Who on earth buys this dross? (Hello!)

Member Name: dave27

Product:	Hello!
Date:	30/05/02 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: ??????

Disadvantages: Inane, Shallow, Simpering

Hello! Magazine - Who on earth buys this dross?

"Leading sportsmen and women rubbed shoulders with a host of glamorous celebrities at this year's Laureus World Sports Awards in Monte Carlo, but it was Catherine Zeta Jones who undeniably stole the show. Looking every inch the Hollywood superstar, she set flashbulbs popping as she stepped out for the prestigious sporting ceremony in a dazzling low-cut black Versace gown."

The smugly optimistic and naively fawning style of writing is happily pretty damn unique with its yearning desire to transport the reader back in time to when the only people we knew where sparkling stars of stage and screen who spoke with plums in their mouths, wouldn't have been seen dead in anything but DJ and/or evening gown and thought a four letter word indicated "Ma'am". Truly unmistakable and singularly reprehensible, stand up ladies and gentlemen who take the victors' laurels for putting together the one, the only, the totally despicable Hello! Magazine...

(To furnish me with the hard facts and even harder stiff upper lip, I'm picking issue number 715, May 28 2002 of the so called 'International Magazine of the Year' - who says so exactly?)

If you've never actually read this awful example of everything that's appalling about the British class system, then I envy you, but surely everyone will have just the slightest inkling of what Hello! is or, far more accurately, what it represents - a fawning, slobbering, mutual admiration society's glossy appreciation of everything with form but no substance, a big eyed, glib, chundering mass of froth and bunting for aspiring celebs everywhere.

The simpering begins with the contents page, oddly positioned on page 49 which promises (threatens) "Subscribe to Hello! Give yourself a weekly treat or your family and friends a special present. For celebrity news updated daily plus profiles, games an
d lots more, or to subscribe to Hello! visit us at www.hellomagazine.com." Gawd, how could you resist an offer like that, treasures?

Before the acid tongue grows too spiteful and vindictive, let's just give you some of the facts and credits which you've known to grow and love ...

Hello! is a(n) (almost) full colour glossy tribute to the glitterati, their lives, loves and fascinations, trotting in each week at a bumper 140 or so pages, with around a quarter of them dedicated to high class adverts. Its cover price is £1.85 in the UK, but the advent of the Euro doesn't seem to have led to a standard price for our continental cousins, with Spain and the Canary Islands forking out 2.85, Portugal just 2.25, Italy 3.10, France 2.90, but the dear old Germans a whopping 4.90 - ah well, serves the rich buggers right, I say - while Australians need to spend $6.50, while in Canada and the US it's $4.95.

Hello! is distributed by Associated Newspapers, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT, telephone 020-7938-6000.

Overall, the lasting impression of Hello! is the glorious photo shots couple with the most fawning and sickly prose you have ever seen - examples are liberally sprinkled throughout this entire review, so hold tight. I'll give you a whistle stop tour of this latest issue, to give you the merest flavour of what to expect.

Cover page feature - Old Man Michael Douglas proudly exhibits the subject of his cradle snatching, the very, very lovely but very, very shallow Catherine Zeta Jones - a slobbering 11 page spread explores the relationship and times of Methuselah and Baby Jane - now get this - "When Welsh superstar Catherine Zeta Jones jetted into the South of France last week to attend a string of glamorous events, she didn't just bring bodyguards, couture gowns and the latest beauty products with her. Packed inside her numerous designer suitcases were also vests, nappies and ba
by wipes, because this time baby Dylan was coming, too." (Does anyone really talk like this anymore. But if you thought that was bad, then just take a gander at the photo captions, you can taste the sugar.) "With devoted husband Michael Douglas in tow carrying toddler Dylan, Catherine leads the way onto the yacht the family had been lent (!) for their outing off the coast of Monte Carlo (!). Despite a string of glitzy commitments on the Riviera last week, the couple built in plenty of family time, mainly dressing down during the day and then getting glammed up for their evening appointments." (Yes, but it's so much easier to deal with the pooey nappies when you've got a full entourage in tow, ain't it Mikey?)

Also here, pandering to the middle aged, middle class Little Englanders everywhere, we also get "Unique Jubilee pictures of the Queen and her family". Aah!

But worry not, lager louts, you also get Vets In Practice star Trude Mosture putting the trauma of her stalker ordeal behind her on an exotic trip to Dubai as she looks forward to the birth of her bay daughter with the prospective child's father, a real thick necked thug, in tow, and Prince Harry going very red in the face when getting a peck on the cheek after a tiring game of polo.

As well as these special features, you get the normal woman's magazine staple diet of TV, films, property, shopping, puzzles,recipes and soaps, ho hum...

Ach! I canne go on, captain, this is more than flesh and blood can honestly endure, ye'd have to be a particularly thick skinned lover of the rich and famous to find all of this fawning garbage pleasant or even relevant, but plenty of empty headed women fall over themselves to snatch a glimpse of how the other side live and love, but it's SO very remote from the reality of everyday life. I suppose it's an antidote to the mundane and tedious happenings which confront us lesser mor
tals, but that ain't really much of an excuse for something so shallow and abysmal as this particular excuse for a magazine.

But oh yes, sneaking in there, we find pix of Vinnie Jones, Sara Cox and Zoe Ball, even though they're suitably kitted out, and there's a film review which contains a slightly risqué word - "Thunderpants is a gas - methane to be exact. Peter Hewitt's family comedy is the story of a young boy Patrick Smash, who has the gift of high velocity flatulence. The film is - by its very design - one protracted FART gag, but there's a sweetness to many of the characters, and rising star Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley in Harry Potter) delivers another terrific performance as a child genius with no sense of smell who tries to harness the boy's power. When NASA learns of Patrick's gift, the film really blasts off."

Be warned!!!! Hello! simply drips from pages to page with positive, upbeat words like excellent, terrific, fantastic... it's quite the most optimistic piece of garbage you're ever likely to read - sometimes such escapism can have its place, but not when it is quite as unremittingly nice as it is here.

By the way, in case you were wondering, I don't have much time for Hello!

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