Judging a magazine by it's cover

While magazines in the past were generally content to contain nothing more than articles with pictures to illustrate the words, or pictures with words to explain the images (or, in certain glossy cases, lots of pictures, very few words and what words there were preporting to be from readers who had had quite exciting erotic experiences that they felt they had to share with other readers, when the reality was that the apex of an erotic experience for a reader of such material was actually a crafty hand shandy parked up in a in a lay-by between sales meetings while perusing it), magazines today come with all sorts of free stuff attached to the front of them, CDs and DVDs being the most common cover mounts because they are handily flat, while stuff like golf balls and fresh veg you don't see so much of.

Kids' comics have, of course, long been exponents of enticing new readers with a free gift. Now the norm, it used to be the exception and seeing a cheap bit of tat selotaped to the front cover of a comic sent a thrill of excitement and must-have pester power through a young lad keen to start tooting on their 'space distress siren' or, as it might more properly be called, crap plastic whistle.

Comics came with 'space spinners' (plastic hoop), 'club wallets' (cardboard envelope) and other novelties that made the magazine popular with kids and, thirty years on, drives comic collectors to fits of sorrowful rage as they come across another first issue with a mutilated cover where the toy had been ripped off, or to effervesce with joy if they come across one that has not.

Also available as cover mounts, sweets (or, more normally, a sweet, but hey, a sweet is a sweet, right?) or 'space dust' which I'm not sure is a sweet or some sort of junior amphetamine. What was odd was that these toys and sweets were never available to readers in Northern Ireland. Obviously it was considered that it would be unwise to fuel sectarian violence with sugary treats.

Of course, cover mounts were not confined to kids publications. I seem to recall that every single edition of the 'Peoples' Friend' ever published came with a free rain hood. This was genius, women who have a tartan shopping trolly in one hand and the magazine in the other are unable to hold an umbrella as they wait for the bus in the rain, reading hospital romances.

These days the chief exponents of the cover mount are the collectible or the hobby part works. The collectible part works promise you 'strange smells of the world' and have a different jar for you to sniff the contents of every week, or something.

The hobby part works used to be straightforward, you got a magazine that told you about Nelson and the navy and, free with part one, the bowsprit of the 'Victory'. By the time you had worked your way to the rudder you probably had a stack of magazines about eight foot high, a greater understanding of life in the navy in the Neoplionic era than any man alive and a nagging sensation that you missed issue 176 and, with it, a starboard gun port. Could be worse, the magazine could fold before you collect the issue with the glue for assembling the damn thing.

The thing to do is to cut your losses after issue three, go to a model shop, buy a replica kit, glue and paints and then leave the whole thing unmade on a shelf for a few decades. It's the same result as collecting the part work without all the schlepping down to the newsagent, where the danger is that you will be enticed by one of the more edgy, modern, cooler part works, like 'learn to bake' with a different cake tin free with every issue, or 'the family surgeon' with each edition covering some common operation in detail and containing a piece of surgical kit. Just remember to collect the issue with the batteries before you try attempt anything likely to require the defribulator. And remember, Botox is not a toy.