In Praise of the Printed Page, Magazines

Because of the relatively cheap costs of printing and the ubiquity of decent editing software, there is now more or less a magazine for every interest however obscure, more than that, there is a plurality of magazines for obscure interests that have never been on offer before.

And I’m not talking about weird sexual stuff either.  Well, mainly not.  I’m talking about stuff like traction engines.  Now, I love traction engines, you love traction engines, everyone loves traction engines, except those stuck behind one on the road on the way to or from a steam rally, or somebody who wears loose clothing around one.  But until recently, there was only one traction engine magazine, and you had to get that mail order.  Essentially, people who built their own sex dungeons or had to get their hot tubs professionally sterilised after parties at their place were better catered for when it came to magazines covering their interests than the sort of people who enjoyed mechanised threshing in an outdoor setting.

No doubt there have been cases where a magazine has become magazines because of editorial disputes, and God knows that the world of hobbycraft can be a divisive one, one need only consider the Great Quilting Feud of ’06 and the Homebrew Wars of ’82 to ’87 to know that that’s true, but what the printing revolution has meant is that if somebody on the editorial board of doll collecting monthly does not like the direction that the publication is going in, with recent decisions not to exclusively cover dolls which are really creepy and are collected by adults that should be on some sort of watch list, then they can start up their own publication to cater for the creepy doll collector market.  Niche indeed.

G&P eulogises on a regular basis about fanzines, the privately produced publications of the 80s that were usually mail order and usually just one step up from a John Bull printing set or indeed a potato when it came to printing sophistication.  Now of course the internet allows lots of people with similar interests to get together and share hot tub cleaning tips and so on, but there’s nothing like a magazine to give a hobby legitimacy, and people love to read them.

I think a lot of it is fantasy.  I used to read ‘Canal and Riverboat’ because I like canal boats and can tolerate river boats.  Why not ‘Waterways World’?  Because that publication was a bit too racy for me.  I will never own a canal boat and indeed in reality have no real desire to own a canal boat.  But I like to read about them.  Which is bloody odd when you think about it, why would somebody who fantasises about owning a boat not buy ‘Superyacht Monthly’?  I stand about as much chance of ever owning a yacht with a helicopter landing pad on it as I do owning the sort of thing Rosie and Jim would live on.

I think that most magazines cater for the specialist mundane.  There are many magazines about modelling, not the top shelf kind, the scale kind.  There are magazines about all sorts of hobbies.  There are probably nearly as many magazines about knitting as there are about music.

And all of this while the internet offers endless free information about all sorts of hobbies.

Hobby magazines are supremely successful for a couple of reasons.  The first is that they address their congregation, they are produced for an enthusiastic and knowledgeable tribe who greatly enjoy learning obscure stuff about something they love.

The other reason is that a printed magazine about a subject lends that subject legitimacy.  This is the ultimate triumph of the printed word.  Anyone with the means can epublish, but getting something on a shelf requires talent and effort and is the result of hard work leading to success.

That’s why when browsing for magazines, I usually walk past the endless lifestyle mags all trying to look different and all looking the same, with a matte cover and understated font, and pick up something with a glossy front cover that has a colourful photograph of somebody looking truly ecstatic on a tractor.

In Praise of the Printed Page, Newspapers

Newspapers, it is reported on teevee, on the wireless and online, are in decline.

Newspapers have been in decline for years, in terms of quality there has been a shift from journalism to comment.  Newspapers had something of a reputation of never letting the facts get in the way of a story, but now it is a case of never letting any facts get in the way of an opinion.  Comment used to be serious writers writing about what they knew, then moved to essentially being blogs that somebody could be bothered to print out, and are now repackaged extended tweets.

There has also been a decline in quantity, declining budgets, declining circulation.  Most importantly of all, a decline in the size of the newspapers themselves.

Broadsheets used to have gravitas.  Sure, they didn’t always print the truth, and maybe the facts weren’t always right, and there may have been libels and damaging speculation, but the page was fifty inches wide and who can argue with a headline that is rendered in Time New Roman 400 point?  No matter what it says.

The introduction of the tabloid newspaper heralded a new age, with the printed page becoming more accessible to the working man, who wanted to read the news in a way that spoke to him in his own language, about issues that mattered to him, and had a picture of a dolly bird with her top off.  Serious journalism still mattered in the tabloids, yes, there were pictures of topless women, but you got their name, age and learned that they enjoyed pottery in their spare time.  Gone now is such journalistic rigor with some hack just getting their ‘facts’ about Jane, 21 from Stevenage off Wikipedia.

From boardsheet to tabloid to mobile telephone screen, the news has gotten smaller.  Which is a shame, because issues like environmental problems, economic crisis and challenges to our security and democracy remain as big as ever.

