Culture
12 Mar 01

The Good, The Lad And The Ugly

YOU CAN pretty much guess what was said at the first editorial meeting. We re going to produce a magazine like Loaded, except without the humour, irony and people who possess a modicum of journalistic talent.

Operating from a palatial suite of offices in Wigan that figures Vibe Nation represents the scraping of the lad-magazine barrel. Blatant sexism is bad enough, but cheap blatant sexism?
While FHM and GQ s budgets run to Patsy Kensit and Eva Herzigova, Vibe Nation has to make do with girl-next-door types draped across a sofa in a Macclesfield semi. Worse still, cover girl Gabrielle s lipliner is so badly applied that it looks like she s been puckering up to a coal scuttle. That said, her Ed s personal orgasm rating is: Er, has anyone got any tissues?
From there, it s but a quick flick of the wrist to 10 Top Things Men Would Do If They Woke Up And Had A Vagina For The Day. In case you re wondering, these are:
10. Immediately go shopping for courgettes and cucumbers.
9. Squat over a hand-held mirror for an hour and a half.
8. See if they could finally do the splits.
7. See if it s really possible to launch a ping-pong ball 20 feet.
6. Cross their legs without rearranging.
5. Get picked up in a bar less than 10 minutes before closing time.
4. Have consecutive multiple orgasms and still be ready for more without sleeping first.
3. Go to the gynaecologist for a pelvic examination and ask to have it recorded on video.
2. Sit on the edge of the bed and pray for breasts too.
1. Finally find the bloody G-spot.
Next up is a piece on the you ate all the pies equivalent of sumo, Gut Barging.
We started out at bikers rallies, marquees in muddy fields, that sort of thing but progressed on to nightclubs, says the sports Gutfather, Binkie Braithwaite. Rock City in Nottingham was a major success, we had our first female barging contest there, and then of course the Royal Albert Hall.
Conclusive proof that northern lads are, well, specially gifted, is provided by the newspaper clipping on page 45.
The Jervis Lumb pub in Sheffield is noted as a bit of a place for the lads and last October Ian Clifton, 35, had downed nearly 12 pints of lager and an unknown quantity of punch whilst enjoying himself in the party atmosphere. Ian s mates noticed he d gone a bit quiet and decided, as lads do, to have a bit of a laugh with their sozzled mate.
They got to work and shaved one side of his head and took pictures of him posing with an inflatable doll. Then they noticed, he really was just a bit too quiet. The paramedics said he d probably been dead of acute alcohol poisoning for a good hour before they were called.