Coming soon - Robert de Niro is THE NEWSAGENT, a man on a special life-and-death mission to sell you a copy of this week's Venue. Also starring:

FILM SPECIAL - Bristol's got an all-new 13 screen cinema in Cabot Circus, and despite these credit crunchy times, people are going to the pictures more than ever AND there's a load of lovely film festivals coming this way. Get the popcorn in.

BRISTOL FESTIVAL - Our review of one of the biggest, and most ambitious festivals to rise from the community of Bristol in a long time.

RACE WAR - So what's the quickest and least stressful way to travel across Bristol? Will the winner be the bus, the car, the train, the bike ... or the bloke in running shoes?

A VAN FOR ALL SEASONS - Tin tent on wheels or luxury mobile home from home? Join us in a classic VW camper van as we hit the road for a luxury (?) UK "staycation".

PLUS - Martial arts comedy 'The Foot Fist Way' ... National Theatre comes Bath ... BlowPop ... De Niro and Pacino reunited ... Sam Sparro ... And loads more, including your complete ten-day local entertainment guide.

Don't miss out - place a regular order with your newsagent now* or we'll secretly re-name your house Cabot Circus and it'll be full of people wanting to do shopping.

*Or just call 0117 942 8491 to subscribe for just £4.99 a month!

Jokes, then ...

A blonde woman was speeding down the road in her little red sports car and was pulled over by a woman police officer who was also a blonde. The blonde cop asked to see the blonde driver's license. She dug through her purse and was getting progressively more agitated. "What does it look like?" she finally asked. The policewoman replied, "It's square and it has your picture on it."
The driver finally found a square mirror in her purse, looked at it and handed it to the policewoman. "Here it is," she said.
The blonde officer looked at the mirror, then handed it back saying, "OK, you can go! I didn't realize you were a cop!"
(Thanks Jack)

The old newspaper-selling was standing at the corner of the street with a big stack of papers yelling: "Read all about it! Fifty people swindled! Read all about it! Fifty people swindled!"
A man who was passing by never normally bought this paper, but he was curious about the swindling story, so he stopped and bought a copy and went off to the park to sit down and read it.
A few moments later, he returned to the newspaper seller saying: "Look, I've read through this whole rag. There's nothing in it about 50 people being swindled!"
The paper seller shrugged and carried on yelling out: "Read all about it! Fifty-one people swindled!"
(Thanks Al)

While walking through Hyde Park in London , a man came upon another man hugging a tree with his ear firmly against the tree. Seeing this he inquired, "Just out of curiosity, what are you doing?"
"I'm listening to the music of the tree," the other man replied.
"You've got to be kiddin' me."
"No, would you like to give it a try?"
Understandably curious, the man says, "Well, OK..." So he wrapped his arms around the tree and pressed his ear up against it. With this, the other bloke slapped a pair of handcuffs on him, took his wallet, watch, car keys, then stripped him naked and left.
Two hours later another nature lover strolled by, saw this man handcuffed to the tree stark naked, and asked, "What happened to you?"
He told the other man the whole terrible story about how he got there.
When he finished his story, the other man shook his head in sympathy, walked around behind him, kissed him gently behind the ear and said, "This just ain't gonna be your day, cupcake ..."
(Thanks Peter)

Defence Attorney: Will you please state your age?
Little Old Lady: I am 76 years old.
Defence Attorney: Will you tell us, in your own words, what happened the night of April 1st?
Little Old Lady: There I was, sitting there in my swing on my front porch on a warm spring evening, when a young man comes creeping up on the porch and sat down beside me.
Defence Attorney: Did you know him?
Little Old Lady: No, but he sure was friendly.
Defence Attorney: And then what happened?
Little Old Lady: He started to rub my thigh.
Defence Attorney: Did you stop him?
Little Old Lady: No, I didn't stop him.
Defence Attorney: Why not?
Little Old Lady: It felt good. Nobody had done that since my Albert died some 20 years ago.
Defence Attorney: What happened next?
Little Old Lady: He began to touch my breasts.
Defence Attorney: Did you stop him then?
Little Old Lady: No, I certainly did not!
Defence Attorney: Whyever not?
Little Old Lady: His touching made me feel all alive and excited. I haven't felt that good in years!
Defence Attorney: What happened next?
Little Old Lady: Well, I was feeling so 'spicy' that I just laid down and told him "Take me, young man. Take me now!"
Defence Attorney: Did he take you?
Little Old Lady: Hell, no! He just yelled, "April Fool!" And that's when I shot him, the little b**tard.
(Thanks Fran)

