This Week's Spam

In the future, this email will be beamed directly into your brain

In the future you'll be putting on your ultra violent repellent skin and tinfoil underpants and travelling on your hover-shoes to the space newsagents to get a vintage copy of this week's Venue with :

Future Bristol & Bath - What will Round Here be like in the coming decades? We talk to experts and do a lot of research and get predictions both gloomy and optimistic about the effects of climate change, peak oil and new technologies.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year - Take a sneak peak at the 100 or so once-in-a-lifetime images set to dazzle, stun and amaze the hoards of Christmas shoppers at the Bristol Museum & Gallery this month .

PLUS - We spend a day at the seaside HQ of much-loved Kneehigh Theatre Co ... Comedian Marcus Brigstocke, legendary 70s glamsters The New York Dolls interviewed ... Pantomime round-up ... Job ads ... AAAANNNNNDDD - free beer for every reader!! ... 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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The timeline of the future

2021 The Mall, Cribbs Causeway, finally closes because so few people can afford to drive there and spend money as well. The building becomes England's biggest medicinal cannabis factory.

2022 Climate change refugees - people fleeing their home countries as they can no longer survive there - are a growing problem for Bristol. The neighbours complain about the criminality, strange cooking smells and impenetrable language of all the Australians in Twerton.

2023 For the Bristol Kite Fiesta, a replica of 19th-century Bristolian inventor George Pocock's 'charvolant' kite-powered carriage travels from Bristol to Bath at an average 20mph. It is paid for by a wealthy Merchant Venturer who also commissions a replica of Pocock's machine for caning naughty boys for his own private use.

2024 A householder in Brislington fined £5,000 and given six-months suspended for operating a patio-heater in his back garden.

2025 First year in which more deaths and injuries on Bristol and Bath roads are caused by cyclists than cars.

2028 Sales of Pie Minister's new sorghum and krill flan prove disappointing.

- Just some of the predictions from the big article about the future, in this week's Venue. Some of them might not be true.

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Rally of the Dolls

The New York Dolls might have kick-started the NY punk scene, but Sylvain also had his part to play in the British explosion. He had first met Malcolm McLaren at a clothes fair in 1971, but on becoming manager for a group of upstarts called Sex Pistols, McLaren wrote Sylvain a letter trying to lure him over the Atlantic. "This letter goes on and on," Sylvain explains. "First of all he's going, 'you must come to England, this is your band, the Sex Pistols! Don't go over to Japan with the Dolls, you should come here, this is your future!'" In exchange for the promise of a plane ticket to the UK, Sylvain gave McLaren a white Gibson Les Paul guitar, which would become iconic in the hands of the Pistols' Steve Jones. But McLaren didn't hold up his end of the deal. "I'm still waiting for my f***ing plane ticket!" Sylvain exclaims, followed by that infectious laugh.

- New York Dolls guitarist Sylvain Sylvain interviewed this issue.

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Gothic Horror

Was I thought of as funny as a kid? I suppose I was, but you don't get applause when you're funny as a kid, you get detention. So if someone did think I was funny, it was usually funny in the wrong place at the wrong time, in the wrong company, so I mainly got my arse kicked for it.

I was a fat Goth. That was a funny time. There's a critical weight that you reach as a teenager, where you either have to stay in, or become a Goth. You have to provide a reason as to why everyone's staring at you, and for me it was "they're all just staring at me because I'm a Goth", whereas in reality they were staring at me because I looked like a Zeppelin with eye make-up on.

- Comedian Marcus Brigstocke interviewed this issue .

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Jokes

Want to get healthy and in better shape? Then do this:

1. Take two Weetabix.

2. And an Aero chocolate bar.

3. Crumble the Aero over the Weetabix ...

... And you have AEROBIX!

(Thanks Ems)

It was the happiest day of my life. I arrived at the church. There was the vicar, and there was my husband waiting at the altar. I walked up the aisle, kissed him on the cheek, smiled ... and closed the lid!

(Thanks Ellie)

"Doctor, you've got to help me help me! I have this terrible compulsion I can't control. I just can't stop stealing things!" said the patient.

The doctor examined him carefully and started to write out a prescription. "I want you to take these pills for two weeks" he said. "If your condition hasn't improved, then come back and see me. And bring me a plasma TV and a new laptop."

(Thanks Steve)

It was a hot day and Tom and Billy, both aged 10, were kicking a football around in the meadow down by the river.

Tom kicked the ball very hard and it went over Billy's head and landed down by the river. "I'll go and get it," Billy said.

After five minutes, Billy did not return, so Tom went after him.

Tom found him hiding behind a large rock by the river. "What are you doing down here?" Tom asked.

"Shhhh!" Billy said. "Look in the river." Tom looked to find a young woman kkinny-dipping in the river. Tom sat there watching for about 15 seconds, then ran away.

Billy ran to catch up with him. "What are you doing?" he asked. "We were just watching a naked woman swimming! Why did you run away?"

Tom said, "My Mum says that if I look at naked women God will be angry with me and turn me to stone - and I felt it starting!"

(Thanks Gina, you win this week's star prize, a book about pandas. Mail us a postal address if you want it.)

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Websites

New Local blogger http://recreationground.blogspot.com/

Rather good movie website http://theincrediblesuit.blogspot.com/

Newly-discovered deep sea species - cool pics http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/

Japanese rice field art http://funster.us/2009/07/yeah-crop-circles-are-coolbut-check-out-this-japanese-rice-field-art/

When your opponent in an argument says "That's what the Nazis did!" invoke Godwin's Law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

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Competitions

Win!!!

You could win 'The Hangover' on Blu-ray! One of the best films of the year, according to both critical acclaim and box office receipts, 'The Hangover' tells the story of a stag party in Las Vegas that goes very, very wrong. It's out on DVD, Blu-ray and download from Warner Home Video on 7 Dec, and we've got a copy on Blu-ray to give away as well as Hanover goodies .

We also have games. The perfect stocking filler or pocket-sized prezzie for any travellers of your acquaintance: made by Wild Card Games here in Bristol , Backpacker is a card game based on travelling the world, while Maponimoes is like dominoes with maps. They're £9.99 apiece, available from http://www.backpackercardgame.com and http://www.mapominoes.com respectively. And we've got three sets of each game to give away.

But to be in with a chance of getting your hands on either, you're just going to have to buy this week's Venue. We're mean like that .

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Newshound

Last week saw a historical first which really should have had more recognition in local media and civic circles... Almost exactly 100 years after the foundation of the city's great aerospace industry it was announced that the first Bristolians had slipped earth's surly bonds and were heading for the International Space Station. Here they will take part in work by Japanese scientists to study the long-term effects of weightlessness. The fact that they are not people, but in fact tiny nematode worms sourced from a local rubbish tip should not in any way detract from this fine, final-frontier achievement. Oh yes.

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Subscribe

Don't miss out - place a regular order with your newsagent now or the footage of your Jedward impersonation in front of the bathroom mirror goes on YouTube  . Alternatively, call us on 0117 942 8491 or email s.butler@bepp.co.uk  to subscribe to Venue for just £4.99 a month!

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Please remember...

Don't forget to buy Venue. The management have promised us that we can binge-drink all the rainwater we want if you do. 

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Cheers then.
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