‘How much per bollock?’

WTF: Weekly Trivia File

  • ‘I don’t get nervous, I just have creative apprehension,’ Barry Cryer.

  • Fans of Stewart Lee and Richard Herring’s Fist Of Fun might be excited to hear the second series is coming out on DVD soon… but why wait? There’s a book on Amazon all about the series. At £29, it’s not cheap, but a real fan would surely still want it anyway. And it has three editors listed so it must be pretty comprehensive, right? Even at 96 pages? But read the small print and it doesn’t seem to be quite such an essential read: ‘The content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.’ £29 doesn’t seem quite such a deal any more... Amazon link

  • The Chuckle Brothers are to take part in a celebrity version on Pointless on April 7.

  • Russell Brand handed over $600 to a homeless man in Los Angeles this week. He reportedly struck up a conversation with the guy on Hollywood Boulevard, then gone to a cashpoint and handed over the windfall, saying: ‘Spend it wisely...’ The generous gesture is said to have reduced the recipient to tears.

  • This is... something:

  • James Corden has lost 5 stone, but admits: ‘I'm still huge.’

  • Wayne Rooney apparently wants to be a stand-up. ‘Wayne's a regular at comedy nights in Liverpool and Manchester,' a source told the Daily Star. 'He's always been a funny guy and has said before he'd love to be a comedian.’ But apparently he gets crippled by nerves speaking in front of a crowd, let alone telling them jokes.

  • Whenever the late Malcolm Hardee used to get calls asking the Greatest Show On Legs to do their naked balloon dance on TV, he’d negotiate a fee with producers by asking: ‘How much per bollock?’

  • Irish musical duo The Rubberbandits, famous for performing with plastic-bag masks covering their faces, are surely the only comedy act to have won a Chortle Award and be mentioned in a crime report in the same week. Pupils at a primary school in Ennis, Co Clare, were terrified when a man was chased through the grounds by a group of people wielding a machete and a hockey stick. Describing the incident, one parent said: ‘One fella had a plastic bag over his head like those two lads on telly.’

  • David Walliams admits he has been ‘flirting’ with Simon Cowell since joining the Britain’s Got Talent judging panel, adding: ‘I even did a lap dance for him.’

  • Tweets of the week:
    Miles Orru (@milesorru): I've discovered a new way to measure a horse. Look, no hands!
    Liam Mullone (@mullone): 42 today. To mark a life of resentment and swearing I would like my tombstone to say 'What the fuck are you looking at you smug alive cunt?'
    Ian Power (@IHPower): I've just seen the Chubby Checker story. There's a fantastic twist at the end.

SOURCES: Yorkshire Evening Post, Chortle, Chortle, Daily Star, YouTube Vogue, Daily Star, blog.thejohnfleming.com, Irish Times, Dialy Telegraph, Twitter

Published: 23 Mar 2012

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