Unexpectedly, a complementary copy of the Economist's foray into quarterly publications thudded through the letterbox a few days ago, with a personalised letter dated February 2008.
The heavy volume was titled Winter 2007 and I can't help thinking they may have had a few left over as the news included the upcoming Led Zep concert (December) and somewhere a picture of figgy pudding.
Big format, thick matt art paper, I was expecting something quite special. Unfortunately, the advertisers have better grasped the page size compared with the journalists. A few classy jewellry, perfume, watch and fashion advertisements leading into...an airport seat back magazine. Genre equivalents like Vanity Fair or even the ft's 'How to spend it' do the job better. And I'd rather read 'Why things suck' in Feb's Wired than the pathetic analysis of what's wrong with airports in the freebie. And twice baked potatoes don't suck, by the way.
Advertising itself as "Intelligent Life" I found it more of an unfortunate contribution to the wrong side of the carbon footprint debate. Perhaps the website version will be better although as that still promotes the Winter version too, I wonder if their heart is really in this project?
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