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?

@cricketmum84

I remember one where she fell in love with a "Brad Pitt lookalike". He looked more like Sloth from the Goonies 😂

Also if you are overweight you "squeeze your curves" into a dress but if you have lost weight you "ease yourself into a slinky size 10"

But Dave 'loved your curves' either way, even when you were 'a big girl' who 'piled her plate high', right? Before he bedded Val, your Lambrini-loving former mate.

The piling your plate high thing always makes me imagine little tiny saucers with food sort of vertically stacked on them.

I read a great misleading one last week. “My groom got his sister pregnant and bragged about it.”

Which makes it sound like the day after her wedding to Jaime Lannister the poor woman realised he’d knocked up Cersei and couldn’t stop talking about it. Not the headline I bet she was expecting when she told the heartwarming story of how her beloved sister in law decided to be a surrogate for her and her husband and carried their twins a good few years after they were married

@Muddledupme

I remember a top tip in a magazine where the lady put sanitary towels in her shoes instead of new insoles. She was so pleased that they even had a sticky strip to keep them stuck down.

the tips are so good. Imagine taking your shoes off at soft play and a sanitary towel pops out onto the floor.

@x2boys

Ha cross post *@Gancanny*😂

😂😂😂

Sorry wrong quote but this entire thread has me 😂😂😂

Great thread!

Dsis and I had a competition to get a letter published in one of these magazines. I won star prize of £25 shopping vouchers in Yours magazine

@Wafflehouse

I remember a woman who had a (younger male) lodger move in, they started a relationship and she couldn’t stop having orgasms. All the time. She went to a&e in the end and there was a photo of her diagnosis and the pair of them, him grinning, her looking a bit fed up. She took to wearing nighties all the time because they were loose and she thought they wouldn’t set it off. They were in it again a few months later and he had said all the older ladies in the local area had read about it and kept winking at him. I think the headline the second time was “She’s Still Going!” or something. That was about 15 years ago, a colleague used to bring the magazines in at lunch and we’d all read them. I sometimes wonder if she’s still going now, poor woman.

I remember that story! Haven't read TAB regularly for years but I sometimes buy it to kill time on a train or something.

This is going back a bit, but does anyone know what happened to Donna Still? She was a lady with leukaemia who had young twin daughters and was sometimes featured. From what I remember she wasn't expecting to see them become teenagers.

It’s because You only put weight on if you actually GORGE on creamy curries From the takeaway

Your table will always groan under the weight of all those calorie-laden goodies and your despairing husband will roll his eyes when he scans the room and sees you tucking in and polishing it all off, washed down with gallons of Coke, of course. If your love handles get too generous, he might even not want to romp with you any more.

It was everything I ever dreamed of. A microwave meal in front of the tv while my hunky greek adonis who'd just moved in playfully tickled me. When he'd arrived at the airport 3 days ago his wife went to the loo and never returned. Not having replied to his frantic text we realised she had probably left him, as fate had thrown us together we decided to make it work.

I’m still astonished people pay money to read it. I’ve only ever read them in a doctors surgery etc.

My favourite bit is the handy hints section. I remember one where a lady suggested using sanitary towels as slippers. The whole thing made me snort. It was so bad.

Doh should have read the thread properly. Muddledupme got there before Me. Glad someone else enjoyed that top tip.

These are my guilty pleasure. One of my disappointments about covid is the hairdresser's isn't allowed to have a stash of magazines. My hairdresser used to bring me the nice glossy fashion ones with my cup of tea and then I'd switch then for take a break and the like. Last time I went I bought my own copy.

Agree the men all look rotten.

One of my favourite top tips was a lady who glued posh small carrier bags (like pandora style) to her living room walls for decoration and storage.

ALL her friends raved about them and wanted them to do their walls too 😂

@sunnysidegold

These are my guilty pleasure. One of my disappointments about covid is the hairdresser's isn't allowed to have a stash of magazines. My hairdresser used to bring me the nice glossy fashion ones with my cup of tea and then I'd switch then for take a break and the like. Last time I went I bought my own copy.

Agree the men all look rotten.

We play count the teeth. If you can find more than 10 teeth on the men in the whole magazine you win a spot prize

I'll never forget the headline on the cover of 'Chat' some years ago

'I caught my fella having sex with the Christmas turkey'

And sure enough - he did actually have his penis in the turkey

This has just reminded me when people was a student nurse many years ago myself and my housemates spent an evening cutting out the most outrageous headlines from these types of magazines and stuck them on the boarded up fireplace 😂 in our student house .

I ,not people!*

Some of these comments have got me creasing. I loved TAB and also That's Life which (if possible) seemed even more ridiculous.

'We romped all afternoon' and 'in time I fell pregnant' are bang on for the cliche writing style. Love it. Might have to buy a copy this week, it's been too long.

@x2boys

This has just reminded me when people was a student nurse many years ago myself and my housemates spent an evening cutting out the most outrageous headlines from these types of magazines and stuck them on the boarded up fireplace 😂 in our student house .

You should submit that as a 'top tip'. "It really spruced up my living room - my friends are so jealous!".

My Grandma was obsessed with these kinds of magazines. She used to get them all delivered. Then later her taste became more refined, she thought Take a break and Chat were the best, all the others were rubbish 🤦🏻‍♀️
Genuinely did read one about a couple who hired out McDonald’s for their reception. That was one of my favourites.

My favourite tip was a woman who got all confused about which cloth was which until she came up with a rhyme:
“Pink for the sink, blue for the loo!”
Saw that at least 4 times, she must have made a fortune from the rhyme!

My favourites were:
the cheating plumber ( “I know where I’d stick his plunger!”)
“Our John was kept in a wheelie bin for 17 years”
“I thought my postie fiancé was perfect but found out what he’d been putting in another woman’s letterbox”
“I got pregnant by the pizza delivery man but mine wasn’t the only dough ball in the oven”
“Ditched for fruit machine Queen...caught with his penny in her slot” and
“Fiancé slept with another woman at Xmas so I roasted his chestnuts”
Notice a theme? And yes, my friend and I have a list of our favourites 🙈

This is from That's Life rather than TaB but still my absolute favourite. So romantic.

@LauraMipsum

The obsession with fronted adverbials means that year 6 writing always reminds me of the style of TAB. "Laughing, I went downstairs.... grinning, I realised Dave was naked.... shocked, I saw he'd got his cock stuck in the hoover" etc.

Yeah,top tip for any ks2 teachers, dont use these for Exemplars in class. 😂

I love the top tips where, after giving you the tip, they confidently assert that 'it looks amazing' - always the ones that are the nastiest, tackiest and ugliest of all, like they're trying to convince themselves and gaslight the reader, in spite of all the photographic evidence to the stark contrary.

Also, the ones where the fact that their toilet roll holder looks a bit plain has apparently proved to be the single thing marring their life to the extent that it's now barely worth living any more. Until they snag their jumper, have a brainwave to make the most of this 'tragedy' and snip off the loose bit of wool and glue it to the bog roll caddy, thus transforming it beyond all their wildest domestic aesthetic dreams and putting them right back on top of the world again so that a princess would blush at the very sight of them.

@ReallySpicyCurry

The heroes are always carpet fitters with twinkly eyes and cheeky chappie smiles.

"In time, I fell pregnant"

tears rolling down my cheeks..hysterical