There is, still, arguably, a place for newspapers in our culture.  That place is on line.

Kidding.  There is something about an actual physical newspaper that remains important.  What exactly that is, I’m not entirely sure, I think it has something to do with the crossword and other puzzles but I’m sure it must be important to all those who read the ‘Metro’, a newspaper that is given away for free at train stations and, on examination of the content, can be described as ‘overpriced’.

The Metro is owned by a rich proprietor.  This at least is a tradition that has endured in the newspaper industry when others have not.  If you are a normal human being with forthright views that you think others should know, you set up a blog that nobody reads.  If you have immense wealth and want to influence society, you either train your private army in an undersea volcano base, or buy a newspaper and exert subtle influence over first the editorial policy and then in turn over the population.  Remember, it’s not fake news if it’s your news, and if you are reporting what people want to know, where’s the harm, even if the news you print is not in total alignment with the facts?

The weekend though is when newspapers come into their own.  That’s when the majority of the newspaper can be given over to sections that are not already out of date by the time they are printed, like teevee listings.  It’s also the time when the review sections are published, and authors who had their last novel trashed by a reviewer can exact terrible revenge by describing the new work of their nemesis as ‘insipid’.  The same review can be recycled, not unlike the newspaper’s destiny, in the restaurant section where any restaurant in the whole of London can expect a dull rave review or a terribly witty crap one.  Places to eat outside London may be found in the supplement about rural gastropubs.

I gave up on reading the weekend newspaper some time ago, when it became like the opposite of a guided meditation.  The weekend is too short for fits of rage, except when reading the Telegraph, when it’s a perfectly normal, healthy reaction.

In Praise of the Printed Page, Books

Books, famously, furnish a room.  Especially a library.  Despite the rise and rise of the eReader, the tablet and the audiobook, hardback and paperback books continue to be popular, sold in bookshops, on the high street.  It’s like three endangered species banded together to buck the trend.

The conventional book is superior to its electronic bastard offspring in a number of ways.

Firstly, a book is in and of itself a precious object, especially if you are paying full whack for a hardback.  It’s something that makes you happy to buy it, happy to read it and then happy to own it.  Because books are decorative, as stated above.

It is well known that the right sort of vintage Penguin (book, not animal or biscuit) jutting jauntily from your pocket can attract the right sort of romantic partner, that is, the sort of romantic partner who knows that anyone with a Penguin edition of ‘The 39 Steps’ or ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ is exactly the sort of chap or chappess with whom a romantic fling would be just the thing.  It if further known that a small stack of the right sort of reading material by the bedside is an indicator of good character and conducive to frolics and a good night’s sleep in exactly the same way that a collection of soft toys in the bedroom is not.  We then progress to a decent bookshelf, bookcase and, finally if you are fortunate enough to have the space, the means and the tolerant partner, a room one can designate a ‘study’ or, if you are exceptionally fortunate, a ‘library’.

The difference between a study and a library is a narrow one.  Broadly, a study has books and a desk and a sensible chair with a stiff back.  Captain’s chairs are permitted, although the rule of ownership is not unlike the rules permitting one to play international rugby for a particular country, one must have a seafarer in the immediate family, or one must have been a seafarer for a number of years.  Whereas a library has a table, usually cluttered with books, and a comfortable chair near a good light source that can be used for reading, or dimmed for short or even extended periods of contemplation.  The other main difference is that a library will have 2/3 more decanters of booze available.

Studies are, increasingly, in the news.  Literally.  No news programme it would appear is complete without a video link interview with an expert in something, or at least with somebody who has a tweed jacket and some strong opinions.  In such cases, the person speaking from their home increasingly takes pains to ensure that the backdrop is not of a microwave and a fridge with a shopping list stuck to it, the contents of which would make one doubt the value of any opinion somebody who actively purchases ‘Nutella’ might espouse.  Instead, they ensure that their background is bookish.

If the interviewee is an academic, then they will ensure that the only book not conventionally shelved, but rather with the front cover prominently displayed, is their latest work.  If they are a writer then the shelves will display their collected works, including translations.  If they are a politician then political biographies are the thing, Churchill for tories, Bevan for Labour, Stalin for the Labour front bench.  Multiple biographies of Hitler are permitted for military historians only, anyone who owns more than three biographies of Hitler and does not teach history at a decent Polytechnic or educationally equivalent establishment should be placed on some sort of watch list.

Given the news is pretty ghastly, the only time one really needs to flip it to HD is to either try to work out if Fiona Bruce has had some more work done, or to decode the bookcase of an interviewee, and then judge them.

We have lost album artwork and sleeve notes to the digital download, thankfully we still have the art of the book cover, although famously that’s no way of judging a book.

