Words Dept.: entry

I observed the other day that Sony Magazine has little to justify its seemingly imaginary cover price of £4.50. However, as Charlie Brooker points out (today, spookily), there are much worse examples of this “hilariously desperate” genre of magazine. Specifically, something called Nespresso magazine.

This is the magazine for people who own Nespresso coffee machines. It attempts to portray Nespresso as a lifestyle choice for only the world’s most upmarket and discerning coffee drinkers. (Which, of course, it isn’t. As Brooker points out, it’s actually the choice of people who want to make an espresso without “getting grit all over the sideboard”.)

Brooker counts 281 images of “coffee pods” within the magazine, which he describes as “the by-product of an entire industry peopled exclusively by desperate, snivelling lunatics”. He’s referring to the marketing people, rather than pod-based coffee manufacturers, I fear.