'I stole Paul Whitehouse's ideas'

WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• 'There is no art of comedy,' Harry Enfield.

• Enfield also admits: 'I am basically famous because I stole lots of Paul Whitehouse's early ideas.' His comments come in a new video podcast. Great British Legends, which basically uses the Jerry Seinfeld/Robert Llewellyn idea of interviewing stars while driving – but with extra conversation about Vauxhall cars. Guess who financed it? Here's Enfield in conversation with GQ Editor Dylan Jones.

• Want to know how much Russell Peters earns for a gig? Well he received close to $500,000 from just one night at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in May 2012, it has been revealed. The figure was released during a legal dispute between promoters who staged the gig.

• Towie star Lauren Pope has revealed her weird crush on Ricky Gervais. The 33-year-old, erm, actress? (well, she played 'Beautiful Girl' in the 2007 football hooligan film Rise Of The Footsoldier) said: 'I find someone like Ricky Gervais quite sexy. I think older would be good for me. Older guys are more chilled and you don't get the games.'

• Mischievous bit of Wikipedia vandalism from comedian Yianni Agisilaou, who attacked the entry for the now-demolished Sydney Monorail for the purposes of his Simpsons-based show at the Adelaide Fringe. The comic altered the page to state that the track had been 'finally built in 1993 after a travelling grifter named Lyle Lanley convinced Sydneysiders of its specious benefits by lying to them via a catchy show tune.'

In the editing notes, Agisilaou, stated he had 'embiggened the accuracy of the page by adding some cromulent facts' – although editors didn't agree and took it down a few hours later. But this is not the first time the monorail has been mocked for its Springfield parallels. Here's the Australian satirical group A Rational Fear:

• Oh, and we're not done with Simpsons monorail trivia yet. A bunch of comedians have decided to act out a couple of episodes from the cartoon including - yes – Marge Vs. The Monorail, and You Only Move Twice. Those taking part in the special gig at the Camden Comedy Club on March 4 include Weirdos stalwarts such as Adam Larter, Matthew Highton, Joz Norris, Michael Brumstrom, Bec Hill, John Brittan and Laurence Owen.

• Democratic Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has a brother called Larry. Larry Sanders. No wonder he's based in Britain where the spoof chat show isn't so well known…

• Comic Andrew Lawrence is shedding no tears for the 100 or so staff losing their jobs with the closure of The Independent's print edition, announced today. 'Fuck off and good riddance to the Independent, and the lying, vindictive cunts who worked for it, may they never find another job.' he tweeted charitably. Needless to say the paper did not give a good review to his last show, dubbing it the 'turkey of the year'.

• Producers might have thought they'd landed a big name when Jason Manford signed up to play inventor Caractacus Potts in the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang stage show. But not everyone quite knows who he is, given the sign that greeted him on the door of his dressing room in Southampton, where the tour kicked off. As the comic revealed on Twitter, this is what they called him:

That's showbiz folks! pic.twitter.com/PaDMTSxoo6
— JasonManford (@JasonManford) February 10, 2016

z 'Being offended by comedy is one of the most arrogant things you can do. Because you are basically sitting in a room with anywhere between 50 and 400 other people watching a comedian, and making it about you.' Daniel Sloss