iar: magazine A

26 weeks - 26 magazines I've never read before (starting with the letter A... then B... then C...) - 26 different shops.

A = AnOther Magazine [18th Issue Bi-Annual Spring/Summer 2010 £6.95 pp 365+cover]

• Most shocking thing: the price

• Near miss: 'Architectural Digest'; 'Attitude Active' with the cover story "Reinvent your body like Craig David" (phew!).

• Grimmest thing: the scantily-clad teenage-anorexic-look

• Little surprise: photograph by Wolfgang Tilmans and lots of other little synchronicities - coincidence? in the zeitgeist? just plain predictable?

• Would I buy again? Nah. Dull and expensive. Barely toilet reading. Would rise above the standard fodder in a dentist's waiting room.

• Blast from the past: April Ashley - renowned transexual.

• I didn't learn... what the name of a machine to squeeze blood out of a duck is. I thought I had - but I could never find the article again. Maybe I dosed off on the train and dreamt it.

• My lover said: "is that the only picture?"

• Time taken to read: a 30 minute train journey and a 40 minute bath!

• Heard of it before? Yes
  

Bought from Harvey Nichols, from a formal but polite man with a name badge who asked me how I was today. He also asked if I wanted a bag. I got a proper thick plastic Harvey Nichols bag with a cardboard insert in the bottom - I thought I was only going to get a flimsy white branded carrier. I paid with a £20 note.

[in case you were wondering... as a child I used to do felt-tip 'makeovers' all the time :) ].