Xmas only (Radio Times)

Member Name: dave27

Product:	Radio Times
Date:	05/05/01 (131 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good features, good writers

Disadvantages: Sometimes dull

Hands up all those for whom the following sounds familiar.

Think of a weekly magazine which you know quite well, but don't buy all year, apart from a special two weekly edition that comes out over the Christmas period. Yeah, I know it's obvious what it is because you can tell that from where this opinion is posted but you have to forgive me for trying to inject a sense of suspense to the process. This is the magical world of the Internet and we're allowed to go for the occasional suspension of disbelief.

Yeah, of course it's the Radio Times (odd title that) and I just wonder how many people do as we used to do and just get the Christmas edition so that you know what's on over the holidays. (Of course, you don't need the mag for that because there's bound to be Zulu, The Italian Job, The Great Escape, Mary Poppins, an Only Fools And Horses Xmas Special and Eastenders popping up all over the place.)

Well, ever since I was a wee small child (yes, I know you wouldn't think it from the pic, but I was actually less than ten stone at one time in my life) we've always had RT at Xmas so we can have a healthy punch up over what to watch.

About four years ago, Mrs dave27 actually started taking the RT on a regular weekly basis, but the advent of Sky TV and the online version of the mag (at http://www.radiotimes.co.uk/ ) soon put a stop to that and we cancelled our order, because I'm well known as being tighter than a gnat's a***.

Having looked at the website before penning this op, I have to say that it seems to have gon rapidly downhill and now represents a pretty awful and naff looking proposition.

As to the magazine, I always thought that RT represented excellent value for money with its features. People obviously bought it primarily for programme details, but RT had (has?) some strong writers like Alan Hansen, Alan Titchmarsh, Barry Norman, John Peel and Polly Toynbee and
it was the features and columns which really made it a strong mag and a very good read. They always had first class interviews with big stars wrapped away somewhere before the TV listings and I would always turn to those first, before I avidly scanned the local radio schedules - quite clearly the most boring set of pages known to mankind, I always thought.

You could actually do a lot worse than buying RT if you want to keep up with modern life as it had a good range of articles and photos.

Funny, though, as the ones I remember best always had this big fat guy with a beard and red clothes on the cover - hmmmm...sounds like a long lost relation of the dave27 clan - I know, my long lost uncle Nick, the one who gave out toffees and puppies to kids (watch out Nick, they could put you away if they find out)

Summary: