Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Guilty Pleasures: Hello Magazine


One of my guilty pleasures is reading HELLO! Magazine. Forget People, or OK, I adore HELLO! Maybe it's because I'm an unrepentant Anglophile but the first thing I do whenever I go to the UK is pick up a copy at the W.H.Smith or Boots in the airport so that I can read it on the tube ride into the city.  Unfortunately it's too expensive for me to buy every week in the US (it's about $7), so I read it at either Barnes & Noble or whatever newsagent won't shoo me out for reading without buying.

Why do I love this magazine? Probably because I know that without fail, every other week, there will be an article about Prince William and his girlfriend Kate Middleton with a cover picture.  How else can I keep up with what Kylie Minogue and her sister are doing? Or Russell Brand? Or any of the WAG's (Wives and girlfriends) of various footballer's? I'm particularly fascinated with Colleen Rooney who is famous chiefly because she is the wife of Wayne Rooney who plays for Man U (or did). She's had her own TV show, an autobiography, for basically doing nothing.

And I love reading about their Reality TV stars who seem so much more insane in some ways then ours. There was Jade Goode who became famous for her malapropisms on Big Brother, went into Celebrity Big Brother where she got into trouble for making racist remarks about Bollywood Star Shilpa Shetty, fell from grace, and then when she revealed that she was dying became a national heroine again. Without HELLO! Magazine, I would never have seen the fabulous like 50 page spread on Elizabeth Hurley's two weddings (in England and in India) to her husband Arun Nayar.

And wherelse can I read about foreign royalty particularly Prince Albert, Princess Caroline, and Princess Stephanie in full color.  I love that HELLO! is so oversized compared to American magazines.It makes PEOPLE and US seem anemic by comparison. And just stuffed with pictures galore. It's a little slice of Britain and a little slice of heaven for me.

1 comment:

Kwana said...

Hello is fun. I wish I could afford to read it here too.