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Re: UK Magazine watch



As you know, the October issue of  Classic Rock is a "special collectore
edition", released with two different cover illustrations of the Who, one
taken from the '60's, and one taken from the '70's. I'll refer to these as
the White cover ('60's) and black cover (70's). You've seen them on Pete's
website.

The magazines contain two articles relating to the Who, one consisting
mainly of extracts from Tony Fletcher's book on Keith, and the other being a
fairly compact round up of the Who's history from Tommy to Quad. The
content, I am assured, is exactly the same no matter which cover it is.
Also, the content is nothing to get hugely excited about, it's pretty (at
least for fans) innocuous and well known.

All this is in 12 full pages of text and photos. The photo's themselves are
fairly commonplace, but there is one I haven't seen before in the un related
article on Pamela des Barres, showing a slightly rumpled Keith walking along
with Pammy who's dressed in stockings suspenders and a basque.

What should have been a fairly straightforward trip to the newsagents to get
these magazines has developed into a full blown nightmare.

The white cover issue is nowhere to be found in the Midlands, as I found
this morning. Every store I visited or telephoned had only the black cover
issue. I spoke to Classic Rock's publishers, Future Publications,  who told
me the white cover represented 25% of the print run and most importantly,
the print run was arranged so that the magazines would be distributed in
that ratio across the UK.

I pointed out that this had not happened in the Midlands, and it was fairly
clear that the white covers had been separated out so that they weren't sent
to the midlands. I made the point that I suspected the white covers would be
heavily concentrated in the London region; the circulation manager for
Classic Rock poo poo'ed this.

I also telephoned the main distributor of magazines and newspapers in the
country, W H Smith, and found out from them that there had been a "problem"
with distribution and that very few places had received the white cover
issue.  Remember, this is of interest to (okay, obsessive!) Who fans as it
is deliberately the "rarer" of the two covers.

Armed then with Benn's and Barry's comments I again spoke to the circulation
manager at Future, who said he was "disturbed" to hear that Gatwick had all
white copies but no black ones. He said he would "investigate".

The likelihood is that most - or well in excess of  50% of these white cover
issues are going to be found in London and the South East England and
probably within the M25 area due to this "distribution" probllem.

Clearly, it would be helpful if any UK listers could let me know if they
have seen the white cover issue and where.

If you live outside the M25 I doubt you will ever see a copy of the white
cover issue.

I intend to email Matt Kent to advise him of this shambles.

I would really be spitting feathers if the cover illustrations were very
rare, or previously unseen, but fortunately they aren't so if I don't get a
copy I won't exactly be distraught, just annoyed that the publisher's
"problem" seems likely to have very fortuitously concentrated the rare white
cover in the London area.

Cheers,

John