Parcels, portals and toilet flush buttons

I know, I know. It’s been a while since I reported back on the latest Chat magazine. Well, here it is. You know I never let you go too long without doing one.

First up, there’s the photos page. Well, actually, before that there’s a real life story which has a shock factor of 10! That’s right! A ten. Very rarely will you get tens. Usually they do a 9.8 or something like that. Not usually a ten. So you know that’s big stuff.

Now to the photos page. There’s a photo of two pregnant women in the same top, the caption basically says, here’s us in the same top. Great. Another photo is a lady reading Fifty Shades of Grey. And again, that’s pretty much it. What a fascinating photo, thanks for sharing.

The tips page is quite good today. The best one is probably the one which says that if you have a fancy perfume bottle lid, don’t throw it away when you’ve finished the perfume, attach it to the toilet flush button….! This doesn’t make sense on so many levels. Let me show you.

So on the before pic, you can see that it’s one of those push-in type things. There’s nothing sticking out from it. So what did she ‘attach’ the perfume lid to. And also, all she’s really done, I think, is cover up the toilet flush button. Because now you can’t press it, because there’s a big flowery thing attached to it.

The letters page is pretty good this week. There’s a picture of a baby with a shocked look on its face. There’s nothing wrong with the photo. It’s just that that’s all it is. And that’s the photo of the week….

They must not be getting a lot of entries to this photo of the week competition….

Then there’s a bolognese sauce from a jar competition thing. They review three and tell you their favourite, which is the Sacla Dallaglio bolognese sauce. God forbid, we might suggest one makes their dinner themselves… No! Food from a jar! That’s the way forward!

Then there’s the obligatory I-used-to-be-fat-then-I-lost-weight story. Then an I-met-a-man-on-the-internet-now-we’re-getting-but-we’ve-never-met story.

Then comes the good section. The psychic section. The first story in this section is about a woman who moved into a haunted house. The proof that it was haunted? Her daughter got locked in the bathroom one day. Obviously a ghost. Obviously. No question about it.

She realised what was going on, an evil portal. Of course. So she decides to close it. You know, as one does. She gathered her archangels around her, are you ready for the good bit? Her archangels… Gabriel….. Michael…. Raphael… And METATRON! Yes. Really. Metatron. Her archangel, Metatron. I’m glad he was there for her. Phew!

Then we have the Lucky Key. This is always amazing. I touch it and good things will happen apparently. To legitimise this Lucky Key thing, there are little stories from people who touched the key and great things happened to them. Now I’m not certain what’s going on here. Have they touched the key and immediately something great happens. Or do they touch it on Thursday and by Sunday, they’ve had a bit of luck? Because I don’t think you can really say it’s the key then, can you?

When I touched the key this morning, within five minutes I got a little note through the door from the post man saying I needed to go and pick something up from the post office because it had been posted without the proper amount of stamps on it. So I need to give them £1.50 for the postage if I want my parcel.

Is that lucky? Really? Should I tell Chat about it and see if they print my story in next week’s magazine? Maybe I will. Watch this space to see if I get printed! It will say:

Laura from London got a note from the postman saying she needed to pay £1.50 to pick up her parcel, all thanks to the Lucky Key!

Checking in with Chat

It’s that time again. Time to see what entertainment Chat has for us this week. I knew it was going to be a good one when I saw this on the front cover….

False a-llama?! Amazing. So let’s start at the beginning. Page 8 is the ‘Chat to us’ page. People send in photos, which tend to be stuff like ‘This is me on holiday.’ Stuff that is of no interest to anyone apart from the people in the photo. Here is one example…

The caption basically says, this is my mum at M&M’s World in London. Great.

There’s also an old photo section, which tends to contain a black and white photo of someone – again, no interest to anyone but the sender of the photo.

Next we get a few stories of the sex-pervert and strange-disease variety. The health pages this week contain a puzzling ‘fact’.

Apparently women with gum disease take two months longer to conceive than other women. You’ve got to be kidding me! This seems like one of those odd things from years ago, that dentists used to say to make people take better care of their teeth. Like when you’re parents tell you to eat your broccoli because it will make you run faster.

“It will, honest. You’ll get loads of babies if you brush your teeth!”

How on earth did they come up with this fact? Ok, let’s find a focus group of fifty women trying to get pregnant, and as a prerequisite, we’ll have half with gum disease and half without. It’s ridiculous. Some scientific researcher must have been super bored at home to have thought up that experiment to do.

Then, a few pages later, comes the best story, in my opinion. A woman, 42, living in England has fallen in love with a man she messaged on Facebook. He is Indian, living in Delhi, and 29. Here’s how it all started.

She stumbled across someone’s page, who has Brad Pitt as his profile picture. She says she ‘followed her instinct’ and messaged him.

WHAT INSTINCT? Seriously… What instinct? What instinct can you possibly have about a profile picture of Brad Pitt? She even says that he doesn’t have any pictures or personal info on his Facebook profile. So what possible instinct could she mean? That they both like Brad Pitt and, as a result, could be a match made in virtual heaven?

Anyway, married English lady messages. Young Indian man messages back, “He’s such a great actor.” And from there, it goes from strength to strength. A quick text conversation with hubby whilst in the supermarket ends her 11 year marriage, so now she’s free. Free to be with the love of her life… O wait, apart from all those miles between them… But never fear, she is a woman on a mission! She is going to go and see him next Easter. Phew, because for a minute there I thought it was getting ridiculous. But no, she’ll be with him any day now (by now, I mean next year). She says she’s going to buy a one way ticket and stay there with him forever. Good luck to her.

Next we get a few weight loss stories, then the TV guide. A programme called Obese And Expecting promises to be interesting watching.

Lastly, we have the Facebook Photo Of The Week.

How is that a photo of the week? There are no unusual camera angles, no beautiful light beams breaking through, no high speed cheetah hunt, no nothing actually. Nothing of interest. The caption basically says, ‘This is my daughter, Georgia, smiling.’ How utterly ridiculous is that? If that deserves to be photo of the week then journalism as we know it has gone much further downhill than I’d realised.

P.S. The llama story from the front cover turns out to be a peice about a llama who’s not psychic and can’t predict football scores. Amazing.