The week's trivia round-up

• Matt Lucas bought fiance Kevin McGee a full-size Tardis for his boyfriend Kevin McGee’s birthday

• Russell Brand’s market trader dad hired a prostitute for him when he was 16 – and got another two for himself while he was at it. Brand recalls the occasion – which was only the second time he had sex - saying: ‘My dad is there in the room with two. The one I was with, a little Filipina girl, I was all in love with. I had timid, awkward sex, then she said, “I must go now because if I no go, I fall in love”. My dad shouted from the next bed, “Oh, fucking hell, I'm gonna be sick.’

• Joe Pasquale has a pilot’s licence.

• Borat has been blamed for a lot of things – now the break-up of Pamela Anderson’s marriage can be added to the list. He role in the film is fairly innocuous compared to – oh, I don’t know, say an infamous sex video released on the net – but it enraged hubby Kid Rock nonetheless. He saw the movie at a private screening and, according to one friend, ‘started screaming at Pam, saying she had humiliated herself and telling her, “You're nothing but a whore! You're a slut! How could you do that movie?” - in front of everyone. It was very embarrassing.’ The marriage, apparently, was never the same since.

• As a student Dara O’Briain spent a summer in America sleeping on mattresses he and his pals stole from skips.

• Stand-up Andrew Lawrence reckons losing out on the If.comeddie best newcomer to Josie Long was a fix. ‘The fact that a girl won it instead of me just smacks of the rank tendency towards positive discrimination that has blighted the comedy industry for far too long,’ he said. ‘I wish I was a Polish, mute hermaphrodite, in a wheelchair, with no jokes, in a show where I just throw shoes at people. Then I’d be a serious contender.’

• Fellow award nominee Reginald D Hunter once played Long John Silver in a panto.

• Overheard in a restaurant near BBC Broadcasting House: 'I'm sick of Russell Brand; he's everywhere.’

SOURCES: Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs , The People, The Independent, New York Post, Sunday Times (Ireland), Time Out, This is London, Chortle, IMDB

Published: 1 Dec 2006