Jonathan Ross has announced he’s leaving his job as a radio and TV presenter at the BBC.

The presenter who has worked with the cooperation for 13 years decided not to renegotiate his contract which is due to end in July.

Ross announced he would be quitting his BBC1 talk show, his Radio 2 Saturday morning programme and his late night film programme, but will be able to continue to host the BAFTA Film Awards and other specials.

Although Ross, 49, was suspended in 2008 over a series of phone calls made to the actor Andrew Sachs on Russell Brand Radio 2 show, he’s announcement has come at an unexpected time. The phone scandal “had blown over and he was getting on with things at the BBC.”

His salary a reported £18 million over the last three years has also caused controversy and he was expected to take a pay cut following other BBC stars. The presenter has said his decision is not “financially motivated”.

In a statement the presenter said: “While there I have had a wonderful time working with the BBC, and am very proud of the shows I have made while there”. Jonathan Ross is thought to already have offers from US TV and the UK’s other channels ITV and Channel 4.

Ross has thanked his fans posting on Twitter: “Thanks for all the kind words about my decision. I feel sad that I can’t keep making the shows so many of you love.””

Ahh we’re going to miss Jonathan Ross, Friday nights won’t be the same

If you’re feeling a little nostalgic, why don’t you play some of our fantastic quizzes about all the great BBC shows over the years from The Young Ones to Dragons Den.

The US actress Brittany Murphy collapsed at home in Los Angeles and was pronounced dead upon arrival at Cedars Sinai medical Center.  The star aged 32 is reported to have died from a heart attack.

She was found unconscious in the shower at her home which she shared with her husband British–born screenwriter Simon Monjack. Although the official cause of death is yet to be determined, the star seems to have died from natural causes.

Murphy starred in films such 8 mile, Clueless, Sin city and Don’t Say a word. Her family have said in a statement “She was our daughter, our wife, our love and a shining star. We ask you to respect our privacy at this time.”

Murphy’s ex-boyfriend Ashton Kutcher who co-starred with her in ‘Just Married’ paid tribute to her on twitter saying  “2day the world has lost a little piece of sunshine.”

Other celebrities have also paid their respects including Hillary Duff who wrote “RIP Brittany Murphy forever in our hearts”. Jessica Simpson also said “Brittany Murphy was an incredible ray of light to so many people. Her smile was contagious.”

Boodle and the rest of the Triviala team would like to say a BIG congratulations to our latest £500 Jackpot prize winner:

Pat Bennison (prawn) pictured below:

Pat was thrilled to have won £500 and when we asked her what she will be spending her winnings on, she said:

“This has come just right for a little Christmas spending! Thanks to Triviala for the great competitions”.

So Pat will be enjoying her Christmas shopping a little bit more this year!

If you’d like to be in with a chance of winning cash prizes on Triviala, then make sure you enter our weekly prize draws.

Triviala have launched a new word search puzzle game, Rope A Word, today on the site.

Players will be rewarded 10 crowns for finding all words hidden in a grid of letters.

Test your powers of deduction by uncovering the secret words!

Each puzzle has a fun different theme, from sports or foods to TV and celebrities or there could be a completely random trivia theme.

Go on, test your general knowledge skills in this easy to play game, to pick up some quick crowns. Locate the word at the bottom of the puzzle and lasso the letters to play Rope A Word.

Let us know what you think too!

Enjoy, Boodle.

Triviala Jackpot winner Anne Boyle received her £500 cheque overnight, despite the postal strike!

The Royal Mail didn’t affect Anne’s winnings at all, despite us warning her it could be severely delayed.

Anne, from Ballynahinch in Northern Ireland said: “Believe it or not the cheque arrived this morning even with a postal strike!”

She added about Triviala: “I just enjoy playing the quizes – never in a million years did I expect to win anything!

I think it is the first time I have ever won anything in my life. Thanks again Boodle!”

No problem, Anne!

Enter this week’s Triviala draw to be in with a chance of £500.

We have launched a new game here at Triviala! Sudoku fans - have you played the popular Triviala Daily Sudoku yet?

Our exciting daily Sudoku puzzles are fun brain games to keep you alert all day! There is a different challenging new online Sudoku game each day; “Easy Sudoku”, “Medium Sudoku” and a “Hard Sudoku” so be sure to check back to play the latest online Sudoku puzzle game.

Collect 10 crowns for completing the Easy Sudoku, 15 for the Medium Sudoku and 20 for the Hard Sudoku.

Hope you have fun playing!

Boodle

A new trivia book, containing facts such as the one above, reveals hundred of amazing facts about celebrities, history, food and drink, music, sport and British heroes.

The book, The Great Book of British Useless Information by Hannah Warner is available from 15 October. One for the Christmas list maybe, Triviala fans?

Here’s a selection of our favourite trivia facts.

Here’s our selection of the best…

Simon Cowell refused to sign Take That because he thought Gary Barlow was too fat.

When Coronation Street characters pop in to the Rovers for a pint they are actually drinking weak shandy.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire? is insured by Lloyd’s of London against having to pay major cash prizes.

Men back in Tudor times believed rubbing horse urine into their scalp would stop them going bald.

Back in Anglo Saxon times a man could divorce his wife on the grounds that she was “too passionate”.

Picture courtesy of frecuenciax

Apparently a man with a hairy chest, like superstar Sir Tom Jones, is a better lover than one without, like footballer David Beckham. Hair on the chest is supposed to be a sign that a man has more of the male hormone testosterone.

Jk Rowling makes £5 every second. Each new Harry Potter book is always released on a Saturday to stop children bunking off school to read them.

Former prime minister Tony Blair ran away from school – and one of his housemasters described him as “the most difficult boy I have ever had to deal with”.

Our latest Triviala Jackpot winner Linda Aylett, pictured here, was delighted to have won the £500 cheque prize.

Linda, from Devon, took part in the weekly Triviala Jackpot draw. You only need 100 crowns to enter, and the draw happens weekly. So enter now, for your chance to win £500, just like Linda!

We’ve been working on our user-generated quizzes section of the site, and we’ve made it a lot easier to use – there’s now a search facility so you can find quizzes on topics you want to answer – and before submitting a quiz to us, you can check out others on the same subject.

Additionally, you can now comment on others’ quizzes and have them comment on yours. We’re still offering 40 crowns for every admin-approved quiz (max 4 per month per user), and now you don’t even have to write quizzes to earn extra crowns- you can earn 1 crown just for playing each quiz. This works for every user-generated quiz on the site (and we currently have over 1000), so there’s potentially hundreds of extra crowns out there for you to earn. Just to note though, each quiz will only give you a crown the first time you play it.

We’ve been getting a lot of comments on our User Support board about our Coin-A-Word game: it seems like a lot of you are enjoying this game – but we’ve had some more negative comments too. We’re currently developing an improved version of the game with improved dictionnaries. Please be patient while we work on this- it’s coming as fast as we can get it out to you!

Good luck!

Boodle

As you can see from these press clippings today, 17th June 09, Triviala’s been mentioned in the papers again. This time, we commissioned a poll to determine how acceptable people find all kinds of cheating (from cheating in an exam, to cheating at boardgames, to cheating on a partner). Here’s what the papers had to say about our findings: