While sitting in the dental surgery this morning, being kept waiting longer than I would have liked as the distant sound of a drill cut through my very soul, I got to flicking through GQ magazine.
What a load of toss.
Once you get through acres of high-end homoerotic adverts, featuring boy-men clad in mauve plus fours and bolero fur gilets with nothing underneath, while Kate Moss poutily holds a puma on a lead in the background, then the real fun begins.
Silly interviews in which Clive Owen - who in my experience is a chain-smoking, tensed-up dullard who grudgingly grunts back at you - talks about his stage craft while moodily modelling astronomically expensive suits in bronze gaberdine, or Rio Ferdinand, never out of the pages of GQ, leans menacingly against a bare brick wall in some inappropriate outfit made of leaves or something, talking about - yawn! - football and his image. GQ man seems to a cross between Jeremy Clarkson and Orlando Bloom, a metrosexual boor.
Then there are endless pages of exclusive gadgets that would make James Bond baulk, non-accessible fashion shoots in exotic locations for Harrington jackets that are a grand a pop, pages of 'must-have' pointy shoes and this season's essential voile scarves that you can just about make out in the shadows, sixth form standard op-ed pieces about little of interest, the obligatory interview with Tory popinjay George Osborne, wordy travel features touching on whatever's concerning the world at this juncture, just so it doesn't look too frivolous, a page to help you get those summer abs and lots of dull guff in between aiming at everyone from fans of Nuts to readers of The Spectator. And everything appears to be written by the same three people, who are snapped looking serious and intellectual in the contributors to this issue section.
And don't even get me started on the Editor's letter. Here, prize tit Dylan Jones recounts his trip to a football match in Milan (pronounced Mee-laahn) as guests of Dolce & Gabbana. He makes the world's most unconvincing footy fan. How does he have time to edit a magazine? I'd love to know.
I think this mag sells around the 100,000 mark, which is not to be sniffed at, and the advertising is top notch, but who do they think their reader is? Someone who lives this rarified secret agent style life, or someone who works in the Carphone Warehouse in Rotherham and dreams of one?
14 comments:
The latest sales figures have it shifting 130k copies a month, so they must be doing something right. Most men's mags' sales are falling off a cliff, but GQ's have held remarkably steady. Dylan Jones clearly knows what he's doing.
I thought the only copies that were purchased were by men's hairdressers, who then pass them to dentists when they are a year out of date?
And there must be 130,000 men's hairdressers in the UK. Stands to reason.
I'm sure he does know what he's doing, but is telling others to do it or is he doing it himself?
Yes, edit a magazine plus write all those columns for other publications and associated stuff. I find it hard enough holding down the single job (though if anyone WERE to offer me a column....).
I can't stand these pieces of Boys Own smuggery..
My hairdresser has a table full,and I never find a single feature worth reading. And those style pages Watches You Must Wear, This Season's Trainers - shudddup!
It's everything that annoys me about know-alls like Robert Elms spread over 200 pages
I bought GQ once, but only because I fancied a wank and they had a feature and cover on Kelly Brook when she'd just started at the Big Breakfast. I was about *cough cough* 15 at the time of course...
I have been reading Dylan Jones's book about how much he likes to make himself erect over anything made by Apple. It's boring yet strangely interesting. It goes like this:
"Yeah, then I got into Roxy Music because of the clothes, Bryan Ferry is a GOD. Then I just HAD to get into punk. Of course being a student in London in 1977 helped enormously with that. Vivienne Westwood is a GODDESS.." Repeat for a further 250 pages.
The Apple book is also about music. Forgot to mention that. It has the most awful punning title: iPod Therefore I Am.
I have that book but I can't bring myself to read it. Perhaps if I approach it from a different angle I might dip in.
It depends on how much you can stomach him brown-nosing Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive.
The angle it's best approached from is 'this book is about absolutely nothing but it passes the time on the bog'. But I can't imagine you reading on the toilet, so hey-ho...
What do you mean? It's my favourite reading place. I could - and do - spend hours there. But it's mainly magazines. Review sections of Mojo or The Word are ideal.
Come on F-C, we all know DJ is a foppish nob-end of the first order but: "I'm sure he does know what he's doing, but is telling others to do it or is he doing it himself?"
Errr, isn't that what being an editor's all about?
PS Why has no one mentioned his ridiculous shirt collars yet?
Yes, Squirrel, he's the technicolour Harry Hill.
Red Squirrel has a point.
Mentioning no names, we all know there are plenty of other magazine editors out there who do nothing more than tell other people what to do, swan off to fancy press events and long lunches, and snaffle up all the best freebies...
Who could you be talking about, Benj?
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