Gorillas in our midst | WTF: Weekly Trivia File

Gorillas in our midst

WTF: Weekly Trivia File

It might come as something as a surprise given his image, but perennially becardiganned comedian Robin Ince has revealed that he once took ecstasy. But it wasn’t really for him. ‘It made me slightly less miserable in a field,’ he told the Latitude festival last weekend.

Malcolm Hardee and Ricky Grover once broke into a safari park. The pair visited what Hardee called a ‘zoo where animals just walk about’ in Kent, only to find it closed. ‘Don’t matter,’ Hardee said, and, claiming to know the owner, took his coat off, threw it over the barbed wire so he could climb over and let Grover in. And as they walked through the grounds, they encountered a silverback gorilla, Grover recalled to blogger John Fleming this week: ‘I’m walking through there and me arsehole went a little bit and then Malcolm shouted “Oy! Oy!” I jumped out of me skin but I’m trying to act brave. And Malcolm’s seen a silverback gorilla, hasn’t he? A great big silverback. And he says “Oy Oy” to it, calls it over and shook hands with the silverback... It only had to give a jerk and it’d pull Malcolm’s arm right off his body.’ Grover then made his excuses and left, slowly followed by Hardee, and the pair made it back to London alive.

• Meanwhile comic Kai Humphries has narrowly avoiding being gored to death at the Pamplona bull run. He fell as he was being chased by the animals through the streets of the Spanish town, but remembered the advice he was given to stay down, because the horns are more lethal than the hooves. ‘If you get hit with one of those horns it is like a cocktail stick through an olive,’ he said. ‘I made a conscious decision to tuck my arms and legs in and curl up. Luckily the bulls just passed by. I was fine.’

• Comedy Central stand-up show Seann Walsh World has been dubbed ‘hangover television’ by... Seann Walsh

• A putdown song for hecklers from US comic Tom Wilson:

• Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz thinks William and Kate have named their new son after his show. ‘They totally took our idea with George,’ he deadpanned. ‘We have a George.’

• David Haig has shrugged off the criticism of The Wright Way, the disastrous Ben Elton sitcom in which he played a hapless health and safety executive. ‘The last time a project I was involved with had reviews that bad was The Thin Blue Line.’ he said. ‘The press simply cannot bear that Ben in their eyes became a populist. I absolutely love his writing. I always have done and I always will.’

• And talking of painful experiences, Matt Lucas underwent root canal surgery last week.

• Tweets of the week
Steve Williams (@ SteveWilliams ): The gynaecologist who delivered Kate & Wills baby was given Opera tickets as a thank you. 2nd time this week he's been in the Royal Box
Darren Walsh (@thegianttweets ): Prince Williams heir is falling out
Patrick (@ ParkerBats ): Just saw Goldie Hawn. I asked her what her husband was called. Her reply was curt.

Published: 26 Jul 2013

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