'The bastard looks nothing like me...'

WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• ‘I’m not even the funniest in our house. I don’t know how it works but I’m just hanging on for as long as I can.’ John Bishop on his comedy career.

• Talk about a backhanded compliment. At the UKTV Live event this week, Red Dwarf writer and director Doug Naylor recalled shooting the new series at the disused Fawley Power Station near Southampton, which has also been used as a location for several blockbuster movies. While discussing all the other productions that had visited, one worker told Naylor: ‘What strikes me is that the more you go down the food chain people the nicer people are. And you are the nicest people I have every met…’

• A great story courtesy of Craig Brown from this week’s Museum Of Curiosity on Radio 4. Before she found fame as a comedian, Kate Robbins played a cleaner in the soap opera Crossroads. In one scene, Noel Gordon, who played motel owner Meg Mortimer was on the phone behind the reception desk as Kate was hoovering in front with a very noisy vacuum cleaner, causing Gordon to shout to be heard. The director, who hated stopping recordings, came down and basted: ‘What the hell are you doing with that hoover?’ And she said: ‘It’s in the script – I hoover round the desk.’ He stormed: ‘Show me that script!’ He looked it and said: ‘That’s a misprint. It should say hovering’.

• Comic Paul Chowdhry was inundated with messages after Crimewatch, featured an e-fit of a terror suspect wanted for questioning after the attempted kidnap of a serviceman at RAF Marham in Norfolk: attempted abduction case. Some people thought they saw a resemblance…

Can you bloody bastards stop messaging me about Crimewatch, the bastard looks nothing like me. pic.twitter.com/jygQElrLy6
— Paul Chowdhry (@paulchowdhry) September 6, 2016

• Friends fans Krunal Desai and Radha Patel have got engaged on the set of the set of the 1990s sitcom. Krunal popped the question at the FriendsFest exhibition Comedy Central has put on in London to honour its schedule stalwart. ’We both absolutely love Friends, and Radha can’t go to sleep without watching the show,’ Krunal said. ‘We even had a short break in our relationship, leading people to call us the real life Ross and Rachel.’

• Want to hear about the night Tommy Cooper opened for the Police – and faced a barrage of empty beer cans and plastic bottles filled with piss? Veteran comic John Dowie tells it John Dowie.

• And after that tale, this has to be the limpest projectile ever thrown at a comedian:

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Tweets of the week

Apple launches new phone with no headphone jack, making it ideal for enjoying the free U2 album.
— HaveIGotNewsForYou (@haveigotnews) September 8, 2016

Just once, it would be nice if Radio 4's Thought For The Day was "shit - did I lock the back door when I left this morning?"
— Jason (@NickMotown) September 9, 2016