Prize: Gone. Nonsense: Continuing

Why aren't magazines as good as they used to be? I'm not about to embark on some teary-eyed nostalgic rant about how good Smash Hits used to be. Frankly, I never read it, for I was firmly in the Number One camp, the ad jingle of which has now marched forcefully into my brain and set up camp in my medulla oblongata, whatever that is. But today as I was idly flicking through the Guardian Weekend magazine, after I had bravely fought my way through the 14 kilos of extraneous supplements and emerged, shaken and inkstained, through the other side, it struck me that it really wasn't that good any more. It hit its entertainment peak on the revamp-before-last, and now wading through Jon Ronson's knowing pompousness and that other bird's verbosity monstrosity (ha! ironeeee!) really puts a grey pall over my Saturday afternoon lounge'n'read. Thank the criminy lord, then, for that celebrity questionnaire thing which I like cos I'm a nosy old bugger whose life is a little more complete for knowing that Jimmy Carr's best ever kiss occurred in his hallway. And of course la Guide, which has remained stubbornly unchanged for years and is all the better for it.

But come on. Nowadays, we're expected to pay about £14 for our monthlies, and they're all a big heap of bullpie. Man alive, I bought Q every month when I was a stroppy teenager. Now I can't even go near it in Smiths for fear I might see a picture of Bono looking sanctimonious, which would mean I'd have to torch the whole high street in an unholy rage. NME? Bleuch. Although that might have something to do with the fact that, since the Killers appeared, all music is dead to me. Even Heat used to be mildly entertaining, and there goes my carefully craftedandrogynouss blog personality. Empire can still wing its way through my eyeholes and into my heart, even when it cruelly ignored my pathetic entry into its Thunderdome write-off. But that's it. It's really depressing when all you want is some glossy-paged mind-gum to mind-chew, and instead you have to stand slack-jawed in a newsagent faced with absolutely nothing that interests you, plus you've already read the paper and the Metro and BOTH the evening freesheets, until you have to dumbly admit defeat, buy a scratchcard, and sit in the corner of a pub allowing yourself to scratch off an eighth of the silver for every pint you drink, by which time you'll be pissed and bitter about being psychologically £10,001 down, JUST TO PASS THE EVENING.

You gotta love the weekend, huh?