Confessions of an ex-mag slag

I had lunch with a fellow ex-weekly mag slag yesterday. We exchanged pleasantries about our families for a polite five minutes. The rest of the time was spent dissecting how much Woman’s Day really paid for those Lisa McCune cheating pics, whether readers actually cared about Kourtney Kardashian’s baby, why certain blundering fools still have jobs at our old workplace, the future of weekly magazines, what we’d do if we were in charge …

It was quite refreshing because I can’t talk to the school mums about it. Well, not at length. And I can’t talk to Husband about it. Well, not unless it’s funny or titillating. And I can’t talk to my mother about it because she starts looking wistful and saying, “You know, I really thought you’d have another job by now …”

But I can talk to a fellow ex-mag slag about it, because she gets it. Once you’ve been a weekly mag slag you never flush it out of your system. Photo exclusives are an adrenalin rush, celebrity hook-ups make your hands rub together with glee, you desperately want to know what the first-day figures were on that fabulous cover story.

It might sound shallow and vacuous, but it was my job to care about such things, once upon a time – I’m sure retired dermatologists feel the same way when they pass a vigorous case of acne in the street. They automatically want to have a good probe.

That’s why I started writing HouseGoesHollywood – it gave me an excuse to immerse myself in gossip every day.

Having a blog that’s about family, food and celebrities is a funny old mix, but it pretty well sums me up. I just need to find a way to not spam my followers three times a day as I cover off all the bases.

Sometimes – ok, often – I wonder if still getting my kicks from Hollywood makes me a tired old hack who needs to reinvent herself or a passionate celebrity journalist who hasn’t lost her mojo.

But I do know I’d happily have lunches like the one yesterday more often. It was FUN.