Table of contents for August 2025 in Viz

letters@viz.co.uk toptips@viz.co.uk STAR LETTER I RECENTLY had an eye test and the optician told me I needed glasses. Yet when I got home and put my girlfriend’s on, they made absolutely no difference; if anything, they made my eyesight worse! No wonder opticians drive around in big cars. A tidy little scam they’ve got going on there. Boon, Cardross I DON’T know why gardeners think it’s okay to prune plants to control their size. Since getting it as a puppy, my dog has grown a bit bigger than I thought it would, but I’m not going to snip its feet off. Jarl Varg, Lindesfarne LAST SUNDAY was my birthday, and when I turned on my computer to browse the internet, I saw the Google logo was made up of balloons…

GREAT REASONS TO SUBSCRIBE! A whole year of Viz delivered to your door or device before it hits the shops and for less than the cover price per issue, packed plumfull of your favourite rude jokes and ribald cartoons. Subscribe NOW and receive a FREE Viz travel mug!* ORDER TODAY, QUOTING THE OFFER CODE VIZ347P shop.viz.co.uk/viz347p hello@metropolis.co.uk 020 8752 8195 *The trial offer will automatically revert to a 6-month direct debit which will auto renew. If you wish to cancel the direct debit offer, please contact us via phone or email. Offer and free gift are valid for new UK customers only, one per household and while stocks last. Please allow six weeks for delivery.…

DESIGNER mongrels are the latest fad. Thanks to the runaway success of labradoodles, puggles and cockapoos, breeders have been dogged in their pursuit of the next must-have interbred pooch. And with three brand new varieties set to be announced later this week, canine-fancying trendsetters are straining at the leash to give the latest hounds a spin. Kennel Club bosses are preparing to unveil a trio of hitherto non-existent varieties which they hope will soon be gracing the pavements, parks and hot cars of Britain. And tipped to be top dog of the range is the ‘Red Bull’, a cross between a Red Setter and an English Bulldog, described as “endlessly amusing” in appearance. “Imagine an ugly man with long ginger hair,” said Kennel Club spokesperson Canina Bracegirdle. “The Red Bull…

IF you still cannot make up your mind between the two classic British pets, it’s time to put the decision into the Lap of the Dogs with this handy cut-out-and-keep Spin-O-Matic Pet Selector. Just mount it on some cardboard, perhaps from an old cornflakes packet, put a paper fastener through the holes in middle of the pointer and board and spin away to decide which pet you’re going to look after for the next 15-20 years. And don’t worry if you don’t like the first result, you can always spin again!…

NEUROLOGICAL research boffins at University College London recorded a scientific first earlier this month when they successfully identified, isolated and removed the part of the human brain that stores the memory of George Galloway pretending to be a cat in the fourth series of Celebrity Big Brother. The team, led by one of the UK’s leading neuroscientists, Dr. Wendy Houseman, stumbled upon the discovery while treating a patient for severe insomnia. “The patient hadn’t slept for weeks,” Dr. Houseman said. “He would spend nights awake in a cold sweat due to acute cringing embarrassment caused by remembering former Respect Party politician Galloway getting slightly too deeply into his feline roleplay on national television back in 2006.” “The memory was impossible for the patient to block out, affecting every aspect of…

profanisaurus@viz.co.uk abandoned badger sett n. An underused, overgrown and neglected mingepiece. Probably clogged up with tufts of fur, sticks, leaves, and hardened faeces. afterflow n. An unexpected and unnoticed discharge of the rear gun that takes place an indeterminate time after one has finished wiping out the cling-ons. See also clean up on aisle two, dusting between earthquakes. ‘I hope that’s just sweat running down my bumcrack and not another case of afterflow. I fucking hate it when that happens. Anyway, here’s Pan’s People dancing to this week’s number eight, Son of my Father by Chicory Tip.’ all night sitting 1. n. Nocturnal parliamentary session enabled to pass new bills prior to them being signed into law. 2. n. Extended period of forced ensconcement in the other place due to an influx of brown…

THE FIRST ever tree was the Tree of Knowledge from the Bible. Scientists are unsure what species it was, but they are confident that it was a broadleaf tree rather than a conifer, as it bore a ‘forbidden fruit’. “Trees are either angiosperms – trees whose seeds develop inside a fruit, or gymnosperms – coniferous trees whose seeds develop between the bracts of a cone,” says the ghost of face-fannied TV botanist David Bellamy. “And Adam certainly didn’t tempt Eve with a Forbidden Pine Cone he had plucked off the tree!” IF YOU felled all the trees in the world and cut them into planks, scientists are as yet unsure how big of a table you could make out of them. “Early research suggests it would be about the size…

