Thursday, 24 February 2011

I’ve A New-Found Respect For WH Smith…

The magazines, such as Zoo and Nuts, regularly feature photographs of semi-naked women on the cover and critics said the publications could negatively influence children with regards to their views on sex.
Of course they could. And so off went Mumsnet, to try to bully newsagents into compliance.
Supermarkets, including Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Co-op, agreed to move the magazines higher or shield them with plain covers, as did petrol stations including BP.
Idiots.
However, WH Smith did not. A spokesman said men's lifestyle magazines were placed away from children's and women's ones, adding: "We have a strict display policy in place that requires men's lifestyle magazine titles be displayed at a minimum height of 1.2m, equivalent to the average adult's chest or shoulder height."
/cheer
Justine Roberts, the founder of Mumsnet, an online forum for mothers which has embarrassed politicians with its direct questions, said WH Smith's stance was "frustrating".
Good. Frustrating the likes of you is probably the best thing WH Smith has ever done.

And for that, I’ll even forgive them their habit of shifting around all the stock every three months or so, so that I never know where to look for ‘Fortean Times’…

23 comments:

  1. Mumsnet are turning into a real problem, aren't they?

    Another group operating under the delusion that they "represent" somebody or other so get a louder shout than everybody else.

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  2. Ah, Mumsnet. Less mother and baby site and more political lobbying group.

    As for dear old Justine, This would be the same woman who, one the subject of internet filtering, said:

    'I think there have been some really valid points about workability raised here but the "this is the thin end of the wedge on censorship" one doesn't make sense to me. We already censor loads of things in the name of child protection on the internet and elsewhere. Of course there are valid concerns about where you draw the line but you can't deny that we do draw the line already all over the place – we censor illegal images, we rate DVDs, we have a TV watershed.'

    I think we can safely say that she is batshit insane.

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  3. Shouldn't you be able to find the Fortean Times by pure psychic force?

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  4. I'm not sure that I want my life regulated and censored by the exhausted, hormonal mother of a toddler.

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  5. Almost a motto of mine; "Frustration, the best form of revenge."

    Unfourtunately, our "Governments" appear to have realised it as well.

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  6. Justine Roberts is married to a Guardian journalist, as a regular reader of CiF I think this explains everything. :-)

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  7. I wish WH Smith would stop trying to push chocolate on to us though every time we walk up to the till.

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  8. Well done WH Smith. I'll make more of an effort to use them next time I want a magazine.

    Mumsnet represent no one and should have no more say than any other individual.

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  9. Little nugget of info I just discovered, daresay it's probably common knowledge but hey ho. Justine Roberts is the wife of a deputy editor at the Guardian, Ian Katz.

    So, not so much of the "just any old mum" thing then. More of the "ruling class member with profound sense of entitlement".

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  10. Quick, where's me compo claim form.

    On this measure I'm disadvantaged, possibly a victim of disability discrimination, because I have to ask somebody taller to get those magazines down for me.

    Well, that would be embarassing. Are Mumsnet good for a bob or two?

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  11. Never mind men's "lifestyle" magazines. What about filth like Women's Own, full of pictures of women in bras and panties and such, as I recall? Why, in our house, with my mother working in the rag trade an' all, we even had copies of the Draper's Record left lying around.

    Such things an impressionable pubsecent boy should not be exposed to. Hang 'em all, say I.

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  12. @Edwin Greenwood, and what about Littlewoods and Grattan? catalogues. They are full of porn for a young boy.

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  13. Fortian Times eh?

    OT, but guess who buried my Father and two of my uncles? Father Lionel Fanthorpe. He is an absolutely diamond geezer, and I'm an atheist.

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  14. @SBML

    I think I'm going for lie down, now. Well, when I've finished this pint of Sleeman's Honeybrown lager, anyway.


    WV: foringir: Old Icelandic for "soft-porn magazine". I kid you not; I did my degree in this stuff. The Vikings were well up (if you'll pardon the expression) for this sort of thing.

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  15. You read Fortean Times? Cool. But why traipse into WH Smith's for your copy? It's cheaper to buy it on subscription. Which is exactly what I do. I love my monthly fix of cosmic background weirdness. :D

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  16. Wool Shop Offspring24 February 2011 at 18:48

    Draper's record... ? Ah yes, many a happy hour with the back issues, if you get my drift.

    WV = Consprol = consensus of porn control

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  17. If government ever does find a way to tax & regulate masturbaters & masturbation .. Parliament itself would become self-financing overnight ..

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  18. "the publications could negatively influence children with regards to their views on sex"

    I am puzzled. What these magazines do is to remind us that scantily clad young ladies with big knockers are physically attractive to most men (and quite possibly a few women).

    I fail to see how that is a "view on sex" it is just a fact.

    Plus you get a bonus point for writing "W H Smith" and not "W H Smith's".

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  19. Assuming motherhood is at least one of the criteria for joining Mumsnet why is it that it seems to be full of people who badly, badly need to get laid?

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  20. My first employer was W.H.Smith; all day Saturday plus an hour each evening after school sweeping the floor, shifting stock and stuff.
    Best part of the day began @17:20, standing by the door to stop anyone else coming into the shop "cuz we'se closing".

    One day I had a bit of argy bargy with this Mrs. Bouquet woman who was probably Justine Roberts or her Mum. She phoned Head Office to complain and I got called into the Managers Office expecting a bollocking but instead they said congratulate that boy (me!) for doing his job properly.

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  21. "Mumsnet are turning into a real problem, aren't they?"

    Yes, but occasionally a hilarious one. They were, after all, instrumental in the breast milk ice cream yesterday.. :)

    "I think we can safely say that she is batshit insane."

    We can indeed. Or a longer way of putting that 'the wife of a Guardian journalist'...

    "Shouldn't you be able to find the Fortean Times by pure psychic force?"

    I find if I astrally project, I can't turn the pages :(

    "Justine Roberts is married to a Guardian journalist, as a regular reader of CiF I think this explains everything."

    It does indeed!

    "On this measure I'm disadvantaged, possibly a victim of disability discrimination, because I have to ask somebody taller to get those magazines down for me. "

    Me too. I'm glad I don't read those magazines though... ;)

    "OT, but guess who buried my Father and two of my uncles? Father Lionel Fanthorpe. He is an absolutely diamond geezer, and I'm an atheist."

    Splendid! He's a true British 'character', isn't he?

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  22. " But why traipse into WH Smith's for your copy? It's cheaper to buy it on subscription. "

    I got into the habit when they were running a WH Smith's points system. But now they aren't doing that, I think a subscription might indeed be the way to go...

    "I fail to see how that is a "view on sex" it is just a fact."

    I suspect it's an unwelcome fact for some.

    And by 'some', I mean the worried type who listen to the fruitloops on Mumsnet...

    "Assuming motherhood is at least one of the criteria for joining Mumsnet why is it that it seems to be full of people who badly, badly need to get laid?"

    That's a mystery worthy of 'Fortean Times', isn't it?

    "...but instead they said congratulate that boy (me!) for doing his job properly."

    :D

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  23. Not only is a sub to FT cheaper, it means you don't have to spend half an hour trying to figure out what whsmiths have done with it this month.

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