That other magazine

I did something that I’ve not done in ages recently; I bought another motoring magazine besides my monthly dosage of Top Gear.

As I was going to have lunch alone that fateful day, it crossed my mind that it would look odd and peculiar for me to be seated at a table practically underneath the LRT line in Plaza Pantai all alone doing nothing whilst subconsciously picking my nose. Such sight would most certainly lead passers-by to the conclusion that I am a boring and pitiful chubby bloke with whom nobody could be bothered to befriend most likely due to my habit of subconscious nose picking. So I hatched an idea to drop by at nearby news stand and pick up a motoring read. Since I’ve already bought Top Gear for that month buying another would be senseless hence I was force to venture into some other read and came across a magazine which claimed and I quote, ‘The Biggest Car Magazine in the World’ (if I recall correctly) in a clear plastic and for half the price of a TGM, I thought it was reasonable. I bought it and opened it up and found another back dated issue thrown into it, two for the price of one. ‘My god, this is brilliant’… so I thought.

I read it whilst waiting for my teh ais and nasi goreng sotong. The first few pages were fair, the typical automotive news probably taken up from some website or other international auto magazines. Then I came across a review by a certain Mr. B if I recall correctly of the Audi A6. Being an ardent fan of Audi, I was keen to read and of I went. At the end of the article though, the first thing to pop into mind were the words uttered by a certain judge to me a few years back as I was trying to maneuver around his queries, “I can hear you talking but you’re not telling me anything”. Translated in the context of Mr. B’s article as, “I can see the writing but it’s not telling me anything!”… at least not anything that I’ve already known through Google-ing. Almost everything in the article as far as I can tell was probably nipped out of an Audi A6 brochure or Audi’s PR press kit.

When I read a review of a car, I expect an illustrious description of the car, how the car feels; how it drives; how it feels to be in the driver’s seat and maybe even details like how the luscious leather feels rested on the reviewers bottom (this may not be the best example though). These are all important information to us Malaysian as most of us will never have the pleasure of sitting in one let alone drive one. Had I only wanted to know how much bhp or nm torque the car makes or even the colour it is offered in or for that matter the price, I could have just Google-d and save myself a few ringgit. Well, to be fair the Mr. B did mention on how the steering weighted in three lines out of the entire two paged article. I felt deprived and plain dumb!

Which brings me to my point, buying a motoring magazine is like cliff diving. You should and must always check the depth of the water below before you decide to jump; otherwise you might end up resurfacing with half a brain missing if not all. In my case, I should had opened up the plastic and browsed a few pages before ever deciding to buy it.

So after reading Mr. B’s review, I’ve decided that I would never buy another "big" magazine nor would I ever read an article or writing of any sort written by a man whose name begins with the letter “B”.

Hence Top Gear remains my no.1 read! And as for that other magazine, suffice to say that after lunch that day I suddenly decided to ‘go green!’ and used it to line my toilet bowl instead of the usual toilet paper and flush it down with all the unwanted thereafter.