This Week's Spam

The Best of Bristol & Bath

The newsagent is complaining more than usual this week. Not only are the kids back at school, invading his premises in groups of more than four, but this week's Venue magazine is way heavier than usual with:

STUDENT GUIDE - 228 pages full of all the stuff you need to know about Round These Parts whether you're a recently-arrived student, or a grizzled local pensioner.

GOLDEN WONDER - Bristol's Colston Hall, gold-plated in happier economic times, celebrates its facelift with a 10 day feast of fun to suit all tastes, from Sir David Attenborough to Roni Size.

PLUS - Win Justin Lee Collins's Book ... Free circus fun with the Bristol Do... Children's books... Autumn fashion... British Food Fortnight ... Bristol's Bhangra Boys, RSVP ... Football hooligan flick 'The Firm'... Jobs ads ... And loads more, including your complete ten-day local entertainment guide.

* Or subscribe for only £4.99 a month! More details here: http://www.venue.co.uk/subs/index.html

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Have these people never seen any Terminator movies?

Boffins at UWE recently announced that they've been given the funding to develop robots made out of slime. Professor Andy Adamatzky and his team plan to create a programmable slime mould using plasmodium, the vegetative stage of the common slime mould Physarum polycephalum. It will perform various actions when stimulated by light and electricity using the mould's "embedded intelligence". The biological robot, called Plasmobot, will be a world first. Time to stockpile the bottled water, canned food and shotgun cartridges, then.

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Ideological contortion of the week

"Support for the Anarchist Book-Fair ... Bristol Smokers, a thriving support group for people in Bristol who like smoking, currently has a membership of over 500. Our message to the fascist NHS medical establishment and their lackeys is 'Give Up Your Gas-Guzzling Machine Of Death, the car, and we'll think about cutting down on the fags'." - Message posted to lefty/anarchy newswire Bristol Indymedia, September 12. Now removed.

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See this movie

"One of the things everyone laments is that movies aren't as good as they used to be - 'Australia' isn't ' Casablanca ', 'Hostel' isn't 'Psycho'. But right now is a golden age of kids' movies - and the perfection of 3D animation processes makes for a cinema experience you can't get at home. I predict happy faces and record confectionary stand sales." - Kim Newman reviews 'Cloudy, with a Chance of Meatballs' this week's Venue

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Jokes

A couple was celebrating their golden wedding anniversary. Their domestic tranquillity had long been the talk of the town. People would say, 'What a peaceful & loving couple.' The local newspaper reporter was inquiring as to the secret of their long and happy marriage.
The Husband replied: "It dates back to our honeymoon in America . We visited the Grand Canyon, in Arizona , and took a trip down to the bottom of the canyon, by horse. We hadn't gone too far when my wife's horse stumbled and she almost fell off. My wife looked down at the horse and quietly said, 'That's once.'

"We proceeded a little further and her horse stumbled again. Again my wife quietly said, 'That's twice.' We hadn't gone a half-mile when the horse stumbled for the third time my wife quietly removed a revolver from her purse and shot the horse dead.

"I Shouted at her, 'What's wrong with you, Woman! Why did you shoot the poor
animal like that, are you out of your mind! She looked at ME, and quietly
said, 'That's once'."

(Thanks Jack)

Q. What's the difference between an extra-large pizza and a musician?

A. The pizza can feed a family of four.

(Thanks M. You win this week's star prize, a book of funny science stories. Mail us a postal address if you want it.)

Please send us jokes. Best one each week wins some stuff. Don't delay - hit the REPLY button now and grease our inbox with the butter of your funnyness.

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Websites

New local political blog. http://bristolwestpaul.wordpress.com

How to be an Alaskan fisherman - great photo essay, great pics.http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=606

Folks who tell the internet too much http://www.oversharers.com

American criminals with terrible hair

http://mugshotdujour.com/category/bad-hair-day

Chinese come up with novel way of stopping people jumping off a bridge http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/6745775.html

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Competitions

Win Justin Lee Collins's book

Bristol's very own top beardy funnyman Justin Lee Collins has called his autobiography 'Good Times!' and, as you might expect, it's full of cheerful stories from his hugely successful telly career. It wasn't ever thus, however; he dropped out of school without any qualifications (later managing to pick up a BTEC in performing arts at Filton College ) but for a time it seemed that he was destined for a career stacking shelves and selling double glazing. He's signing copies at the Cribbs branch of WH Smith on Friday 25 September, but if you can't make it, we've got five signed copies to give away for free. One could be yours if you get this week's Venue for competition details.

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Bristol & Bath's Big Bonk Budgets

It's official. Bristol is the tenth most sexy place in the UK, while Bath is the 102nd most sexy. The most popular item in Bristol's sexual budget is DVDs, led by a film called 'Massage for Lovers'. Bath 's biggest item of sexual expenditure is bondage and BDSM kit, which somehow comes as no surprise.

As both of the regular readers of Newshound will know, we don't normally have any truck with cynical, opportunistic "surveys" carried out on behalf of some grasping corporation in order to gain free publicity. But we'll make an exception for Bath-based firm LoveHoney, as they're both local and saucy, selling sex toys to discerning consumers everywhere.

They've compiled a special interactive UK sex map based on how much people spend on different love aids. Britons spend £315 annually on "saucy lingerie, adult toys and sexy gifts", making an average £6.57 per person - "nearly 10 times more than the 69p per person we spend on the Royal Family".

The place with the biggest sex budget is Upminster, greater London (Essex historically), where the adults spend £70.93 a year, almost 11 times the national average. The least sexy place is Caledon in Northern Ireland where the spend is just a fifth of the national average.

Asked what accounts for these huge variations LoveHoney spokesperson Ruth Wilkinson told Venue: "I think that birds of a feather obviously f**k together. No, wait, that's not quite right, is it? Some towns might have more adult shops - but then are the adult shops there because there's more demand there or because the local licensing authorities are more relaxed about it? Maybe it's something they put in the water."

See www.uksexmap.co.uk and www.lovehoney.co.uk

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Please remember...

To buy Venue. The management have promised to let Elton John adopt one of us if you do.

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Cheers then.
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::: Venue SPAM
::: www.venue.co.uk
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