***<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got one question,\u201d said the publisher. \u201cWhy?\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
It might help if you can imagine the publisher has a broad Queensland accent. He doesn\u2019t know it, but the newsroom calls his office \u201cThe Pineapple Cave\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy did you use over-ripe bananas in that photo shoot?\u201d<\/p>\n
My reply is meek: \u201cI think the stylist was trying to match the speckle on the banana to the leopard print on the heel…\u201d<\/p>\n
Once I was a serious journalist who went undercover in Sumatra to investigate the social and ecological impact of the New Zealand dairy industry\u2019s demand for palm kernel expeller feed.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t walk a block in those heels.<\/p>\n
Photo \/ Brydie Thompson<\/p>\n
Cover page brainstorm. Topic: Female desire.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrchids,\u201d said the very clever deputy editor. \u201cDifferent kinds of the same flower, representing that we\u2019re all women, but we\u2019re all different.\u201d<\/p>\n
I take the proposal \u2013 a gorgeous trio of lascivious, fleshy pink orchids \u2013 into The Pineapple Cave.<\/p>\n
Him: \u201cHow does this relate to the story?\u201d<\/p>\n
Me: \u201cWell, over the centuries artists have used the orchid to represent, um, certain aspects of, um, femininity. The story is about female desire. And if you think about where female desire might be centred \u2026 what we haven\u2019t done is provided three illustrations of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The publisher is still frowning.<\/p>\n
Me: \u201cFemale readers like pretty flowers?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tick.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Yesterday, we gave a potential new advertiser a sneak preview of the home design pages. Two of their products were featuring and maybe they\u2019d like to capitalise on that? It was going quite well until they noted the caption for their $30 doormat had been printed underneath the $5000 Zambesi rug.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
A reader writes to our sex columnist: \u201cMy 5-year-old granddaughter masturbates constantly and is now complaining of a sore vagina. What should I do?\u201d<\/p>\n
An editor writes to her sex columnist: \u201cThe publisher will fire me if I run that letter. What should I do?\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Tomorrow is the photo shoot for my editor\u2019s note. I squeeze into suck-it-in knickers and a bra that should have won an engineering award. I can\u2019t breathe but 23 years of journalism will count for nothing once this picture is published. What I look like will, to the readers of this magazine, define their opinion of me. I ignore 1,000 versions of the same black dress and choose jeans, a loose shirt I bought at an op shop and underwear that doesn\u2019t require restorative kidney surgery. I look like me. When the picture is published, my mum emails to tell me I look pretty.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
The Seekers.<\/p>\n
This week\u2019s cover story tracks 40 years of the song I Want to Teach the World to Sing.<\/p>\n
Our deadline is Thursday. Everything, including the cover \u2013 a quirky choir boy, mouth open mid-song \u2013 has been sent to the printers. Shit. I forgot to take the cover to The Pineapple Cave.<\/p>\n
He hates it. Alternatives?<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d I say, \u201cI thought a photograph of The Seekers might alienate a younger audience.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Seekers!?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re coming here, and they\u2019re performing that song. That\u2019s why we\u2019re running this story.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI LOVE the Seekers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tick.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Rachel Hunter.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere\u2019s the thing,\u201d says the celebrity agent. \u201cYou tell your bean counters I\u2019ve got a $20,000 offer for \u2018the greening of Rachel Hunter\u2019 sitting on my desk.\u201d <\/p>\n
The vision includes a supermodel, a k\u0101k\u0101p\u014d and a South Island mountain range. <\/p>\n
My budget does not include a helicopter, stylist, photographer, makeup artist or critically endangered wildlife. <\/p>\n
We\u2019ll have to go with our cover on the rise of dystopian youth literature. The Queenslander is on holiday and this week\u2019s sign-off is with the editor-in-chief. \u201cWhat\u2019s dystopia?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n
I bite my tongue so hard it bleeds. \u201cThe opposite of utopia.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
A reader writes to a food editor: \u201cI tried your sumac chicken with lemon, fennel and potato salad tonight. I didn\u2019t have the chicken, the sumac or the fennel. I substituted rump steak and spring onions (from the garden) and even though I had mint and parsley, I used coriander instead.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
A reader writes to the editor: \u201cIn view of almost 50% of [redacted] magazine being devoted in some way to fashion, I find it totally incongruous that you should drape your slightly non-svelte figure with a cast-off curtain. Can\u2019t you find something better to wear?\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
A reader writes to a columnist: \u201cI subscribe to the [redacted] and enjoy keeping up with the news. Your article showing the bonobos apes particularly interested me as, some years ago, I read the following: \u2018Bonobos and humans are unusual among primates in using the missionary position\u2019 … I read your article twice but didn\u2019t see this mentioned so I thought I would let you know. I don\u2019t remember the magazine I cut it from but I have kept it in a pocket in my handbag ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n
*** <\/p>\n
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o T\u0101maki. Photo \/ David St George<\/p>\n
At the Auckland Art Gallery, the fashion and beauty media gather.<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t shaved my legs for a month. It\u2019s eight weeks since my last pedicure and I ran out of fake tan in February. <\/p>\n
