Two jokers who fooled the world and teased thousands of motorists for weeks have owned up.

People were fooled into thinking two lovers called Wendy and Jenny were carrying on a public row by draping banners with bitter messages to each other over a bypass bridge.

Messages included "Wendy I want a divorce" and "You are a cheat". Some of them were signed with the initials JBS.

One national newspaper reported the banners were the work of feuding lesbian lovers named Wendy and Jenny.

But this is the final twist - the saga was a hoax by Hove comedian Guy Venables and Brighton magician Paul Zenon.

Venables, who caused a stir two years ago when he jumped naked into a shark tank at the Sea Life Centre in Brighton for a prank, and Zenon, whose acts includes swinging a pint of beer balanced in a snooker triangle over his audience, finally owned up to hanging the banners.

Venables confessed his prank to The Argus yesterday before telling an audience at his Joker Basement comedy show at Komedia in Brighton how he thought up the idea.

He said: "I was always seeing good news signs for birthdays near where I live in Hove and I wondered what the reaction would be to something bad."

Not everyone was amused. A spokeswoman from Sussex Police said: "People might think the banners were funny and they certainly grabbed attention but we were genuinely concerned because they were so distracting for drivers and could have caused an accident."

Officers said they would not take any further action against the pranksters.

Read together, the first three banners form a rhyming stanza: "Wendy I want a divorce. No way you are the cheat. This is just making it worse, I reckon that we should meet."

Venables , 36, said: "It's like public poetry. It was a clue no one picked up on but then I suppose the point of conducting a hoax is to keep it hidden.

"When I started I figured it would probably be picked up by The Argus but I was surprised it went so much further. It was in the national papers here, CNN did a piece and it was even in the Karachi Times in Pakistan.

"I was going to finish it by saying the cheating was only about a game of Scrabble but in the end everyone was saying it was about a heterosexual couple and I wanted it to be what everyone least expected so I made them a gay couple."

The final banner revealed JBS was called Jenny, not Jonny as many suspected - but it really stood for a group of comedians and entertainers called the Joker Basement Society founded by Guy.