Comics. No longer just for kids, as Bristol's annual comic expo will demonstrate. Oddly enough, you can get comics at the newsagents, along with this week's Venue, which has a big article on comics, plus:
BRISTOL PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL - Thanks to Photoshop, Facebook, Flickr, mobile phones and digital cameras we all think we're David Bailey these days, but some photographers are still better than others, as Bristol's new festival, with loads of exhibitions and hands-on events will show.
ELECTION 2010 - What was all that about, then? Tories win a few Parliamentary seats, but do appallingly in Bristol's local elections. Labour are more popular than expected, and the LibDems were good in parts. Join us for the post mortem.
PLUS -Tales from the terraces at Bath City FC ... Salads the Bordeaux Quay way ... Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe on 'Robin Hood' ... Bath Society of Artists' annual exhibition ... Children's film clubs ... Bristol Hip-Hop hero Dizraeli ... Tetris comes to clubland ... WIN! Tickets, food, bags ... Job ads ... And loads more, including your complete ten-day local entertainment guide.
Up the polls
"Stephen Williams got a surprisingly strong vote, particularly after upsetting the students by wavering on tuition fees, and being given lacklustre media reviews for his achievements as a parliamentarian. But in the end he delivered a tree's worth of paper to every letter box in Bristol West, increased his majority, crushed his enemies, saw them driven before him and heard the lamentation of their kin; and that's what it's all about for the Lib Dems; consistent and rational policies are an optional extra.
"Bristol South and East are safe Labour seats, where a chimp with a red rosette could get returned to parliament. That both sitting MPs saw their majorities halved suggests that the simian option is worth exploring. I understand that Dawn Primarolo's victory speech was in a similar nasty vein to that of Ed Balls, and I look forward to seeing it on YouTube with 'Downfall' subtitles."
- Right-wing local blogger James Barlow makes his contribution to Venue's election post-mortem.
With a Yo-Ho-Ho ...
"We haven't defended our folk culture, and as a result it's faded away in a way that it hasn't in other countries. In Bulgaria, for example, the folk tradition is really strong. It's sustained in places that have had to assert their identity in the face of a greater power; here the tradition is on the wane. Occasionally I'd be sat in a pub in Somerset and see some morris dancers, but it's a rare thing - I used to think of folk as something that happens in Scotland and Ireland. Recently I've been discovering this rich seam of old English folk songs and stories: drowning sailors, marching off to war, shagging in the woods, his Lordship getting cuckolded by a servant. Great stuff, wicked stories."
Ex-Bristol rapper Dizraeli interviewed this week.
The view from Twerton
"From the stand I can see a giant flag on the terraces opposite - it reads TODAY TOMORROW ALWAYS. In another romantic gesture towards their boys, the fans will later sing Elvis's 'Can't Help Falling In Love With You'. A small crowd has gathered for a free view on a patch of wasteland that rises just outside the south-west corner of the ground. Kids have climbed upon the corrugated tin roof of an adjoining building. On the hillside city farm visible above the 1960s-built houses, a herd of cows moves slowly, and above them black rainclouds gather ominously. And it's not just like a Ken Loach moment, it is a Ken Loach moment because here he comes, Britain's leading film director and the club's most famous supporter (he's the Cantona connection), and takes his seat five rows behind mine just as the PA starts to crank out 'Kashmir' by Led Zeppelin.
"People think they know what Bath is: Roman relics and designer shopping. But this is Bath too. They think they know what football's about: crazy salaries and autobiographies. But it's also about this."
- Anna Britten on the terraces at Bath City FC's Twerton ground, this issue.
Jokes
A man went to a solicitor to discuss divorcing his wife.
"Don't you love her anymore?" asked the lawyer.
"Oh, I still love her," the bloke replied. "But all she ever wants is sex, I can't keep up with her. If we go on like this it'll kill me!"
"Instead of divorcing her, why don't you try charging her every time she wants to make love?" the lawyer suggested.
The exhausted husband decided to give the plan a try. As soon as he walked into the house that night his wife came up and started smooching with him.
