Phew. What an issue it's been, my loves. You wouldn't believe the utter shambles we've been without Linda this month, but somehow we managed to pull an issue together at the last minute, and some of us are actually still talking to each other as well. But hey, enough of our problems.
   
I haven't done one of these subscriber's letters things for a while, so forgive me if I'm a bit rusty on how it all goes. Seems to be that the general idea is to give you some kind of overview on the issue, but that strikes me as a bit daft - after all, if you want to know what's in it, all you have to do is pick it up and look at the contents page. So instead, let's talk about, ooh, I dunno, the weather.

No, on second thought, that's quite clearly a stupid idea. After all, we all live in different bits of the country, and even with the Met Office's superb technology it's difficult to predict with total accuracy how the climate's going to behave over the days which will elapse between me typing this today and you reading it, er, later. Actually, when you come to think of it, that raises some interesting points itself about the nature of time, doesn't it? Here I am, typing all this stuff down in what could only be described as the present tense (in more ways than one), as if I was just chatting away to you in what you've doubtless come to recognise as AP's familiar chummy style, and yet when you actually read it, I'll be, oh, down the chip shop, or on a train to somewhere, or maybe asleep even. Does that mean that when you're reading, you're actually travelling back in time? Or does it mean that I'm actually in the future? Or what?

Sorry, this isn't really getting us anywhere, is it? Um... what else could I talk to you about? I suppose I could explain why we've got 'Barbara Cartland!' stamped on the magazine's spine this month instead of the usual sensible coverline, or just exactly why we chose to call our classified ads section 'The Secret Garden' and feature photos of all of us in Victorian costumes instead of just calling it something snappy and informative like 'Reader Ads', or even why we managed to miss so many games out of 'Absolute Power' the last time round. But then again, I very much doubt if you'd really be that interested. Nope, it looks like I'm just going to have to continue in much the same vein as the rest of this rambling old drivel until I get to the bottom of the page, then you can get on with the serious business of reading the issue and we can all go home. Yes, that sounds like a much better idea.

Stuart Campbell,
Deputy Linda