WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• ‘Comedy is suddenly flooded with lots of blokes talking about their girlfriends and being very laddy. It can feel like other people are being squeezed out.’ Julian Clary.

• Prince Charles in racism row shocker! The Prince Of Wales apparently thinks all Scots are pissed by 5pm… at least according to an exchange with Glaswegian comedian Des Clarke. The stand-up told The Mirror of his first encounter with Charles: ‘It was so funny because I said I was from Glasgow and he said, “I know, I can tell by your accent.” And I said, “Are you OK with the Scottish accent?” He said. “Oh, yes, fantastic. Until you’ve had a couple of drink.… [So] I’ll make sure that I don’t speak to you after five o’clock.”’

• Patton Oswalt is to guest star on a future episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Agent Eric Koenig.

• Comic Paul Foot loves spiders, which caused an incident during one of his shows in Melbourne. When a huge arachnid appeared on the floor, the audience were too distracted to laugh… so after confirming it wasn't poisonous, he picked it up and threw it out so the show could continue. But what the audience didn’t know, Foot tells The Age newspaper, ‘was when I threw the spider, it went a bit wrong and it ended up going up my sleeve and for the rest of the show the spider was crawling up and down inside my shirt. The audience didn't know, so they didn't mind.’

• In the same interview, Foot reveals he was originally due to be in ITV2’s Plebs, but was dropped. Not that he names the sitcom, but it was one that was filmed in Bulgaria, based in ancient Rome and required him to wear a toga…

• Comics including Arj Barker and Carl Barron are taking part in an Australian ad campaign against battery-farmed eggs…

• As Australian forces were out searching for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, their sensitive compatriots at the TV channel 7mate on Tuesday thoughtfully aired an episode of Family Guy which centred on an air crash. Airport ’07. ‘As if the world wasn’t scary enough, it seems you can’t even get on a plane safely these days,’ said newsreader Tom Tucker as it showed several recreations of a plane crash. It’s all about timing…

• Really, Grove Theatre Dunstable? If you like Omid Djalili you might also like Jim Davidson?

• The nanny of Simon Cowell’s baby Eric is the mother of an American comedian called Syd Wilder, whose made a number of videos (usually showing a fair bit of flesh) for Funny or Die and YouTube:

• It was Tara Palmer-Tomkinson who tipped off the News Of The World that comedian Aaron Barschak stormed Prince William’s 21st birthday party dressed as Osama Bin Laden, the phone hacking trial heard this week. Apparently TPT was a regular source of stories for the now-defunct tabloid.

• Tweets of the week
Jason (@nickmotown): "I'm out of the office" - Mackenzie Crook's automated e-mail reply *and* the first line of his CV.
Bobs (@CiaranM87): Practice makes Perfect when you're shite at anagrams
Rob Gilroy(@RobGilroy): I’m not a fan of the new pound coin idea. But then, that's always been my problem: I don't like change.

Published: 21 Mar 2014