Dinner is one goat cheese ball, two squares of bread and salmon and four champagnes. Caught in the seam of the absolutely enormous goodie bag I find a single bottle of nail polish. \u201cHave you \u2018eared about it \u2013 an homage to Van Gogh\u201d is from OPI\u2019s Holland range. My artist boyfriend says it is the exact shade of old rice or dried skin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat nail polish,\u201d he says, \u201cis the colour of exfoliation.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Secret tricks of magazine editors forced to attend a lunchtime product launch? When the petit fours platter includes a terrifyingly solid plug of whiskey jelly, drop it in a glass of water and wait for it to dissolve. Swallow. Repeat until deadline and\/or they send you home with the goodie bag.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
The lifestyle magazine I edit is tasked with making its female-skewed audience feel relaxed, happy, inspired, included and even a little glamorous. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I tell the PR rep, \u201cI will not be giving away a vacuum cleaner in the Mother\u2019s Day edition.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
\u201cConfirming Louis Vuitton for 2.30pm tomorrow,\u201d says the text from an ex-boyfriend. A friend from Tauranga asks what I want taken from the freezer for dinner. I scroll through my address book and every second name is Simon Gault. My life is unravelling and my new phone has replicated 4000 contacts to prove it.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Louis Vuitton Lionne Spawn bag and Prada Mini Promenade bag. Photo \/ Webb’s<\/p>\n
The woman in black silk gloves has a $1000 bag clipped to her waist. She points to the wall display and says, reverently, \u201cthis design has been in production since 1856\u201d.<\/p>\n
Me: \u201cI\u2019m fascinated by the emotional connection between women and things. Why would anyone pay that much for a handbag when they could buy a knock-off? Could we do a story on that?\u201d<\/p>\n
In downtown Auckland, the PR manager for Louis Vuitton explodes into tiny, perfectly formed icicles. LV will never comment on counterfeit. LV will never go on sale. LV will never be discounted. LV, she says, cannot be accused of being an unattainable brand when some of its handbags sell for as little as $800.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
We need a new beauty page so we can sell more beauty advertising. We need a story about Melbourne because an advertiser wants more people to go there. We need a particular designer\u2019s clothes on our fashion pages or they might pull their advertising. We need to hire someone to stab me in the eye with a proofreading pencil. I would do this myself but I\u2019m just too tired.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Dear Editor: I used to read [retracted] all the time. Then I started reading [retracted]. This weekend I read your [retracted] again and I hated it.<\/p>\n
Dear Reader: I hate you.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
Disaster. The chicken the designer has chosen to illustrate the new Pet of the Week column is the wrong breed.<\/p>\n
It should have feathered legs, says the new Pet of the Week columnist.<\/p>\n
This column is satirical. Its content is entirely fictional. The former leader of the Act Party does not, to my knowledge, own a chicken.<\/p>\n
\u201cChange the chicken,\u201d I tell the designer. What do I know about chickens? Or satire?<\/p>\n
*** <\/p>\n
Our Easter issue is as cute as a button. A cover story on rabbit fanciers and, inside, our wine writer\u2019s top 10 reds.<\/p>\n
The Queenslander picks up a black marker pen.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s drop the masthead font a couple of sizes, move it down so it doesn\u2019t bleed off the page and put a glass of red wine in the top corner,\u201d he says. \u201cYou look worried?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re suggesting a radical redesign of a masthead that was only relaunched six weeks ago \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Him: \u201cIt\u2019s not that radical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Me: \u201cIt is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Him: \u201cIt is not.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was no wine glass on the Easter cover. I cannot say the same about my actual Easter.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
A very large delivery from Louis Vuitton has just landed on my desk. The box is beautifully wrapped, and I have only just realised how badly I want an $800 handbag. It is a book about a label no future lifestyle journalist will be able to afford.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
\u201cReal readers wearing real makeup looks\u201d. Our new beauty page concept is fresh, clean and an adequate compromise between editorial credibility and advertiser demands. The women will wear plain white tees; a stark white background will allow us to showcase featured beauty products.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no budget for specialist lifestyle photographers but the newsroom photo desk is excited. They suggest a black background. With lighting effects. I go back to my desk. Where is my monogrammed vodka?<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
A reader loves the magazine and also my editor\u2019s photo. But he thinks my body shape requires different clothes. Leggings, perhaps, and a floaty top.<\/p>\n
To illustrate this point, he has cut out my picture, pasted new clothes onto my body, and glued the entirety to the postcard that has just been delivered to my desk. I laugh and laugh and laugh.<\/p>\n
When I take it home to show my boyfriend, he asks, \u201cHave you called the police?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"*** \u201cI\u2019ve got one question,\u201d said the publisher. \u201cWhy?\u2019\u2019 It might help if you can imagine the publisher…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[45859,78681,14798,3013,124,152785,16432,32896,156,1438,55510,305,26098,221,185,302,424,13840,4974,208445,111,139,69,2847,19313,139047,165703,5970,9095,6921,2846,148977,6923],"class_list":["post-404658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-45859","tag-afforded","tag-anonymous","tag-but","tag-could","tag-devil","tag-editing","tag-editor","tag-entertainment","tag-fashion","tag-florals","tag-have","tag-heres","tag-how","tag-is","tag-its","tag-life","tag-like","tag-magazine","tag-necessarily","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-only","tag-prada","tag-realistic","tag-reallife","tag-really","tag-secret","tag-spring","tag-them","tag-wears","tag-what"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}