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Different class | WTF: Weekly trivia file

Different class

WTF: Weekly trivia file

• 'I am quite the Casanova.' Irish comedian Al Porter.

• Seinfeld has helped Donald Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon make his fortune. The far-right-winger used to be an investment banker, who help sell Seinfeld producers Castle Rock Entertainment to media mogul Ted Turner. Bannon waived some of his fee in exchange for partial ownership of a cache of TV shows… including Seinfeld. At the time it was in its third season and yet to become a mega-hit. Fast forward to now and the show is estimated to have generated at least $3.1 billion in syndicated reruns. So every percentage point Bannon has in the show is worth $31 million on syndication. Not that profiting from a show created by New York Jews stopped Bannon from spreading what's often been dubbed anti-Semitism through his website Breitbart.

• Maybe if you're calling your website 'international excellence' you should be able to spell 'comedian'?

• Brit Award nominee Rag N Bone Man – who was today shortlisted for the critics' choice award – chose his stage name because he's a fan of Steptoe and Son. He's really called Rory Graham.

• Computer scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are using videos of The Office to teach artificial intelligence systems how to predict human interactions such as hugging, kissing, shaking hands, or giving a high five.

• Bill Bailey says he loves cycling around London… though it's not without its problems. He recalls once ending up 'smeared down the side of a black cab at Hyde Park Corner, causing great alarm to the commuters within.' He sensed the passengers recognised him, too, with one asking: 'Wasn't that whatsisname..?', the other replying: 'Can't tell. His face is too squishy'.

• American stand-up Shawn Wickens is to stay awake for a full 24 hours before his show: Insomniact in New York later this month. He admits he doesn't function well without sleep so the gig at The PIT Loft 'might be the grumpiest performance I ever give'.

• They might seem like they are worlds apart, but sarf London geezer Rob Beckett and the archly well-spoken Tom Allen went to the same school. Speaking on 8 Out Of 10 Cats this week, Allen pointed out that Beckett, who at 30 three years younger than him, 'was in a different class to me … socially.' In response, Beckett recalled that Allen 'used to dress up like a Victorian in 6th Form, walking around in top hat and tails' – to which Allen joked: 'I thought it would put people off the scent of me being gay.' Allen asked Beckett - who are both pictured above – if he thought it had been a rough school, getting the reply: 'It's not a rough school for south-east London'.

• Meanwhile, Tom Allen became a trending topic on Twitter last night, after he was announced as coach of Indiana University's American football team. We'd like to believe that it's not a namesake...

• Los Angeles is getting a Will Ferrell themed bar. The Stay Classy Bar, named after Ron Burgundy's sign-off, is opening on Monday as a ten-night pop-up. It's a spin-off from the bar that opened in New York s Lower East Side last year and serves drinks with references to Ferrell's career, including the Mugatu Mule, the You're My Boy Blue, the Great Odin's Raven, and the Milk Was a Bad Choice.

• A bit of a snafu on the electronic programme guide for comic Des Bishop's latest RTE show...

• Alan Carr had to go to the dentist yesterday to fix a chipped tooth. He joked: 'I knew my teeth were big but seriously it's like someone's taken a pickaxe to a urinal.'

• Eddie Murphy missed was almost in the Star Trek IV film, The Voyage Home – but was axed because movie bosses didn't like his storyline. Scriptwriter Steve Meerson said there was a role for the Murphy, who in 1986 was 'arguably the biggest star in the world' as an astrophysicist – but the part never worked.

• This YouTuber is no doubt hoping no one's ever seen Big Train before:

• News Quiz host Miles Jupp has just taken delivery of a TV – having been without one for eight years. 'It's all slightly baffling,' he said: 'It's the equivalent of going on a yoga retreat and in the intervening time the industrial revolution has happened. "What's going on? I don't know how to use a loom…"'

Tweets of the week

Published: 2 Dec 2016

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