It may not quite be time for proper holidays yet, but the sun's been out a lot, and every day is a holiday down at the newsagents shop, where you can bung your towel on the lounger and dive into this week's Venue with:
HOME COMFORTS- Loads of trip and weekend ideas to get you out there exploring the limitless marvels of the South West. Time travel your way through Somerset, get to grips with Bath off the beaten track, surprise yourself in Bristol or take your mates on the ultimate tick-off tour.
DOWN TO A T - It's summer, so fix up and look sharp when the sun shines with with the hottest (locally-made) Ts in town (no Fruit of the Loom in sight).
PLUS - Bristol's new RWA President ... Tobacco Factory's help for Haiti ... Eccentric bookselling pioneer Jason Beech ... Big-time thesp Simon Callow interviewed ... Kid-friendly festivals ... Win festival tickets ... Job ads ... And loads more, including your complete ten-day local entertainment guide.
Mummy's Boy
"For example, we know Shakespeare's parents lost two children before he was born. The infant mortality rate was dreadful then, but I don't believe his parents ever got used to it. They mourned their lost children deeply. So how would they have felt about William, their first child to survive? Wouldn't they have adored him? We know it was the mothers who brought up the children in those days, so might young William have found a way to his mother's heart by telling her stories? Might not that process have sparked his playwriting skills? I think it's legitimate to imaginatively speculate that."
- Actor Simon Callow, interviewed this issue.
Don't Try This At Home
And so to the Suspension Bridge, pointing out to your guests the rock-slide, worn glassy-smooth by dozens of generations of small children sliding down it. And off we go, over the bridge, Bristol's logo, its trademark. Don't forget to bone up beforehand on loads of amazing bridge stories (Victorian lady's skirts acting as parachute etc). Currently our favourite concerns the owner of a local music hall in the 1890s who decided to raise some money for a local orphanage. He stood beneath the bridge with a tuning fork in his mouth and faced upwards while an assistant dropped turnips on him from the bridge 250ft above. He succeeded in catching the fifth turnip with his fork, and raised eight pounds, 15 shillings and fourpence for the poor children. The newspaper reports tell us nothing of the state of his teeth afterwards. Really, you two should get going home soon. That motorway gets awful busy on Sunday evenings.
- From this issue's outings feature, how to show visitors around Bristol section.
Quake App
"So much of modern life conspires somehow to detach us all from 'real life' and the experience of what is truly going on elsewhere, beyond our own rather self-obsessed and limited horizons. This detachment comes through all of us, to varying degrees, getting utterly sucked in and lost in all-consuming elements of 'gadget land': laptops, mobiles, netbooks, iPhones and, as if all that wasn't enough, the iPad with an app for all occasions. 'Earthquake empathy? There's gotta be an app for that! Sit back, set to vibrate and let your phone do it for you with the all-new 'tremor app'... It's just nice to be involved in something worthwhile which is going to involve a bit of 'in the moment', honest, human interaction."
- Chris Grimes from Instant Wit on why he's doing Haiti fundraiser cabaret 'L'Union Fait La Force' at Bristol's Tobacco Factory
Jokes
The England team went to visit an orphanage in South Africa this morning. "It's good to put a smile on the faces of people with no hope, constantly struggling and facing the impossible" said Jamal Umboto aged 6. (Thanks Robin)
I went into a brothel and asked one of the women there "I'm a bit kinky, how much for total humiliation?"
"£37.50" she replies.
I said: "Wow, what do I get for that?"
"A England football shirt." (Thanks Jack)
Will readers please note that this mail was compiled before the Slovenia game, and if England win convincingly we take it all back.
Steve had signed up for the Army, and on his first day he was in the barber's chair having his hair cut in the approved style. He regretted that he would lose his long hair and his sideburns, but it was the price you'd have to pay to become a soldier of the Queen.
To his surprise, the barber asked him, "Would you like to keep your sideburns?"
"Yes please!" he said gratefully.
The barber cut off his sideburns, placed the fuzz in the man's hand and said, "Here you go!" (Thanks Emz, you win this week's star prize. Mail us a postal address and we'll sort you some books or CDs)
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 make our inbox larf.
Love Larry David? Worship Woody Allen? If so, an irresistible prospect hoves into view in the form of 'Whatever Works'. Allen makes a welcome return to his beloved Manhattan with this sparky romantic comedy starring the 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' star as grouchy retired nuclear physicist Boris who hooks up with a Southern runaway played by Evan Rachel Wood. 'Whatever Works' runs from Fri 25 June-Thur 8 July at the Watershed (www.watershed.co.uk) and one lucky Venue reader will win not only a pair of tickets to see it but also two Sicilian flatbreads (choose from the sundried, the Mediterranean, and the meaty one) to scoff in the bar before or after the film.
We've also got two pairs of tickets for the delightfully independent Endorse It In Dorset (www.endorseit.co.uk), which runs from Fri 6-Sun 8 August. A three-day festival of cowpunk, ska, rockabilly and dub, it welcomes such acts as The Damned, Pronghorn (who are also the organsers), Subhuman, Eat Static, Subgiant and Pauline 'The Selecter' Black, plus dozens more!
Want to win either? Or both? Then get this week's Venue to find out how!
Say What?
Good afternoon, princess. Taking a break?
Mmmm.
Is there any tea left in the pot?
Mmmm. Help yourself.
And how about these chocolate biscuits?
Mmmm. Help yourself.
"Hi Dad, how are you?"... "Why thank you for asking dear! I'm very well. Just sorted the car and the computer, and later I'll go for a run!"... "Really? Wow! You don't ever waste any time do you? While I am a teenage girl and am hard-wired to sleep in late and avoid all useful activity."
Can't talk. Reading and eating chocolate biscuits.
So I see. Heat, Take a Break, OK... Is Cheryl ready to date again yet? And what about Kerry's yo-yo dieting? Is Katie still having problems finding anyone who wants to go to the wedding? Is it true that Norman and Vuvuzela are regular fixtures on the Basingstoke dogging scene?
What!?! Who? You mean there are D-list celebrities I haven't heard of? Why was I not informed? Go down to the shop and get me more gossip magazines and some emergency chocolate biscuits at once!
I made them up. But how about a Daddy-daughter making-up-stories session like we used to do when you were little? "Once upon a time there were two stars. Nobody knew why they were famous, but they were both orange-coloured, and poorly educated fat women with low self-esteem all across the land loved to look at pictures of them ..."
Hold it right there you sexist bastard!! I am not poorly educated. I'm doing nine GCSEs, dammit. And I'm not fat. Now, where are those chocolate biscuits you promised me?
According to a study by Dr James White of Cardiff University and Dr Emma Halliwell from UWE...
Emma Halliwell! Heh! Sounds a bit like Geri Halliwell! Now there's a woman with yo-yo dieting problems! More chocolate biscuits? Can haz? Like, NOW!!!
...According to a study by respected academics from Cardiff and Bristol, teenagers who read gossip magazines are more likely to have eating disorders. Their study of almost 550 teenagers suggests, said Dr White, that "exposure to gossip magazines increases the risk in adolescent boys and girls of using unhealthy eating behaviours, without their awareness of being influenced."
They could affect adults, too.
True. If I have to look at them, I'd have an eating disorder, too.
Really? Which one? Binge-eating? Obsessive dieting?
Self-induced vomiting.
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