Crivens! I am sorely vexed! Which numb-nuts came up with the 40-watt pearler of an idea to seal magazines into barf bags so you can't see what you're buying? I've just braved the teaming lunchtime hoards in drizzly Telford in order to pick up as much M&S coffee as can be comfortably loaded into a small car (about a week's supply at my rate of consumption) and thought I'd pick up a railway modelling mag whilst out rubbing shoulders with the hoi-polloi.
Unfortunately the obvious hot-off-the-press contender was sealed in a barf-bag (not without merit, on occasions, I will admit) which made it's perusal somewhat difficult. As the premises of WH Spliffs (purveyors of quality papers to the gentry) were mightily wedged, and I was laden with carriers full of raw caffeine, I couldn't be *rsed to find an assistant to ask if I could have a peek inside one of the offending baggies, so I bought a rival publication instead - at the end of the day they had the marketing edge. No doubt the shrink-wrapped periodical concerned isn't unduly worried by the lack of my patronage this time around. I would imagine sales are fairly buoyant at the moment, being sucked along by the hobby in the same way that platform rubbish follows a speeding express train. Plenty of time to worry about whether they maximised their share of the growing market in years to come, I shouldn't wonder...
Our hobby is something of a broad church, which means that, at best, a fair proportion of any monthly rag isn't going to hit the spot for most potential customers. At worst, with the unhealthy anti-D&E bias of the regular comics over here (contrast them with their overseas equivalents to see what I mean) an awful lot of the average magazine is of no value to many of us whatsoever - we need to see what we're buying to see if it's worthwhile. In this instance the 'word on the street' was that the magazine concerned was to be avoided like the plague, allegedly containing some particularly inane drivel about the Heljan Hymek being inferior to recent Bachmann releases - as I couldn't inspect the magazine to make my own mind up I didn't risk a purchase. I'm not about to pay 3 quid to read such clueless b*ll*cks when I can do it on the internet for free.