Magazines - entertaining or demoralising?

I used to love magazines, they were kind if my secret vice. Now I cant' remember when I last bought one, a commercial one anyway. The only one I do subscribe to is a literary one called The Sun with a distinctly liberal bent. It takes no ads. there is an interview, some short fiction as well as personal stories, poetry, photography.

I never buy or read women’s magazines nowadays. Many years ago I had women’s Weekly for the knitting patterns.
I do now have BBC History Magazine on line.

It's books, books, books for me!
I'm reading a Bio atm called "Hungry" by Grace Dent.
Love anything I can get stuck into.

Gave up buying magazines years ago. They became too expensive and full of advertisements, with hardly any interesting articles.

I haven't bought a magazine in years but I still read them when I can download them from the library. Anything to do with interior decor, fashion, history. I just ignore anything to do with celebs. I can't usually afford the things they show, whether it's house or fashion, but I do use them to get ideas, especially when I don't really know what I want.

Years ago I needed a ball dress to go to a company ball and had no idea what i wanted, never having been to a ball before. A week later the front cover of a magazine showed a beautiful coral ball gown - at nearly £600! I took the picture to a place on Oxford Street and they found me an almost identical one for £80. It's true that the one in the magazine was probably very expensive silk and mine wasn't but I didn't care, I was chuffed to bits.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

I download several magazines via an app called Readly which my husband subscribes to for a couple of things he likes of read and I get free membership to download stuff. I probably wouldn’t buy them for myself but enjoy reading them online. If I didn’t enjoy them or they make me feel dissatisfied/inadequate etc then I’d stop reading them!

Landscape and Country Living are my favourite magazines.

So very true Grandmajean!

Never buy women's magazines these days. Too expensive for a lot of advertising. Used to enjoy reading Family Circle in the 80s.

Yes Roswell I enjoyed Family Circle too.

I used to regularly buy Country Living, Homes and Gardens, Modern Gardens etc but they’re so expensive at nearly a fiver each and as others have already said the same articles seem to rotate around the months. I’ve still got a few copies going back several years and they could be the same as those on sale today. And don’t mention the fashion mags like Vogue, Elle etc. The first fifty pages at least are adverts for jewellery and cosmetics and the actual fashion pages are so arty that it’s impossible to see the clothes.
Stopped buying any of them about three years ago.

Neither. I haven't bought a magazine for years. Books, however.................

It would be "forced "By Richmond & Richmond add in telling "THEIR" kids to

by our time.

Cs783

Hi Gransey and I’m glad you mentioned free online library provision of magazines. Fabulous range.

Support our libraries grans if you can and don’t already!

Thanks Cs783! There are so many I wouldn’t want to read but some are interesting. ALL FREE!!! No more piles that you keep just in case you might need the recipes etc. Also you can read online and if you really like then go and buy the hard copy. Of course with your library card you have access to hundreds of books and audiobooks, again all FREE.

I used to take Saga, it was at a discount, but I stopped when I realised I hadn’t read the previous month one properly when the next one arrived.

Also I counted the advertisement pages, they constituted half of the total magazine.

Have to say I don’t miss it at all.

I cancelled my Saga subscription because they never had offers that applied to Northern Ireland.

The economies of magazines. like newspapers depends on advertising. magazines close down when the advertisers desert them as well as readers.

Without advertising Vogue would probably need to charge £20-£30 an issue and Saga upwards of £10.00 an issue.

Good morning to everyone, I’m hoping someone can recommend a hand held hoover to use up the stairs,my dyson hand held one has now packed up after many years and a couple of new batteries.

You’d need to start another thread to get meaningful replies, Biddymo, but seeing as I’m here anyway….

I’d recommend this one, which we bought to keep upstairs, and which works as a hand-held as well as a conventional vac. Powerful enough, very lightweight, two settings and charges quickly. It’s at least £20 cheaper on Amazon and other sites.

www.morphyrichards.co.uk/shop-now/cordless-vacuums/732102-SuperVac-2-in-1-Cordless-Vacuum-Cleaner.html

Subscribe to Countryfile, or some other nature, magazine and enjoy the beautiful photos. Magazine are now more like the tabloid press. Trying to catch your attention by some sleezy headline only to find that inside the article, it's got nothing to do with it.

I'm with you GrannyGravy. I have also had Prima on a short subscription (5 for £5).

I quite like the You mag in the Mail on Sunday.

I agree with the other poster's comments about the perfect lives and careers portrayed in some of the magazines.

Do people really believe all the stories in magazines about perfect lives and careers and is that what magazines do? Many magazines are bought because they are full of 'confessions' and 'agonies'. And even then surely in this day and age nobody really thinks that the image in a magazine represents reality.

I must say that the only popular magazines I buy are house magazines and really I have very little interest in the owners of the houses featured, it is the houses, the styles, and the ideas they create for me that interest me not the owners.

I am also well aware that the houses are styled and decluttered prior to the photography, which bothers me not at all, because it is the ideas of funishings and decoration that interst me and those are more easily seen without family clutter.

Although I did know someone whose house was featured in a magazine and it did look as lovely (and tidy) in reality as it did in the photos.

These items of either dramatic or so-called perfect lives are exaggerated in such a way to produce a story that is appealing and hopefully sell a few more copies.

A question I ask of the beautiful interiors is, "Where's the telly?" as unless it's the latest swanky model it's almost always hidden away isn't it?

I rarely buy them now as they make me envious and the least I can hope for is to have a home which is comfy and pleasant.

...and really I have very little interest in the owners of the houses featured, it is the houses, the styles, and the ideas they create for me that interest me not the owners

My thoughts exactly M0nica . I even look at some of the adverts, which I ignore everywhere else.

It's the same with fashion in magazines - I don't have much interest in fashion trends but it's interesting to see how different styles can be put together by someone with more imagination than me. Most of it is not for me, somethings I like but wouldn't want and every now and again I find something I really like that would suit me, whether it's changing a window dressing, repainting a room or changing the way I wear a dress.