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?

@ReallySpicyCurry

Nice bit of fat shaming there.

Eh, where?

I might go undercover later to buy a copy from a shop where no one knows me, hood up, dark glasses, mask

Whoever suggested she was fat? Maybe she had a takeaway for one and he was wanting to snaffle some of hers. Even if it was supposed to be a takeaway to share, she might just have been feeling particularly hungry/greedy on that occasion (or it might just be that she's paid for it all). Or he might have been trying to (ironically) shame her into having a lot less than her fair share so as to leave more for him.

If anything, it sounds like fat-shaming to me to assume and suggest that only an overweight person couldn't possibly be trusted/expected to share a takeaway fairly. I've seen plenty of people who aren't overweight lay into a buffet or big special-treat meal or stash of snacks.

Erm have I missed something?? Where was the fat shaming?

Had to jump to the end of this thread to say I am crying..... this is the funniest thread I've read in ages..
Now back to page 4 to continue !

I might go undercover later to buy a copy from a shop where no one knows me, hood up, dark glasses, mask

I hear that balaclavas full-face masks are even safer at the moment than the standard ones.

I really thought my TAB buy was going to be a one-off, but this thread has me in hysterics. I’ve covertly placed an order via deliveroo for a weekly stash of trashy mags (under the pseudonym of Lanesra of course).

Imagine telling your poor mother she looks like Mrs Brown! Not that she does in any way. I might send in some shit lookalikes and see if they actually get printed.

I was going to buy one of these magazines in Sainsburys today, but I couldn't cope with the depressing stories in them. And someone saw me browsing the shelf so I had to pretend I was actually looking for a copy of Private Eye.

[quote DC3Dakota]@ReallySpicyCurry

Nice bit of fat shaming there. [/quote]
Say what??? Where is the fat shaming? Have you ever read TAB?

Honestly, some people have had a sense of humour bypass.

I turned down an offer to have my weight loss "story" in one of these mags.
In the 90s I used to buy all of them every Thursday and read the lot as there was nothing I wanted to watch on the telly.
Not sure why the People's Friend has been included by some posters though. It's nothing like TAB etc.

I love this thread! I've worked on most of these magazines and I can assure you all the stories were true! We would insist on proof and sometimes it was hard filling the mag because really good stories would spark bidding wars among all the magazines (most studies are sold in by news and features agencies rather than directly by the person in the story).
It was such a fun job! But I did feel for those women who'd say things like "he was a good man, he didn't hit me". The bar was often very low.

I love this thread! I've worked on most of these magazines and I can assure you all the stories were true! We would insist on proof and sometimes it was hard filling the mag because really good stories would spark bidding wars among all the magazines

I don't doubt that the basic stories are true - just very frequently extremely spun and exaggerated. Really stupid things like going on about how 'he kicked and punched me relentlessly' to deliberately make you think it's a violent, abusive husband when it's actually a very active unborn baby. Some of the 'spinning' is amusing but some of it is really quite nasty.

Many years ago, something nice and mildly amusing happened to me and, for some reason, a connected organisation told the media to get themselves some good PR from it (fair enough), but I appeared in The Sun - with my silly little 'story' on the same page between a murderer and a paedophile - and they just completely invented 'quotes' that I had never said, so goodness knows how much the big, serious stories must get 'embellished'.

Incidentally, do they demand exclusivity on the stories? Back in my younger, more carefree days, when I read all of the trashy mags every week, I noticed a number of the same people with their same stories appearing in different ones - sometimes months or even years apart. I wonder if it's a bit like with TV gameshows: it never occurs to most people to think about applying (or they'd be too embarrassed to be on telly), but those people who do clearly get the bug (and like winning money and stuff!), so you often see the same folk on lots of different gameshows.

Webuiltthisbuffet (great name!) I haven't worked on them for some years, and we didn't spin it that much then, but it was starting to go that way and I was uncomfortable with it, it's one of the reasons I left the industry.

Yes we had to have exclusivity. For some stories we'd be paying over £1000 (to an agency) so yes we expected then to be exclusive, but it depends a bit on the mag - if you've a lower budget then you can't afford first rights.

I think now the headlines have got incredibly lurid, and I say that as someone who's worked on LoveIt! which at the time I was there was really pushing the boundaries of acceptability - we had a big budget and the stories were heavily spun to fit the headline which wasn't the case so much on the other mags at the time.

The day I was asked "can you get her to agree to say this?" (on a different magazine though, to be fair) and the poor woman really didn't want to was the day I decided I needed to get out. I wanted to tell people's stories, not write fiction and bully people into going along with it.

Has anyone mentioned the ‘You called them what?!’ Feature? I LOOOOOOOVED that one! The names were totally brilliant.

OMG this thread has a lot to answer for.
I bought Take a Break and have just read the sentence: "I finished my GCSEs and then I pushed my baby into the world" as if she put down her pen then the head appeared.

@Gancanny

The love stories about the cheeky chappy carpet fitter with the twinkly eyes will always say have the storyteller giggling with her mum/best friend/sister/dog about "he's so handsome!" then further down the page you see a photograph a photograph of the cheeky chappy and he looks like a thumb.

😂 brilliant

@thegreenlight

Has anyone mentioned the ‘You called them what?!’ Feature? I LOOOOOOOVED that one! The names were totally brilliant.

What magazine was that in? In TAB the whole point is that nobody within the magazine ever mocks or even comments on the ridiculous names, they just leave them there, poker-faced, for readers to mock amongst themselves.

I remember reading a story where the woman had twins Toni-Rae and Tillie-Rae.

In TAB the whole point is that nobody within the magazine ever mocks or even comments on the ridiculous names, they just leave them there, poker-faced, for readers to mock amongst themselves.

It probably works both ways, though, where devoted mother De'La'Tialanikalenelle-Splendifantaria (always referred to as 'De'La'Tialanikalenelle-Splendifantaria W' at school, to distinguish her from the others in her class with the same first name) writes in to announce that she's given her twins absolutely crazy, ridiculous, yooneek names that she heard in a really old film from 1980 for a good old giggle and to help them stand out amongst their schoolmates; and you find she called them Hannah and James. Everybody gets to have a laugh one way or another!

I had a really horrible time at the start of this year and I would intentionally buy one of these shit magazines to read to take my mind off RL.

It helped! It's awful but honestly reading about 'Dave the milkman delivering more than just milk' was such a welcome distraction

@CheetasOnFajitas - was your top tip to do with insulation pipe on shopping trolleys?

@cheesecrack yes! Did you see it? They mis-captioned the pic though and said my DS was 18 months old when he was only 8 months.

No I didn't unfortunately- I think I remember you posting it before on MN?

I applaud you for the idea and the ability to get £50.

I don't think TAB would publish my top top of putting sanitary towels on shopping trolleys instead

Ha ha, great memory! I can’t even remember now how I thought of it but I didn’t buy the pipe stuff to do it, I think it was randomly in the back of the car. I wrote my email in TAB-speak honed after many years of reading and I figured a cute baby pic was always going to have a good shot at the top prize .