EVOLUTION is not a race. It is not even a journey with a final destination. It is a never-ending Darwinian odyssey, with all species adapting to become better suited to changes in their environment. And as we humans cut down more and more trees in our seemingly insatiable quest for timber, it is entirely possible that trees will fight back, evolving defence mechanisms to prevent them falling victim to the lumberjack’s chainsaw. We asked particle physicist Professor Brian Cox to speculate on how trees may look 25 years in the future. “I’m not sure I am the best person to ask about this. It might have been better to ask a plant scientist or an evolutionary biologist. But since you’ve asked, I think trees will be noticeably different in the…

THE film Sliding Doors begins with PR consultant Helen Quilley running to catch a tube train, only for her to see the doors close as she approaches. The story then rewinds, and this time she manages to catch the train, just getting through the doors as they slide shut. The stories of the two timelines are then told in parallel, showing how one seemingly insignificant action can change the whole course of time. We asked three celebrities if they had ever done something which, in retrospect, could have changed the whole course of time, and asked what they thought would of happened if they had acted differently. Chris Packham Birdwatcher I SAW a wasp in my house one day, so I caught it under a glass with a bit of…

HOT on the heels of the Salisbury Novichok poisonings, Russian despot VLADIMIR PUTIN has turned his attention to the British media and launched a cyber attack on Viz Comic. In February, Russian goons infiltrated the toilet magazine’s computer system, lifting the final dozen or so lines of text from an article entitled For His Eyes Only on page 43 of issue 345. Last month, the system was hacked once again, and those same lines were added to the bottom of an article on page 37 of issue 346. “Exactly what Mr Putin hopes to achieve by this action, only he can say,” said Viz editor Hampton Doubleday. “But I fail to see how contriving to make the ending of one of our articles appear nonsensical helps the Russian cause in any…

IN 1859, Charles Darwin explained how human beings evolved from monkeys, a fact now accepted by everyone except religious people and schools in Arkansas and Tennessee. But whilst the face-fannied Victorian egghead set out the evolution of man, he never explained the evolution of man’s best friend. We asked genetics boffin DR ADAM RUTHERFORD to explain where dogs fit in the tree of life, and more specifically, what animals they originally evoluted from. “Whilst many animals have things in common, no two animals are exactly the same, and evolutionary science uses this fact to its advantage. Just like playing the game Guess Who, scientists use a process of elimination in order to work out the relationships between animals; by figuring out what they aren’t, boffins are able to discover what…

IF you use the Freedom of Information Act to look at the Sex Offenders Register, you won’t see ERIC RINGWORM’s name. And the absence of the 45-year-old Yorkshireman’s moniker on that list of shame is all thanks to his faithful dog, Ratter. That’s because the Jack Russell cross terrier has rescued his owner from a whole series of potentially embarrassing situations that could have left him in hot water with the fuzz. “On half a dozen occasions I’ve been mere seconds away from being put on the old nonce jotter,” says the Otley-based window cleaner. “I owe my good name – and perhaps even my freedom – to Ratter. I certainly owe him my livelihood. People wouldn’t want a certified sex case doing their windows, and who could blame them?” “I…

A NOTTINGHAM man who bought a sex robot advertised as “wild, insatiable and always ready” is demanding a full refund from the manufacturer after the erotic android repeatedly refused his sexual advances. Factory worker BARRY SEPSIS, 47, paid £25,000 for the DesireBot 3000, a state-of-the-art automaton from Nakajima Industries purported to be the most lifelike sex robot ever produced, and at first he was delighted with his purchase. “When I took it out the box, I thought ‘Phwoar! What a cracker!” he told the Beeston Enquirer. “It had long blonde hair, shapely legs and a gorgeous hourglass figure. And I’d paid a bit extra for the model with bigger tits, so I couldn’t wait to plug it in and get started.” Sepsis started charging up the robot, who he had called…

Across 7 A fuck Ginger loved (6) 8 1 Down 2 Down and 28 Across, roughly speaking – here? (8) 10 Fuck off and wank off, fashion consultant! (3,3) 11 Need teat stimulated? Has one come? (8) 13 Part, I nearly forgot to say – spare tyre (7) 15 Requirement as erection goes up, helmet observed after erect (4,3) 16 Some gear takes toll on arse with shit (4-6,5) 19 Coming down the barse (7) 21 Bishop perhaps after son’s hose, say? (7) 23 Prat dry, I gathered, crusty sump in lady’s undercrackers (4,4) 24 Escort tickled hairy conker (6) 27 Enlarging as does pink oboe, comfortably inside pipe (8) 28 Bonk that thing? Bollocks! (4,2) Down 1 Report of shag? (4) 2 Bird – what would go inside her?…