A person of humorous ethnicity (yes this was sent us as an Irish joke, but like we keep saying, we don't do Thick Paddy jokes here, not on account of political correctness but on account of the Spam Department's own ethnicity, which is Irish (but not, as you've probably noticed, blonde)) So this guy who's a member of whatever ethnic or social minority you find funny is walking home late at night and sees a woman in the shadows.
"Twenty quid " she whispers.
He'd never been with a hooker before, but he decides what the heck, its only twenty quid.
So they hide in the bushes. They're going at it for a couple of minutes when all of a sudden a light flashes on them.
It's a police officer.
"What's going on here, people?" asks the officer.
"I'm making love to my wife," the man answers indignantly.
"Oh, I'm sorry," says the cop, "I didn't know."
"Well," says the man, "neither did I, until you shined that light in her face.
(Thanks Debs)

A Catholic priest and a rabbi were sitting next to each other on an airplane. After a while, the priest turned to the rabbi and asked, "Is it still a requirement of your faith that you not eat pork?"
The rabbi responded, "Yes, that is still one of our beliefs."
The priest then asked, "Have you ever eaten pork?"
To which the rabbi replied, "Yes, on one occasion I did succumb to temptation and tasted a ham sandwich."
The priest nodded in understanding and went on with his reading.
A while later, the rabbi spoke up and asked the priest, "Is it still a requirement of your church that you remain celibate?"
The priest replied, "Yes, that is still very much a part of our faith."
The rabbi then asked him, "Have you ever fallen to the temptations of the flesh?"
The priest replied, "Yes, rabbi, on one occasion I was weak and broke with my faith."
The rabbi nodded understandingly and remained silent, thinking for about five minutes.
Finally, the rabbi said, "Beats a ham sandwich, doesn't it?"
(Thanks Donna - you win this week's star prize. Have a The Verve album and the soundtrack to musical 'Annie' if you want 'em. Mail us a postal address to claim the goodies.)

Please send us jokes. If we don't get any jokes soon, we're going to have to ask the Federal Reserve to bail us out with one trillion emergency jokes or maybe even go to the Chinese government and beg them for jokes, and you really wouldn't want that to happen, would you? So send us gags we've not heard before, gags that don't have too many rude body part words in (as we can't use them for fear of corporate spam trap blockage) and you could win a lovely prize for the best joke of the week. So don't delay - hit that REPLY button now and take our firm, pouting young inbox in your masterful jokely arms.

Websites

"Longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute." From the British Medical Journal.
www.bmj.com/cgi

Astonishing Lego creation www.villiard.com

Funniest thing on the interweb ever. Possibly. www.youtube.com

It says this film is from 1925, but I reckon (being a history bore) that it's more like late 1930s. REALLY REALLY REALLY NOT WORKSAFE!
tinyurl.com/3ub3u4

Base-jumper's parachute files to open, base-jumper yells "aargh!" but gets away with just a broken leg.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi

Deep fried pizza blog.23x.net/13/what-is-a-deep-fried-pizza

"The most alien-looking place on earth" www.darkroastedblend.com

Idiot actor syndrome www.youtube.com

Pictures that should never have been put on t'web www.pcworld.com/article

Avon & Somerset Police have their own Facebook page, oh yes
www.facebook.com/pages/Portishead-United-Kingdom

And please remember to buy Venue. The management have said that they're going to leverage us, bundle us up into derivatives and short-sell our futures if you don't.

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Cheers then.

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