We grew up with magazines, didn’t we? Just Seventeen! Smash Hits! Then later, Vogue, (those iconic Demarchelier covers, Kate Moss and heroin chic FFS), the 90s FHM girls, and an addiction to the weekend supplements. We inhaled The Face, Heat, OK! and The Beckham wedding. All the purple! Thrones! Magazines guided us through the apparently complicated process of taking ourselves from ‘office to bar’, but also delivered a peek at the OJ Simpson courtroom, care of Dominic Dunne in Vanity Fair. So you’ll be thrilled, like we were, to hear about Readly. Readly you say?
Picture the scene. You are on your commute. You are bored of Instagram. Terrified of TikTok. You want glamour, news, gossip, a recipe, the sort of interiors porn that will seduce you with a sofa and to dive into that ‘if only I had that honey-coloured rectory in Somerset’ fantasy. You want The Week, Grazia, New York magazine, The Guardian, Living Etc, House & Garden, World of Interiors, Vanity Fair, National Geographic Traveller UK, BBC Good Food. You want it all. And you want it now. And now you can. You can have ALL OF THESE on your phone. With The Readly App. It’s like Spotify for magazines and newspapers. All your favourite titles in an instant.
So, in tribute to magazines we have loved, here are some headlines we would like to see but probably never will.
How To Keep Your Expectations Low
Not ‘how to be boss in the bedroom and a bitch in the boardroom’. Not ‘how to have it all’. Instead, it’s time to channel your inner Panda rather than your inner shark. Focus on just getting to the finish line, rather than being first over it. Expectation dial set to 1 rather than 11. Lower…lower…there we are. *waves*
(If this is not in your blood, you can read Forbes magazine on Readly with articles like 30 under 30 to make you feel terrible fire you up)
Why You Should Wear The Same Thing Every Day….
Clothes are the way you tell stories about yourself, they say. They maketh the woman. But do you wake up every morning, open your wardrobe, close it again, lie down on the bed and cry a little bit? Do you feel life would be so much simpler if you just had one thing to wear, like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg? A uniform, but not in a military or prison-y way. Emilie once wore the same pair of cropped TopShop trousers for a year – but she was very unhappy at the time so perhaps this is not a good example. “Why Comfortable Shoes Are The Sexiest….Isn’t A Spring In Your Step More Seductive Than A Hobble? Discuss”
Friends: How To Avoid Them
You love your friends; you are proud of your friendships; you get so much from having friends. They’ve seen you through thick and worryingly thin. You used to talk on the phone (did it used to be used for that?) every night for hours. Maybe you still remember their (parents’) home phone numbers. You love hearing about their work wins and how little/much sex they’re having. But do you want to see them? To actually take off your sofa pyjamas, put on outside clothes and go out for dinner? You do not.
Delicious Dinners – How To Get Someone Else To Cook Them
Maybe cooking is your superpower and you think nothing of rustling up a cacio e pepe and know that star anise is *googles* a spice rather than a new singer. Surely with all the breathing, working, meetings, scheduling, caring, crying, dressing, exercising, drinking water, socialising we don’t have to do cooking too?
(*coughs* Readly has BBC Good Food in its arsenal)
How To Avoid Meetings
There are four stages of career development. I want to be in the meeting. I want to run the meeting. I want to avoid the meeting. I want to employ someone to go to the meeting for me.
(If you still like meetings or want to be so successful that you can control the meetings, then try Fortune, which covers the business world and new ideas shaping the global marketplace. Then you can be the person who ends meetings early.)
Why Anxiety Is Your Superpower
The thing about anxious people is that they are considerate of other people’s feelings (‘everyone hates me’, ‘how can I make them like me’), brilliant packers (ballgowns and 24 pairs of pants in case of any eventuality), excellent planners (it may be rainy/be trafficy/hunger-inducing), on time (‘fashionably late? more like anxiously early’). Isn’t it time anxiety had a rebrand?
(PS Psychologies Magazine shows you that you are not alone)
This article is part of a paid partnership with Readly. For your unique Midult offer of 2 months free with 10% off for 6 months go to gb.readly.com/midult and get access to over 6,000 magazines and newspapers. We’re big fans. You have unlimited access. Your subscription can spill over onto 5 other devices which means you can share with friends and family. It’s really easy to use – and it’s instant. Emilie used to subscribe by post (I mean) to New York Magazine and it would arrive two weeks late. Now… whoosh. Read it all, with Readly.
