Tales Of The Unexpected…

Women’s magazines. I’m not talking about Cosmopolitan or Elle here, they do a good job keeping women up to date on all kinds of cool stuff, like hair and vibrators. I’m talking about Chat, Womans Own, Pick Me Up and Take a Break, amongst others.

This one shouldn’t really offend, but it might.

I don’t mean to imply that all of the stories that appear in these magazines that I’m about to ‘discuss’ below, are over exaggerated or even false, though it seems a stretch of the imagination to believe they were conceived by a writer with all of his faculties, rather than one on crystal meth, his editor in another dimension after a cocktail of Ketamin and LSD. I would never suggest that.

But have you ever actually read any of this stuff? L. Ron Hubbard would be kicking himself that he didn’t invent a religion based on some of the bizarre scenarios and ridiculous people who appear in these magazines, it would make far more interesting reading than Scientology fact sheet. In fact, Scientology looks like a viable alternative to reading them.

I don’t know how many of you read this kind of thing. maybe someone can enlighten me as to their purpose in life, answers on a postcard.

I realise that they are not designed to cater for the intellectual, nor are they for the stupid, they just seem to exist, in a section of their own on the magazine rack, in between all of the other more regular publications.

I see it something like having your mad Uncle Hubert over for tea, he sits there on the verge of a mentally unstable outburst while balancing the cat on his elbow and quietly humming Jumpin’ Jack Flash by the Rolling Stones, which, while a great song in itself, doesn’t do anything for Uncle Hubert or the situation he finds himself in.

I guess what I’m trying to say here, in a most roundabout fashion, is that these magazines are just like Uncle Hubert. Everyone else sits around the table making polite conversation, having a laugh and talking about politics and there’s Hubert, having a rave in the fruit bowl.

These magazines just scream at you, photos and headlines that you just wont believe. Sophistication is a word you can’t really justify using.

After a little research I found out that Jeremy Kyle writes an Agony Uncle column in Pick Me Up magazine. “Straight talking, tells them what they need to hear”, they quip. I have my own tagline for his section, it’s a little different from their version.

As I said, sophistication.

Anyway, onto the stories, after all, these are the main event. Mixed in with ‘Rude Jokes Corner’ and a section delightfully named ‘Arent Men Daft!”, the stories to shock and amaze. I’ll give you my reaction to a selection of these headlines and as you’ve probably already guessed, shock and amazement weren’t at the forefront of my emotions.

Firstly, from the hallowed pages of Chat, comes a story that’s potentially disturbing but is ruined at the last moment by a headline straight from the crack pipe of the editor. I don’t doubt that this is a real and harrowing story, I’m not mocking the stories themselves, just the way they are presented to us…

“He Butchered My Babies To Teach Me A Lesson…”

I don’t know about you but if I was going to teach somebody a lesson, I like to think I’d limit it to slapping them or shaming them in some way, dependent on the issue at hand. What I would not do, is butcher babies, it’s just not nice at all.

From the same magazine, we have another headline, equally as nasty but equally as attention grabbing. It’s almost like they looked up ‘subtlety’ in the dictionary and decided against it.

“He Killed Mum…Then Shot My Face Off”

I’m still looking for the subtlety in there, I fear its as lost on me as the concept of the working class is on David Cameron. Aside from that, where could you possibly go with that storyline? Life after my face was shot off? One other point to note, how was the face shot off but the head remained? Moving on…

Pick Me Up provides the next entry for our perusal, a comedy entry this time, I can only assume. Pick Me Up’s slogan is ‘Real life has never been so good!’ Yeah, tell that to the deformed child and the girl who got stabbed in the heart by her Dad.

“Look Mum! I’ve Got Horns!”

Accompanying this headline is a ‘cheeky’ picture of a young chap who does indeed appear to have horns. I’m fairly certain that we used to have something similar to this process a little while ago and even though efforts are made to stamp it out, it continues. Find a person with unusual disfigurements, abilities or skills and charge people money to look at them…thats right, Britain’s Got Talent.

Take A Break magazine seems to be a little more selective with its wild headlines, mingling them with serious topics but being a womans magazine of this type, it would be wrong of me not to include their riveting headline:

“The Body On The Settee…But Dad’s Innocent”

Its comforting to know that Take A Break have confirmed this mans innocence.

I will mention that I havent read any of these stories, I have only seen the headlines but given that it’s the sole way of grabbing attention,  its fair to say, I can base my judgements on that.

I wont even go into my other options, namely “Was My 9 Year Old Turning Into A Paedophile?” and “A Bounty Bar Or A Baby”

Make of those what you will, there’s one thing for sure, there will always be a story to be told, however freaky or bizarre it may be and most worryingly, there’ll always be someone to read them…

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