My free copy of Ad Lib arrived today. It was mostly unsurprising, but there were a couple of unexpected things about it. The first surprise was the size; having had it consistently described as a magazine I was expecting something... well... magazine sized. Perhaps this is due to me having worked in a couple of newsagents', I dunno. Anyway, it's not magazine sized. It's not even American comic sized. It's just slightly bigger than my daughter's Kindle Touch. I guess this could be sold as a positive, making the thing more portable.
The second surprise was the number of loose adverts it came packaged with. Now, this is the free first copy, and I understand that needs funding somehow, but I'd be pretty annoyed if I was a subscriber and had paid to be sent four separate advertising leaflets as well as the
pamphlet magazine.
The content, on the other hand, was mostly unsurprising. There were some adverts, but all Lib Dem related. The articles were mostly the sort of thing you'd find on LDV, aside from Desert Island Tessa Munt (which
I suspect the beeb and/or the estate of Roy Plomley might have something to say about, copyright-wise) and, for some reason, a recipe page. When I joked about there being a recipe page discussing the mag on twitter, ribbing the editor about the stereotypical women's interest lifestyle magazine sector and its vapid and patronising content, I had no idea about there actually being a recipe page...
There was no substantive comment in Ad Lib that was news to me, but some of the feature content was vaguely interesting. Predictably, of the articles with names on, the Serious Politics was nearly all by men (apart from the webinar report, by the awesome Helen Duffett) and the Women's Issues articles (including the blasted recipe) were all by women. The gender balance overall wasn't bad, but the fact that women are trusted to talk about page 3 and the conditions in women's prisons, while the men get sent to interview the party heavyweights and talk about how to succeed in elections is a bit disappointing.
The typesetting and formatting is of the "endearingly amateurish" type we are all used to seeing in Focus leaflets, but ramped up a bit for glossy paper and full colour. The title is... Well, my views on the title are pretty well known. I don't think it's big or clever for our members' magazine to basically tell everyone we make it up as we go along, but apparently I am reading too much into it. Just like I suspect I'll be told I'm reading too much into the gender stuff...
Anyway, I suspect this is the sort of thing that would be very useful for an armchair member, or for members who aren't plugged in to the constant other sources of Lib Dem news and analysis. I further suspect that if it were added to membership subs as an option this would be a useful thing, and most people wouldn't complain. I'm definitely not saying it has no value to anybody. But it's not a thing that's aimed at me (or if it was it missed) and I won't be spending scarce money on it.
If you're less of a grumpy old bag than me, and want to spend money on it, you can go
here. It's fifty quid for normal people, or thirty-five if you, like me, are daft enough to still be a party member.
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