WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• ‘There is nothing less funny to a comedian than his own material.’ Jerry Seinfeld.

• Michael McIntyre has brought himself a £150,000 Ferrari California – which has a top speed of 193mph and can do 0-60mph in 3.8 seconds – to add to his collection, which is said to include a top of the range Jaguar, a BMW X5 and a Porsche Cayenne.

• Stand-ups who are serious about promoting themselves should always have a website, of course. And James Loveridge has just learned the hard way why not snapping up your domain name is a bad idea. He has a tech-savvy friend who kept bugging him to buy www.jamesloveridge.com but to no avail. So the pal decided to buy it for himself – and as the basis of a complex practical joke. Visitors can leave a message on the site, which is then read out loud in a phone call or a voicemail message to Loveridge’s voicemail. As he explains: ‘Essentially he has built a 24/7 heckler hot line where people from all over the world can send me insults that routes straight through to my phone and I can't turn it off.’ The prank went viral an one morning alone he had 2,207 insults waiting for him.

• Festival of the Spoken Nerd comic Helen Arney is to appear in BBC’s Coast on Tuesday, in a piece about physics filmed on the rollercoaster in Blackpool Pleasure Beast last October. She said: ‘Be warned that it features some screaming (but surprisingly little vomiting).’

• From a website called The Inquisitr: ‘Monte Python fans the world over should be singing of dead parrots and spam today as they celebrate John Cleese’s announcement that the long-awaited story of his life shall be published in October. The title of the book is So Anyway, and the 74 year old comedian has mentioned many of his wacky antics while in the company of Graham Chapmin in its pages. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Monte Python they were a group of British Comedians who produced Monte Python’s Flying Circus from October of 1969 to December of 1974 on BBC Television, though Cleese quit the show after the third season. Cleese’s primary characterizations during that time were as a sophisticated gentleman and a stressed-out loony. My personal favorite was his skit about a dead Norwegian Blue parrot who had been nailed on to his perch so he wouldn’t fall off.’

• Joe Lycett has been named the 57th sexiest man on earth by Attitude magazine.

• The real-life inspiration for Seinfeld’s Kramer has lost a $1 million lawsuit against comedian Fred Stoller. Kenny Kramer, a former neighbour of Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, accused Stoller of portraying him as a homophobe in his autobiography, after describing how guides on Kramer's New York bus tour allegedly shouted the sitcom line:’Not that there's anything wrong with that,’ through largely gay neighbourhoods of Greenwich Village. The case was thrown out of court when a judge ruled: ‘The phrase expressly conveys the notion that there is nothing wrong with being gay. In that respect, it cannot be considered homophobic.’

• For most members of a comedy audience, being selected to take part in a comedian's routine is their No. 1 fear. But not so for Frankie Ward, who has set herself the possibly masochistic challenge of becoming as part of as many shows as she can at the Edinburgh Fringe. Normally part of the BBC's online team, Ward said: 'I won't be working at the Fringe this year, which will probably be slightly too surreal for me, so I've set myself the task of trying to see how many shows I can cameo in as the audience member that gets picked on. And after I feature in a show, I'll film a little video interview with the act, who I'll ask to evaluate my performance.' Here's a video intro to the challenge:

• Incidentally, Ward comes from a long line of expert comedy fans, as you can tell by this video, when her dad calls her mid-interview to ask whether Monty Python 'are any good'….

• The bad news continues for Katt Williams. The comic’s tour manager has launched a lawsuit agains the comedian claiming hewas left with multiple injuries following an altercation with the troubled comedian in May.

• Tweets of the week
Gary Delaney (@garydelaney ): How many light bulbs does it take to change a person? - SAD Research Centre
Pete Johansson (@escarius): used to do acid at festivals. This year I'm popping pills to relieve acid. #sexy #Latitude2014
Glenn Moore (@TheNewsAtGlen): Who decided to call it cough medicine and not voiceturiser?

Published: 18 Jul 2014