Take a Break magazine - guess the story.

[GrapevineFires]

My mum used to buy it weekly. I haven't read one since my teens, but I had the urge this week to do some of the puzzles. I had forgotten all about the sensational, misleading headlines.

This week's cover headline: "Mum wanted a baby so she took my TWIN GIRLS. Only ONE came home ALIVE" (Capital words all TAB).

What do you think actually happened?

Anyone got any other 'gripping' headlines with a very different story?

This thread is hilarious 🤣🤣

I used to regularly get these mags in my late teens. I had an office junior job and was regularly left on my own, I’d read them when no one else was around. Being young and poor I decided to sell a story to That’s Life (I think).

It was the ‘my secret’ section so completely anonymous otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. I exaggerated the truth rather and only found out it had been published when the cheque arrived.

" I always had a big appetite, I would have 2 takeaways for tea every night , but I was shocked when I weighed myself to see I was 21 stone "

I think it should have been "polished off" 2 takeaways (and a tub of Ben and Jerrys)

Surely we can agree on a universally or majority-disliked chocolate bar?

Milky Way? Surely no one likes that?
Or flyte? Is that still a thing? I think it was low fat, which automatically makes it horrible.

Milky Ways used to be lovely, but they changed the chocolate sometime in the early/mid 90s to make it sweeter and sicklier (maybe changed the milk chocolate for white) and it's never been more than OK since.

Nobody in a certain age group will ever forget the song in the adverts, though!

I think it should have been "polished off" 2 takeaways (and a tub of Ben and Jerrys)

Correct - but surely gallons of some beverage or other were also guzzled to wash it down with?

Does David Hale (was that his name?) still write the agony uncle column? I used to love his grandiose, pompous way of phrasing his oh-so-serious responses to the pettiest of problems. I think he thought he was Shakespeare, working for the UN.

Correct - but surely gallons of some beverage or other were also guzzled to wash it down with?

Oh yes probably "fizzy pop"

'I love how everyone’s age must be stated.'

You forgot the age (BBE date) of the ravioli - what a disgrace to miss out such a vital detail!

🤣

Ah yes, the kids with weird names. Two examples that stick in my mind... the story where Dad delivered the baby, and the woman stated how she loved making up names for her kids. The last baby was called Larae-Esmae, and the baby born in the story was called Teighlun.
In the other story I can recall, the woman had kids called Parsley, Pepper and Sage.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll you've never been to Little Oakley if you think theres a Tapas Bar there 🤣🤣

Does anyone remember Dr Knott who used to give medical advise in a column in TAB? He 'retired' a few years back. I don't know why but I always found it really seedy

• gloriously seedy 🤣

^ I think for me it was his photo.

There's a very funny Facebook page called take a site where you can post any ingenious top tips you see such as putting pens in jar so they are easy to find or my favourite recent one - if you need to soften butter for a cake take it out of the fridge and leave it at room temperature for 15 minutes!

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll you've never been to Little Oakley if you think theres a Tapas Bar there

How long have you lived there or known the place? You're right I've never been there, but AP was doing his radio show something like two decades ago, so I imagine the poor, embarrassed Domingo shut down his business soon after the broadcast and fled for the anonymity of the throbbing urban metropolis of Harwich - infamous for its rowdy night-life and 24/7 party culture

Oh, YES - Dr Knott. He looks like the kind of character who would be sitting there twiddling his moustache and telling you smugly "Let's put it this way: you don't have Sagittarius, or Scorpio, or Capricorn, however....!!!" I seem to recall that his 'magside manner' wasn't particularly bounteous in compassion.

you can post any ingenious top tips you see such as putting pens in jar so they are easy to find

I genuinely misread that and my first thought was "Jar? Surely you mean a beaker?!"

I also like the stories about unexpected multiple births - such as quadruplets hot on the heels of a singleton or two sets of twins in a year.

They always take great pains to explain how the infants personalities are so different ‘Jaiden is cheeky and mischievous. Jameilia is laid back and thoughtful. Jerome is a mummy’s boy and loves cuddles. Jayci is girly and loves her dollies’ or similar guff.

Also love the weight loss stories where they 'pile on the pounds by gorging on creamy curries' then get to a 'trim size 10 by filling up on fruit and healthy salads'

This has really made me laugh, it’s so accurate!

There’s a story in this week’s ‘My womb went boom!’ about a woman who didn’t want kids but by some miracle has ended up with 12. Not all the same age. So her womb went boom quite few times before she caught on. I’m guessing she actually just decided she wanted kids but the teaser doesn’t hint at that, of course

🎶 ‘Boom boom boom boom, I want you in my womb...’ 🎶

@TiptopJ

There's a very funny Facebook page called take a site where you can post any ingenious top tips you see such as putting pens in jar so they are easy to find or my favourite recent one - if you need to soften butter for a cake take it out of the fridge and leave it at room temperature for 15 minutes!

I saw a great one on that page which was a woman sharing her top tip of using a travel organiser when travelling as a handy way to find your belongings.

I'm not convinced that the weight-loss stories are all accurate - it wouldn't surprise me at all if they just send somebody over with a pair of ginormous trousers designed for morbidly obese clowns and then photograph the person wearing them and holding out the gargantuan waistband, in the same way dear old Bobby Ball did with his braces, for the 'before' picture.

They always look like the exact same pair of black supersized trousers in every single weight-loss tale. Either that or they go the other way and have a determined dieter who used to be a 'huge' 21st 6lb, but 'the lbs just melted way' and she has now slimmed down to a 'trim' 20st 9lb and can't believe just how much her life has been transformed now she's so thin; and she wants others to know that, if she did it, anybody can!

‘Boom boom boom boom, I want you in my womb...’

Am I the only one who thinks that Mr Bloom from CBeebies has that exact cheeky-chappie glint in his eye, so beloved of TaB; and finds myself imagining him starring in a special adults-only version called 'Midnight Bloom' - and singing "Hello, my name is Mr Bloom and I've left some tiddlers in your womb".... No, just me, then?!?!

🤣🤣🤣 bloody crying at this thread. Used to read TAB and (chat?) On night duty years ago and rolled around the staff room at the top tips. They were utter shite. Surely people used to send them in just for laughs.

As for the older women who got divorced and went on holiday and met a 22 year old lad who would fall in love and spend all the money. Car crash relationships.

I pissed myself at 'in time I fell pregnant' classic TAB 😄