What’s the funniest thing you’ve seen/ read in Take a Break/ Chat/ That’s Life etc?

[TeacakesFTW]

Prior to the internet and the likes of Mumsnet, I used to love these trashy magazines, especially their real life stories and top tips. It’s still my guilty pleasure when I’m in a waiting room/ hair salon TBH.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen in one?

The most memorable for me was one where a woman had moved in with her new boyfriend and the boyfriend’s disabled son. The son was in his 20s, non-verbal, in nappies etc. The woman got involved in his daily care, changing his nappy and so on, and it later turned out that the whole thing was a scam for disability benefits! The man had nothing wrong with him. He could talk and everything!

That's actually genius zazazaar

As soon as I saw the thread title I thought of the sanitary towel slippers. I also remember a lady who made a skirt from all her husbands old ties.

the tip in take a break that said after having spag bol for tea, the sauce make s a lovely shade of lipstick.

A woman who was ‘adventurous’ in the bedroom and her partner used a Richmond (had to be Richmond) sausage on her. They couldn’t get it out so she ended up in A&E.

They make great cloches in the garden for starting off seedlings, though.

There is someone who used her old broken Dyson vacuum cleaner as a planter. No attempts to disguise it. It looks like it has been fly tipped

I saw that and was going to post it. Absolutely batshit!

There was a very sad "I KILLED MY WIFE EVEN THOUGH I LOVED HER" about a man whose wife had given birth to a girl, she really wanted a son (their son had died as a toddler) so she convinced him to TTC within a few days of giving birth. She died almost immediately and the postmortem revealed that the sex had basically killed her as it created an air bubble in her blood. I read this story as a tween and I was always worried about losing my virginity incase that happened.

A story headlined “so desperate for a baby I had sec with an ugly stranger on a see saw” - story itself not amusing but that headline 🙈

Someone I actually know was caught having sex in the loo on an airplane. People write in to take a break about it and the magazine wanted to interview the couple. They had a 2 page spread with photos and a very saucy interview. (The couple did not last long though.).

We kept a copy! This op has reminded me we need to tease him about it again!

Omg stop it 😂I am sat here shaking with laughter

I read one of these mags recently and the story made me proper LOL.

It was the typical boyfriend who shagged around and the woman kept taking him back until she'd had enough.

They interviewed Ryan for a comment and he said "Yep, that's pretty much how it went!". Genius Ryan!

Oh my god this is bringing back memories. I used to love these in days of yore.

Every story also featured a thumbnail of the unlucky protagonist with full Daily Mail sad-face and the caption ‘Me now’

Are you sure you hadn't just watched little Britain???😉

Not the sanitary towel slippers, but even better… I think this was in Love It! magazine, and the girls running the tips section were seeing what mad sh*t they could get away with. This was one of their final gems - sanitary towels as Easter bunny fancy dress.

The other one I remember was quite grim - cover image was a girl and her dog, both sad-eyed, and the headline was (brace yourselves) ‘ONE OF US WAS RAPED - AND IT WASN’T ME’. The story was every bit as awful as it sounds.

I loved these grotty little mags for years, but haven’t read them in an age. Relics of a more innocently grubby era.

I used to read TAB et al before I got my mumsnet fix. I allow myself one a month now!

I recall all the tips mentioned including foil coasters, bath sponge fascinator and of course the sanitary towel!

Most articles now are promoting peoples' only fans or Instagram posts.

The one that always sticks in my mind is the woman who married a tree. It wasn't even in her garden, it was in her friend's. It was implied that she and the tree had a sexual relationship. I don't wanna know! But also, wtf did her friend think?!!!

The tip I read was take the door apart and use the glass as a fruit bowl .

I was seriously tempted , we had a very old , huge Bosch WM that DH had to dismantle to get out the house . The door would've needed explosives to break it up . So no fruit bowl.
<Could've done the DailyMail SadFace there >

The parents of a school friend appeared. Mum put the story in and it was all about how her second husband (father to my friend) had run off with another woman he met at their line dancing class.

It wasn’t funny or ironic just a bit sad and boring. Middle aged man now wanted a younger model (wife was quite a bit older) and met someone he preferred at their line dancing class.

I never figured out why anyone would want to share this sort of stuff.

Two of my university friends appeared in a story about a naked bike ride in Brighton. I didn't need to see that much of them while in the doctor's waiting room.

As was only right and proper, I alerted other mutual friends to it....

This thread has had me in stitches (I’m laid up at the min).

I remember one ‘bitten on the bum by a barracuda’ which has stuck in my head ever since!

way back around the start of the magazines, there was this man who had a fetish for metal. had one of those metal catering tables to do the deed on, but the actual recipient of his pleasure was anything metal, from baking trays to saucepans! was genuine

There was a top tip or letter about sewing unwanted shoulder pads together to make a quilt - “warm and practical too!”.

Someone made after dinner mints by freezing aqua fresh stripey toothpaste.

a lady made a fascinator from a loofah

I remember this!! I think it was frozen when they put it in. They thought it would come out later when defrosted but it didn't.

I should have written in with my mum's top tip on new light shades when hers exploded due to dodgy electrics or my dad smashing them when drunkenly changing light bulbs...... plastic milk cartons. My dad removed them when they eventually melted, she went ballistic and ta dah! more appeared.