Currently working away from home and staying in student accommodation, with no facilities apart from a kettle and a sink. Suddenly I feel once again cut off from the world and most the time, completely oblivious that the Olympics is going on.
So barring a bit of Netflix on the tablet, I get quite bored when I have spare time in my room. So, I decided that because I need something that I can stop and start rather than put time into, I'd buy some magazines.
Now for those of you in your late 20s, I don't know what magazines that you read, but I find it really hard to choose publications. The problem is I am no longer in my late teens but I am also not a middle-aged middle-class mother of two. I just want a good read that I can slip in and out of.
I've been reading "women's" magazines for years. Starting with the "Smash Hits" and "Top of the Pops" of my teenie bopper and early teens to the "Just Seventeen" and "More" of my later teens. The thing is, in those day, I was trying to keep up with the trends of clothes, music and films and more often or not, to swoon after the idols of my early 90s youth. Obviously, as secondary school sunk in, reading Smash Hits was just not cool enough for a year 8 going into year 9 girl. This is when the Just Seventeen era sank in.
In all honesty, when I went onto what I'll call "the second strand" of teen magazines, I was more reading them for the gossip than the sexual content. At that particular age I loved having fun with mates but dating was the last thing on my mind. I was a proper academic (or boffin used to be the term in my school), not a nerd, I just worked really hard at what I did and wanted to do well in the subjects I liked. Of course the sexual content at least kept me up to scratch on what some girls of my age group were talking about, so I never felt like I knew nothing. I also have quite open minded parents, so I was never scared to talk to them about anything.
College was definitely the biggest change for my magazine reading, when suddenly it was all about "More", that had things like position of the week in it. Also, the pictures of the guys were a lot more risque, it was quite hot : ) Suddenly I felt very behind on everything. I felt like the only virgin in the college, lol. It wasn't made easier by the fact that half my class were a year above me, so to them, everything they were talking about was normal. However, these magazines actually came at the right age, where I started having an interest in certain guys I knew. I wouldn't say they were the answers to my problems, but were a great support system to growing up.
So now let's move forward just over 10 years. So on the lead up to this I enjoyed fun and frolics of being 18-23 years old and made up for the so called "missed years" of my teens (in all honesty, I had a lot of fun, but I couldn't of handled everything I dealt with then at secondary school, I just wasn't as mature and grown up as I thought I was). Then since being 23, I have been in a long term relationship with a guy I met over 11 years ago but only stuck with permanently after a lot of two-ing and fro-ing over the years. I'm not engaged or married (even though it's definitely a lot closer on the cards than previously) and I currently don't have kids (a choice and money thing). So where does that leave me with a good magazine read?
I like a good bit of Suduko and Hanjie, but I don't want to be just doing that. I'm not the "Good Housewife" or old enough to buy "Women's Weekly", so what is for me? I am like many career minded ladies that don't want to think that we are only worthy of tabloid reads like "Heat" and "OK", we want something informative, fun and real - is that really so much to ask for? I still like clubbing (just not with the under-agers), I like festivals, seeing films, going out with mates, buying stuff that isn't the most expensive on the shelf and bargains. Just because I'm nearly 30, does all that have to end?
I am currently still buying things like "Glamour" and "Company", but as the ages of the male pin ups and the articles by the women are by younger and younger people, I do wonder, am I just too old for Glamour? I think the best read (which happens to be free but is only available in central London on a Wednesday) would be the fabulous Stylist (which I have talked about before). It's the one magazine where I feel it covers a lot of my interests and does not make me out to be dumb. I fear if it was not for this, women of my age wouldn't have anything. If anyone wants to create a magazine, I definitely suggest this niche in the market. We are new age women whose thoughts are not just about a mortgage, husband and popping kids out. I know I want more from life than just that and I think the magazine industry is missing out on all those readers, who are spending their pennies on other forms of media instead.
As William Nicholson said "We read to know we are not alone" and how true, because I know I am not.
