Magazines

I rarely find myself spurred in to action. I don't have a quick temper, I slowly build myself in to epic tantrums and then thirty seconds in to the tantrum realise I'm being a bit of a knob and simmer down. I get over myself pretty quickly. However sometimes the rage likes to direct itself in to letter writing and now so many companies have little links on their website encouraging me to 'contact us' I occasionally write overblown emails. Many is the time I have come home to find letters from companies apologising for stuff. I can rarely remember what I wrote and can never remember what prompted such fits of rage. They are usually directed at train companies, power companies and makers of substandard eye liners. However this week I took on a new giant - magazines.

Let me be clear. I love magazines. I've worked at a few and although I don't buy as many as I once did I still dip in to one or two of the weekly gossip ones. It's worth noting that this isn't directed at monthy women's magazines. I have issues with them but they are normally along the 'who spends £700 on a pair of trousers' type issues. Anyway. A couple of months ago I stopped buying Heat. I've read it pretty much weekly for ten years and I found it quite amusing. Not as amusing as they find themselves but I'd still buy it. Then one day I was reading the tv reviews and I can't remember what the programme was (I think it was Derren Brown but I can't be sure) but the review, written by Boyd Hilton, said something along the lines of 'blah blah takes on religion, this should be quite easy as God doesn't exist'. I found that quite astonishingly rude. He's entitled to his opinion, he can think what he wants (that's his God given right, boom boom) but to casually disregard thousands of people's beliefs in a smug and patronising way I found pathetic. So I stopped buying it.

And I started buying New! instead. Drawn in by it's optimistic exclamation mark and cheap price tag. It's not a taxing read and it kept me amused on the commute, it's always interesting to get Peter Andre's take on world events. However, little did I know that it was to lead me to my next campaign. They have a page called 'celebrity shame' or something. Basically it's pictures of celebrities not looking their best with the offending articles helpfully ringed in red so we can really know how they've screwed up. Such things as having their flies undone, a horrible top and the like are all ringed. So far so asinine. Each misdemenour is accompanied by a bit of text ridiculing the said celebrity. It's not nice but I usually imagine that the celeb in question couldn't really give a monkeys.

However on Tuesday I took a look and there was a picture of Penny Lancaster. I literally have no opinion on this woman. None. However New! magazine had ringed her boobs in red and entitled it 'Penny's massive nipples'. Then followed a blurb ridiculing her for the afore mentioned transgression and (this is the bit that got me) saying that she should get a personalised number plate that said B1G N1P3. I actually said out loud 'Oh for fucks sake'. This had the benefits of slightly relieving my frustration and giving me a bit more room on the train as people backed away from me. I never thought I would have a reaction to Penny Lancaster but seriously. Ridiculing a woman for something she has no control over (by the way, in the picture she looked fine), she has also recently given birth and is probably still breast feeding and now she's getting mocked in public. It annoyed me that this is acceptable. That it's someone's job to sit there pulling people apart and writing bitchy copy about some poor woman who's just getting on with her life. It's not fair and I don't want a part of it. So I'm not buying New! anymore. And I wrote them an email telling them to grow up.

So that's been my week. I started my own cultural revolution based around Penny Lancaster's breasts. Not a sentance I ever thought I'd write.