88 - Fourth Monday Rant - Cover Flaps...

When I started doing these Monday rants I mentioned that some of them would be serious, some not so serious and some just plain stupid. Today is a stupid day. Well you lot will probably think it is stupid but it is something that annoys the life out of me. The subject of today’s rant is cover flaps on magazines. There is a very obvious joke about flaps on the cover of magazines and publications like Playboy, Hustler and Penthouse. I’m not going to stoop to that level.

A cover flap, for those who are wondering what the hell I’m going on about, is when the magazine producers decide to whore themselves to one of the big manufacturers and put an advert behind the front cover underneath two flaps. Before you get to the advertisement laden publication there is the pleasure of a double page spread announcing the latest and greatest in golf tee technology from TaylorMade.

When FootJoy have an insert within the magazine promoting the massive leaps in shoelace design they have made it forces me to grimace, when my copy of Golf Whine Monthly arrives with a free supplement explaining how Callaway’s new towel will change the way I play golf forever I start twitching like someone from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest but flaps on the cover of magazines send me over the edge.

These extra revenue generating pains in the arse probably seem like a good idea to the Editor in Chief of the publication but all they do is drive me to absolute distraction. I think I have a bit of OCD going on as I like to keep my magazines in pristine condition even after they have been pored over, scrutinised and fingered. The extra flaps make this exercise that bit more difficult as the cover almost always curves up like some creepy triffid.

The extra bits of cover also make it a little more difficult to hold the magazine when reading it. Don’t believe me? Try it. The front of it lolls around like a love sick teenager sitting next to the girl of his dreams when babysitting in her aunt’s house in the summer holidays...or something. Anyway, it doesn’t help the reading experience one bit.

We pay £4 for a magazine that is already filled with adverts for everything you could possibly imagine using in the sport of golf yet they still try and ring out a few more quid from the manufacturers by offering up the front cover. To me it is like publication prostitution but, unlike the ladies of low moral fibre who offer themselves up to men, once the flaps are open it is difficult to get them shut again.

(I’ve just read that article back again and there is so much innuendo in it I was toying with calling it ‘Carry On up the Fairway’. I apologise to anyone who I’ve offended).