• ‘When I do comedy, I don't care about the rules of society; if you tell me I shouldn't say such-and-such, it'll be in my first sentence.’ Billy Connolly

• On Curb Your Enthusiasm, he portrays himself as a petty, petty man obsessed with scoring small victories – but it’s not the real Larry David, of course… In real life, when his wife, the prominent environmental activist Laurie David, filed to divorce him last year, he obviously reacted with maturity. The first thing he did when she left was to go around the whole house turning on all the lights.

• A bear in a Chinese animal sanctuary – rescued from a life of being kept in a tiny cage and milked for its bile that’s used in traditional medicine – has been named Spikey, after Dave Spikey.

• German stand-up Henning Wehn will be ‘celebrating’ Hitler’s birthday on April 20 – by performing at a theatre called The Churchill.

• Adrian Edmondson: ‘I used to be an arrogant twat.’

• And, as per, it’s Mr R Brand who helps fill this round-up – especially in a gossip-starved four-day week. Some people complain of the trappings of fame – but not our Russell – who has discovered he takes being ignored by the press, as he was on a recent trip to California. ‘Nobody recognises me in Los Angeles,’ he moaned. ‘I walk down a street and no-one bats an eyelid or even takes my photograph. I'm not in any newspapers, no one cares who I'm sleeping with or what I do. And you know what? I flippin' hate it. Women don't drop at my feet - in fact my feet are totally unencumbered by ladies.’

• Russell is Britain’s second-best person to share a car with after Jonathan Ross, according a survey of anyone too dumb or lonely not to slam the phone down as soon as they were asked such a numbingly inane question. Alistair Darling is the least favourite, these PR geniuses declared. Really? Worse than, say, Ian Huntley…?

• Finally, two video clips of our Russ from his LA jaunt that we should file under W – for WTF?
  
  
  
  

SOURCES: InsideBayArea.com, Popbitch, Halifax Evening Courier, The Times, Daily Star, Crash.net, BBC