'Hello' Magazine It Ain't

I've been in meetings all day today – either down at the Studio or (inevitably) down at the Broadway Bar. It's all been quite exhausting, but also quite exciting because two writing friends and I are setting up a production company in order to publish a new Arts Magazine which we hope (nay, expect) to be a bit different from anything else that's on the scene right now. I've been bleating on for a while about the wealth of creativity in this city, so it's about time that there was a new showcase for it; something that's attractive and that will get people talking (and reading!); something that's a bit different from the other stuff that's out there.

The last time I edited anything (apart from a student anthology), was when I edited the in-house magazine for a company I worked for, years and years ago. It got closed down after the first two issues (the magazine, not the company) because I took a bit of a pop at the Managing Director. He was, after all, providing the funding. You see, I was loosely basing the magazine's style on Private Eye and so the whole thing was a bit satirical, but I suppose was also verging ever-so-slightly on schoolboy-ish humour. On the front cover of the second edition there was a photograph of the Head Office building, doctored to make it look like it was sinking into the ground on one side – rather like a (slightly wider) Tower of Pisa. Two speech bubbles were protruding from what was recognisable to everyone as the MD's office window. The first said: "What's happening? Why is the building sinking to one side?" And the second bubble read: "I'm afraid it's the weight of your wallet, sir. The building can't take it."

It was a harmless enough joke, I thought, but the MD called me into his office, threw his (free) copy of the magazine at me calling it "trash" (Trash? The man was a philistine), and said he was pulling the funding. So we closed, and my card was thereafter well and truly marked, I can tell you.

Hopefully, our new Nottingham-based effort will have more success. There'll be no jokes on the front cover though, I promise. Watch this space.