object strapped to his chest, and stopped the train by pulling the emergency handle at Bounds Green, North London. Mynott tweeted: 'Helped with a nutter on the tube, Bounds Green tube.He started scaring ppl being violent. 2 other guys joined in. Bless. Must stick together.' Among those on the carriage was X Factor contestant Monica Michael, who said: 'He had crazy eyes and this metal thing, like a silver hard drive. I was just like, 'Oh my God, this is the end'." Mynott's Radio 2 comedy, The King's Men, which he wrote with Father Ted co-creator Arthur Mathews, was pulled from the schedules this week because 'the content and tone are not appropriate at this time in the wake of the Paris attacks'.

•What does the future hold for the British Comedy Awards? Let's have a look at their website to find out…

Oh….

•Vic Reeves says he wants to star in Coronation Street – as the son of The Kabin shop co-owner Norris Cole. 'For me it's the greatest TV,' he said of the soap. 'I would love to be on Corrie. It would make my life complete.'

•Jack Whitehall hailed Prince Harry as the 'King of banter' while hosting the Royal Variety Performance in front of the 30-year-old Royal this week. But the comic was also keen to stress 'you've served your country with distinction in the British Army', so he'll probably be spared The Tower.

•Steve Martin has slashed the price of his Caribbean island house. His four-bedroomed mansion on St Barts has been on the market since 2013, when it was priced $11.24million, but is now on sale for a 'bargain' $7.78 million. Take a snoop inside – and at the spectacular views – here.

•Rhod Gilbert will try his hand at being a ghostbuster – or 'paranormal investigator' to be precise – in the next series of his BBC Two show Rhod Gilbert's Work Experience.

Tweets of the week

I once dated an apostrophe. Too possessive.

— Aparna Nancherla (@aparnapkin) November 12, 2015

Do copies of the Karma Sutra have flexible spines?

— Ian Power (@IHPower) November 19, 2015

I told Michael Caine that I had given oral sex to the whole of Middle Earth. He said "you're only supposed to blow the bloody dwarfs off"

— Darren Walsh (@DarrenWalshPuns) November 16, 2015

Published: 20 Nov 2015