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its and bobs<br />
...............................<br />
magazine of thE month: the rookie annual<br />
It’s late November. I’m writing this<br />
on a day when the temperature is<br />
16 degrees. Once upon a time the<br />
weather was cold, we wore scarves<br />
from bonfire night onwards, rubbed<br />
our hands together, drank mulled<br />
wine in warm rooms and our breath<br />
came out as steam in the night air<br />
as we said goodnight to our friends.<br />
Most corporately produced magazines<br />
are faking those times this<br />
month with gloves-and-scarves<br />
photoshoots taken in July. Most indie<br />
mags aren’t. Partly because they don’t need to<br />
produce a ‘Christmas’ special.<br />
This month’s indie mag highlight is a tinsel-free,<br />
annual magazine that nevertheless brings huge<br />
amounts of comfort and joy, especially to young<br />
women who are somewhere between 13 and 25. It’s<br />
called the Rookie Annual.<br />
It’s edited by Tavi Gevinson, who started a blog called<br />
Style Rookie when she was twelve (yes, really). A few<br />
years later (she may have been 15)<br />
she created the Rookie website to<br />
offer advice and guidance to teenage<br />
girls, written mostly by teenage<br />
girls. It’s sensible, lively, witty, challenging,<br />
supportive and brilliant.<br />
(She’s been named one of the 20<br />
most influential teens in the world;<br />
she turns twenty next April.)<br />
Each <strong>December</strong>, the Rookie Annual<br />
brings the best of the previous<br />
year’s website into one big, 360-<br />
page bumper book/mag. It covers<br />
the waterfront of everything teenage girls will be<br />
concerned about – relationships, self-esteem, fashion,<br />
talking to parents, crushes, college, trust and<br />
more. You can guarantee that it will be looked at<br />
until next year’s annual arrives. It’s nicely designed,<br />
colourful, serious and light-hearted. Being a teenage<br />
girl can be tough. When it is, the Rookie Annual is<br />
here to provide comfort and joy, and it works.<br />
Martin Skelton<br />
toilet graffito #11<br />
We live in turbulent times and,<br />
in light of recent events in Paris<br />
and troubles the world over, this<br />
month’s toilet graffito - captured<br />
in pink Sharpie - sends a simple<br />
but powerful message to mankind.<br />
Good people of <strong>Brighton</strong>,<br />
be kind to everyone. Nuff said,<br />
apart from in which pub was it<br />
scrawled?<br />
Last month’s answer:<br />
We really can’t remember. Must<br />
have been a good night.<br />
....23....
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