"Not so fast," he replied. "From now on if you want sex it'll be £10 in the kitchen, £20 in the living room and £50 in the bedroom."
"OK then," she said. "Here's £50."
The husband began walking to the bedroom.
"Where are you going?" she said. "I want it five times in the kitchen!" (Thanks Craig)
One day this mechanic, Tony, was working late under a car and some brake fluid accidentally dripped into his mouth.
"WOW!! This stuff isn't too bad tasting," he thought to himself.
The next day he told his buddy about tasting the brake fluid.
"It's really not bad...in fact, I think I'll try to have some more today."
His buddy was a little concerned but didn't say anything.
Next day Tony told his buddy about drinking a full cup of the brake fluid.
"Great Stuff! Think I'll have some more today." And so he did.
A few days later he was up to a bottle a day, and told his friend, "This brake fluid is the world's greatest tasting stuff!"
His friend was now really worried.
"You know, Tony, that brake fluid is poison and it's really nasty stuff. You better stop drinking it!"
"Hey, no problem," he told his buddy....
"I can stop any time!" (Thanks Jack)
Michael O'Leary of Ryanair goes into a Dublin pub and asks for a pint of Guinness.
"That will be one Euro, please," says the barman.
"That's a very fair price," replies O'Leary.
"Would you like a glass with that, sir?" asks the barman. (Thanks Ellie - you win this week's star prize. Mail us a postal address and we'll sort you some books, or the Oasis singles CD 'Time Flies'.)
Please send us jokes. Best one each week wins some stuff. OR you can send us a joke on behalf of your firm, club or religious cult, and we'll tell everyone your web address. So don't delay - email editor@venue.co.uk and see if it finds our inbox's G-Spot.
The fearless Chris Morris tackles religious extremism with his comedy about a cell of wannabe jihadists who are not slick, trained assassins but a group of bumbling, bickering fools from Yorkshire whose road to martyrdom is not as easy as they imagined. 'Four Lions' runs until Thur 27 May at the Watershed in Bristol (www.watershed.co.uk) and one lucky Venue reader can win a pair of tickets for a screening of their choice, as well as two Sicilian flatbreads (choose from the sundried, the Mediterranean and the meaty one) from the café menu.
This week we also have Nina Nastasia tickets, albums and bags!
You know the score. Want to win either, get this week's Venue. We're greedy like that.
The Mists of Time
Here we are again. The time machine has dropped us off exactly 10 years ago, armed only with a copy of Venue #469, 12 May 2000
• "Re all this talk about how crap the local bus monopoly is... I got a bus yesterday, it arrived exactly when the timetable said it would, and arrived at my stop at the time it was supposed to, and the driver was polite and cheerful. Just thought I'd write and let you know. P.S. This was in Manchester." (Reader's letter)... Local football team the Easton Cowboys had been over to play football with the rebel Zapatistas in a remote part of Mexico. One of them told Venue: "When we turned up for the first big tournament there were people coming in on horseback - real cowboys! And others who had walked for days just to get there. And they put out this message on the radio: 'Come and see the whitest white people you've ever seen in your lives! When they take their shirts off they're even whiter!'"... What's on? Russell Crowe (he was still good back then) was in 'Gladiator' ("A truly magnificent widescreen spectacle that sets the benchmark for rival summer blockbusters," we said.). But we were especially taken with the Heinz Salad Cream Comedy Tour at Jesters. "PR reps wandered round strapped with giant bottles as backpacks. Inevitably the product came in for cynical stick from acts and joke competition entrants. It was compared to sperm, vaginal lubricant and Hellman's and was said to 'taste good with a nipple'. There were asides such as Marcus Brigstocke's deadpan 'I think salad cream's lovely, I really do' and Paul Zenon quoting his agent: 'I might be able to get you a gig in Bristol on a Wednesday night promoting salad cream'."... Let's buy a house in the year 2000: Here's a big 3-bedroom Victorian terrace in Bishopston for £178,000, and here's an ad for a 3-bed Victorian terrace in Easton for £78,995. There, there. No use crying, is there?
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