• IN THE 1989 epic Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, some of the action takes place on Hadrian’s Wall in a place known as ‘Sycamore Gap’, a narrow depression with a solitary sycamore tree at the bottom. However, if you visit the actual filming location in Northumberland, you’ll see that there is in fact no tree there at all, sycamore or otherwise. What a howler! • IN PETER JACKSON’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, millions of pounds were spent making the trees in Middle Earth walk and talk. However, in real life these wooden plants can’t move due to their deep root system that mirrors their branch structure above the ground. As for talking, they lack every structure necessary to emit a sound. Facepalm! • IN THE 1994 classic Forrest Gump,…

FOOTBALL teams. Avoid relegation by simply accumulating more points over the season than at least three other clubs in your league. Dean Moncaster, Louth AVOID costly speeding fines by stopping your car 30 metres ahead of a speed camera and removing your rear number plate with a screwdriver. After driving past the speed camera at any speed you wish, stop 30 metres away and put the plate back on. John Smoothe, Malibu OLDER people. After berating your kids for wasting their lives on TikTok, put some heavy metal sticks in a bag and go and knock a small ball into a hole 18 times on some grass. Eldon Furse, email DRUG dealers. Broaden your appeal to those adopting vegan lifestyles by marketing all of your weed, heroin and cocaine products…

THE Shamen are back, after a three decade absence from the Top Twenty. The nineties techno-poppers, who enjoyed chart success in the 80s and 90s with songs such as Ebeneezer Goode and Move Any Mountain, are back in the headlines. But it’s not simply another new electrodance number with a thumping beat that’s put them back in the spotlight, it’s a revolutionary development in the field of human biology. For the psychedelic dance popsters have announced the discovery of an eighth sense! Throughout history, physicians recognised only five senses in the human body – hearing, sight, smell, touch and taste. And in the 13th century, a controversial sixth sense – the intuitive ability to detect objects in the absence of the other five senses – was described. But the total…

FOR centuries, dogs and cats have been top of the list of people’s most popular pets. And as a nation of animal lovers, we Brits are divided equally as to which we prefer, with around 12 million of each animal across the United Kingdom. So if you’re thinking about getting a four-legged friend, which would YOU choose? Using the Viz ouija board, we contacted late veterinarian JAMES HERRIOT to give us the pros and the cons of each of these animals. So before you rush out to buy one or the other, first read this helpful guide to discover which is the best fit for you and your life-style, as we say… DOGS “THE main advantage of a dog is the unwavering and unconditional loyalty they give to their owners,”…

WE would all like our dogs to be able to fetch, roll over, play dead and so on. And you may think you have left it too late to train your pooch to perform such charming antics. But think again, because it’s not just puppies you can train – despite what they say, you can teach an old dog new tricks. And in this series, veteran circus ringmaster and budgerigar trainer NORMAN BARRETT is going to show you how. This week: SIT! “I HAVE only ever trained budgerigars, but I would imagine the process is exactly the same when you’re training a dog – you get the animal to do what you want, and then give it a reward in the form of food. Then, you get it to repeat the…

AUTHOR George Cockcroft’s 1971 novel The Dice Man tells the story of Luke Rhinehart, a psychiatrist who one day decides never again to consciously make any choices, instead letting a set of dice determine every action he takes. Documenting the absurd and chaotic situations that subsequently arise in his personal and professional life, it became a classic of its genre. And one Bodmin refuse collector was so impressed by the concept of the story, that he decided to live his life by the same set of rules, earning himself the moniker ‘The Dice Binman’. For the past two months, 47-year-old refuse collector Les Cressmould has never gone anywhere without a dice in his pocket, ready to shake and roll to reveal his next move. “I’ve never read the book, to be…

RECORD producers and fans of electro dance music were left reeling last night after it was revealed that pop duo Daft Punk were actually real-life robots! Since the techno-synth band’s conception in 1993, it has been believed that underneath the performers’ robotic disguises were French musicians Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homen-Christo. And music insiders believed that their anonymity – with neither artist appearing in public without his trademark robotic helmet and gloves – was a marketing ploy to give them a unique selling point. But at the Accor Arena in Paris last week, a member of the backstage staff accidentally entered the band’s dressing room after the gig and saw the pair out of costume. “Neither had their helmets on, and I couldn’t believe what I saw,” said stage…

THE Viz artist has knocked up a lovely picture of a tree. But, oh dear! The daft twat has accidentally divided it into fifteen pieces, and inadvertently mixed them up before unintentionally allocating the numbers 1-15 to the pieces. Using the empty square, can you slide the 15 squares around to put them back in the correct order? When you have successfully rearranged the puzzle in your head, simply write the sequence of how you did it (e.g. 3-left, 8-down, 12-right, 3-up etc) and send it, along with your name and address to Private Eye, 6 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BN. The Private Eye staff might perhaps put all the entries that reach them by Monday 28th July into a hat and then they could select a winner, who might…