Blog title comes from Madonna's Vogue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuJQSAiODqI
So barring a bit of Netflix on the tablet, I get quite bored when I have spare time in my room. So, I decided that because I need something that I can stop and start rather than put time into, I'd buy some magazines.
Now for those of you in your late 20s, I don't know what magazines that you read, but I find it really hard to choose publications. The problem is I am no longer in my late teens but I am also not a middle-aged middle-class mother of two. I just want a good read that I can slip in and out of.
I've been reading "women's" magazines for years. Starting with the "Smash Hits" and "Top of the Pops" of my teenie bopper and early teens to the "Just Seventeen" and "More" of my later teens. The thing is, in those day, I was trying to keep up with the trends of clothes, music and films and more often or not, to swoon after the idols of my early 90s youth. Obviously, as secondary school sunk in, reading Smash Hits was just not cool enough for a year 8 going into year 9 girl. This is when the Just Seventeen era sank in.
In all honesty, when I went onto what I'll call "the second strand" of teen magazines, I was more reading them for the gossip than the sexual content. At that particular age I loved having fun with mates but dating was the last thing on my mind. I was a proper academic (or boffin used to be the term in my school), not a nerd, I just worked really hard at what I did and wanted to do well in the subjects I liked. Of course the sexual content at least kept me up to scratch on what some girls of my age group were talking about, so I never felt like I knew nothing. I also have quite open minded parents, so I was never scared to talk to them about anything.
College was definitely the biggest change for my magazine reading, when suddenly it was all about "More", that had things like position of the week in it. Also, the pictures of the guys were a lot more risque, it was quite hot : ) Suddenly I felt very behind on everything. I felt like the only virgin in the college, lol. It wasn't made easier by the fact that half my class were a year above me, so to them, everything they were talking about was normal. However, these magazines actually came at the right age, where I started having an interest in certain guys I knew. I wouldn't say they were the answers to my problems, but were a great support system to growing up.
So now let's move forward just over 10 years. So on the lead up to this I enjoyed fun and frolics of being 18-23 years old and made up for the so called "missed years" of my teens (in all honesty, I had a lot of fun, but I couldn't of handled everything I dealt with then at secondary school, I just wasn't as mature and grown up as I thought I was). Then since being 23, I have been in a long term relationship with a guy I met over 11 years ago but only stuck with permanently after a lot of two-ing and fro-ing over the years. I'm not engaged or married (even though it's definitely a lot closer on the cards than previously) and I currently don't have kids (a choice and money thing). So where does that leave me with a good magazine read?
I like a good bit of Suduko and Hanjie, but I don't want to be just doing that. I'm not the "Good Housewife" or old enough to buy "Women's Weekly", so what is for me? I am like many career minded ladies that don't want to think that we are only worthy of tabloid reads like "Heat" and "OK", we want something informative, fun and real - is that really so much to ask for? I still like clubbing (just not with the under-agers), I like festivals, seeing films, going out with mates, buying stuff that isn't the most expensive on the shelf and bargains. Just because I'm nearly 30, does all that have to end?
I am currently still buying things like "Glamour" and "Company", but as the ages of the male pin ups and the articles by the women are by younger and younger people, I do wonder, am I just too old for Glamour? I think the best read (which happens to be free but is only available in central London on a Wednesday) would be the fabulous Stylist (which I have talked about before). It's the one magazine where I feel it covers a lot of my interests and does not make me out to be dumb. I fear if it was not for this, women of my age wouldn't have anything. If anyone wants to create a magazine, I definitely suggest this niche in the market. We are new age women whose thoughts are not just about a mortgage, husband and popping kids out. I know I want more from life than just that and I think the magazine industry is missing out on all those readers, who are spending their pennies on other forms of media instead.
As William Nicholson said "We read to know we are not alone" and how true, because I know I am not.
Blog title comes from Madonna's Vogue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuJQSAiODqI
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