M is for Magazines

I almost didn't make the A-Z challenge today due to work commitments and I'm writing it with half of my brain disconnected and a glass of wine floating somewhere round my head.

So, in desperation, I grabbed a clutch of magazines tonight; the tawdry ones they sell at the supermarket checkouts, although not the really weird ones that proclaim alien invasions and the end of the world. Does anyone really buy these?

Back in Britain there was a newspaper called The Daily Sport that was full of topless women and thought the idea of a good story was to print a half naked 300 lbs woman or a man with a tiny aerial superimposed on his head with the title: "Aliens Spotted in Basildon."

I sincerely hope it's died a death.

These magazines are more mainstream. My high speed review begins with In Touch Weekly, a magazine with a cover story about how Kendra and Hank have been "torn apart by another woman," a ripping tale if ever I read one.

Kendra is apparently famous for being one of Hugh's trio of girlfriends at the Playboy mansion. Needless to say the devotion of this trio of bimbettes was attributable to his physical appearance rather than his vast wealth and they would all date him at the same time were he a retired postman living in a trailer park.

Kendra is apparently known for a porno video she made. Or was it a record she set on University Challenge for naming the capitals of all of the world's countries?

Sorry In Touch - this story doesn't grab me. Frankly you expect someone like Hank to go and find another pneumatic blonde once he's worn out the replay button on the remote control of his video.

On to the next. Scarlett Johansson's "risky romance" with Sean Penn, who is twice her age. Scarlett is so infatuated she's "turned into a puddle of insecurity," perhaps because she fears Penn, will keel over and pop his clogs if he doesn't rush off on a relief mission to Haiti first.

In Touch is so predictable. Courteney Cox is also in a "risky romance" because she's frolicking on a beach with someone instead of going back to his husband who has quit sex with drawfs for the weekend, to work on the relationship.

In Touch has the oh-so-boring Who Wore It Better? section and the obligatory Britney Spears failure story; she's being controlled by her handler. What is she? A lion.

The story about Katie Holmes and the "gummi-gate" shock horror, reeled me in, though. No her daughter Suri did not actually buy penis shaped gummies, she just picked them up.

"Oh wow, those aren't Swedish fish," Holmes exclaimed.

Unless you count penis shaped Swedish fish, that is.

The rest of the mag includes yet another dull story about Katie - she "fluctuates from robotic to rambunctious."

Well - to be fair - don't we all? We work in an office, right. When we're released we fluctuate.

Katy and Russell - The Honeymoon's Over - yeah, yeah - they got on the plane and went home, right.

Magazine editors probably rely on Brangelina even more than Katie and Tom, so it's no surprise to see an Angelina story. She's apparently gone and got a tattoo bearing the longitude and latitude of Brad's birthplace in (ugh) Oklahoma.

Insiders say she finally gave in to Brad's requests to settle down and stop racing round the world gathering new kids. But in return she demanded a permanent commitment, which is where the tattoo comes in.

My advice to Brad consists of four words and not in this order; for, hills, run, the.

If you can find any in Oklahoma.

Angela and Brad also feature on the front cover of my second hastily grabbed, mag - Star.

Brad is caught in a "nude scandal" with a sexy costar - well aren't scandals always better when they are nude?

Sadly the aforementioned nude scandal seemed to comprise of a costar talking about how hot Brad looked when he stripped nude in the movie Troy and saying she wished she was in a nude scene with him. Err that's it.

If she exclaimed: "Eh oop chuck. He looked better than Donald Trump stripped down and rolled in lard," it wasn't reported.

Angela didn't exactly dump Brad, according to the article; she did something far worse. She dumped the kids on him.

Star has the normal boring best and worst dressed pages. The What's Wrong with Lindsay Lohan's Face supplement with encylopedia to follow, Katie Holmes nonsense and an article about Gwyneth Paltrow being "caught canoodling" with someone who is not her husband. But why are magazines allowed to get away with this? I mean using words like canoodling that don't mean anything specific.

Th obligatory Courteney Cox beach story is also here and it's too dull to even read. And inevitably Britney's "on the brink," although on the brink of what we don't know. Having another cup of tea?

The National Enquirer is the trashiest looking of the three. It looks like the sort of publication people in remote parts of Arkansas use for toilet paper.

Frankly I don't care about the shocking headline confession: "I killed Kirstie Alley's Mom"

Still the Enquirer is the only one of these publications that occasionally crosses over to mainstream journalism. None of the serious media outlets took the story of John Edwards' affair and love child seriously at first until the Enquirer provided cast iron proof.

There's a rather alarming picture of Goldie Hawn, 65, "getting frisky with a talent agent mogul" half her age in London.

How strange is this turn of phrase? If someome asked you how your day was would you reply?

"Quite tolerable, actually. I got frisky with a talent agent mogul."

There's the obligatory Courteney story that indicates to me she did not want to keep it quiet, as well as a piece about John Edwards contemplating jail and suicide; in no small part due to the Enquirer.

Possibly the biggest non story is Oprah 'raging' at Dr Phil. She feels he "stabbed her in the back" after learning he and and his staff tried to steal an interview guest she had already booked. How will she ever get her life back on track after such an ordeal?

But the story that fails most spectacularly to live up to its billing concerns a "treasure trove of secret documents that rip the lid off the private life of Hollywood's most storied couple - Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton."

I'm always up for spot of lid ripping at the weekend so I read on. A neighbor waited for 40 years until Liz died to reveal the contents of the treasure trove.

And they reveal (drum roll) the couple faced constant pleas from producers and actors who wanted to work with them, and they faced numerous difficulties remodelling a nine bedroom home in Mexico.

It seemed they were besieged with plumbing problems and construction delays while Liz had a few plumbing problems of her own, leading to gynecological surgery in 1970s.

Do people really routinely buy these magazines? I mean if not for the purposes of writing a blog on the A-Z challenge. On to the next.