Having the book’s title visible is, however, an excellent way of judging who, and who not, to sit next to on public transport.

e publishing

It’s called a Kindle because it’s the next best thing to burning books!  Centuries of traditional type and publishing have given us everything from the Bible to Penguins – the books, not the bird or the biscuit.  Ten minutes with electronic publishing has given us fifty fucking shades of fucking grey and fucking fan-fucking-fic.  Time was when you wanted to read filth discreetly you wrapped a copy of the Times around your Razzle and the only thing fans produced were scary shrines and purple-printed fanzines advertised for sale in the back of the NME. 

And what of the second-hand bookshop?  These are among the greatest places on Earth, what will happen to them without any second-hand books?  And what about the smell, slightly musty, slightly academic, wholly bookish?  What about the proprietors of these magical places?  Do you know how hard it is to find a job in retail that enables you to open and close when you want to and to wear carpet slippers on the job? And what about their smell, slightly musty, slightly academic, wholly bookish?  Do you know why so many wannabe writers complain that they could paper their walls with rejection letters from publishers?  I’ll give you a clue, it’s not because editors, agents and publishers are all sadists.  Time was when self publishing was rightly described as vanity publishing and was the only way the otherwise unprintable memoirs of retired men with forthright views about foreigners saw the light of day.  Now, any idiot with an iPad and a few hours to waste can publish their ‘original’ moody bloody vampire novella.

As for digital magazine downloads, what a shocking idea.  Every edition of the ‘People’s Friend’ had a free rain-hood stuck to the front cover. Try giving away free essential old-lady apparel as a digital bloody download.

Yet more Gonzo Publishing

Printing has always been the province of the professional, with the notable exception of ‘Readers’ Wives’ providing a platform for the amateur. Now though, mortals can see themselves in print without having to go to a vanity publisher or sprawl on a kitchen counter with their arse in the air while their boyfriend snaps off a few ugly beaver shots with a poleroid.

Companies convert your photographs into photograph albums for you.

Sometime between having your portrait painted by a grumpy Dutchman and being able to take pictures your telephone, people used cameras with a strip of film. This film was typically bought for a holiday and traditionally some of it was used before the camera was brought back home and put on a shelf somewhere and forgotten, only to be rediscovered again at Christmas or a birthday. The film was then used up and sent off to be developed and, two weeks later, you had 36 photographs recording anywhere from a few months to three years of family activity, a few shots on the beach, one or two totally black photographs (the result of trying to capture the magical effect of the Christmas tree seen through the after effects of a huge dinner and half a bottle of cooking sherry by not using the flash) and, if you were trying ‘to use up the film’, seven pictures of the dog.

You selected the best photographs, put them in the family album, put the album on the bookshelf and forgot about it. Traditionally, it was not seen again until you brought your fiancée home to meet your parents and your mother got it out, open the page of you, age six, about to go to casualty with a toy train stuck up your arse. Or naked on a rug as a baby if you’re into that sort of thing.

Today we can back up all our photographs and keep them all. The difficulty is how to display them and this usually means, depending on your class, using your expensive printer to produce a hard copy of your favourite shot or, if you live in a caravan, having a photograph blown up and printed onto a four foot square canvas. Two things to note here, tattoos rarely photograph well and, when enlarged, that hilarious shot of you and your best friends on a beach at Ibiza clearly shows a bloke in the background masturbating. Into your beach towel.

The alternative is to get a hardback album printed and bound for you and, I have to say, they look amazing on the adverts. The finished result is just like those coffee table books of photographs that people used to buy in the seventies and I would guess that, if you are that way inclined, seeing yourself in hardback glossy print must be quite a hoot, especially as you can put captions under the photographs.

Why stop at the family album and the coffee table though? If you can get a book of photographs then why not a book of pictures and text, like a children’s book…that you can then slip onto the shelves of the local Waterstone’s. then you can sit back and watch the fun as some outraged parent verbally assaults a baffled store manager because their tot has been found sobbing after picking up ‘Mr Bunny and Mr Fox’, with illustrations along the lines of H G Geiger meets an explosion in a vivisectionists. Or, fed up with the head librarian never stocking enough of your favourite author? Slip the children’s classic ‘Burn pikey-kid burn’ onto the shelves and apply for the position yourself once he’s sacked for ‘ordering’ it.

Why stop at the library. Want to impress your neighbours? Note if they have a photography book then reproduce it, making sure to insert, say, a carefully photoshopped picture of you hanging out with the Rolling Stones. Next visit, substitute your tome; ‘Hey, you have this, have you seen page 42, gosh, yes, that’s me. Sign it, well, sure.’ Extra points for using a photograph from the 70s, showing you exactly as you are now. You can tell if they have seen ‘The Shining’ by the degree of freak-out that occurs.