Read Dinner for Two for Free Online Page A

are deep in conversation by the printer. The only person missing is Nick Randall, Louder’s editor.
    I’m about to begin working my way through the new issue when Chrissy hands me an old-fashioned office memo. I receive dozens every day by e-mail, all of which I tend to ignore because they’re usually about tedious stuff like stationery. The memo in my hand is a sign of bad news though. It’s a memo that says, ‘Don’t ignore me.’ And as I make my way to the boardroom along with the rest of the team, as instructed by the memo, my stomach tightens. As I’ve got a pretty good guess what kind of bad news I’m heading for.

    drop
    Louder ’s new circulation figures are in and the news is bad. The magazine has suffered the steepest drop in readership not only among music titles but for the whole BDP group. Statistics like this, we’re told by the deputy MD, can only mean one thing: Louder will fold immediately. Izzy has been telling me to jump ship for the last year because of our falling circulation, and I’d always assured her that it was happening right across the music industry. If major artists aren’t releasing the kind of high-profile albums that people want to read about, it’s no wonder that we’ve struggled to keep our circulation up. Despite this I’d been convinced that Louder could ride out the lull.
    A magazine folding is no big surprise in this trade, and it had affected me more times than I cared to remember. Back in the summer of 1992 I’d got my first job as a music journalist freelancing for Start , a monthly magazine that had folded after eight issues. Then, determined not to do anything other than write about music I’d eked out a living doing occasional live reviews for the weekly music newspaper Sound Clash , before I swallowed my pride and freelanced for a number of titles that never ever made it on to my CV: TV, Cable and Satellite Plus and Careers Choice . Eventually I landed my first staff job as a junior writer on a new music magazine called Compact – which folded after two issues. Six months later I became a staff writer on Up , a music-and-lifestyle magazine aimed at the eighteen-to-twenty-five male market, which lasted two years. Then I did freelance stints in the offices of Below Zero , a unisex lifestyle title, which collapsed after a year. By this time, however, my reputation as a writer was strong enough to clinch me the senior writer’s post on Louder . I’d been at the magazine five years, longer than I’d ever been in any other job, and now it was all over.
    With the prospect of a relatively hefty redundancy package and the expectation that it wouldn’t be that hard to find another job, I’m fine with my new-found unemployed status. Perhaps this is the push I need to do something new. The usual way out for the thirtysomething music hack is to move to more adult music titles, which to my mind is the equivalent of one of those horrible Eighties revival concerts where the balding remnants of a once great band parade around on stage unaware of the self-parody they’ve become. The other option is to join a national newspaper as one of those rock critics who have their picture next to their byline. Several music journalists I admired in my youth have done this and while it’s an okay compromise I can’t help but think that it’s like admitting defeat. What’s the point of writing about music for people who don’t like it enough to buy a dedicated music publication? Why bother reviewing music when all your readership wants to know is what CD they should buy to accompany their next dinner party? If I’m going to continue to write about music I want to write about it for an audience who appreciate it the way it’s meant to be appreciated: when it’s in your heart, in your head and means more to you than life and death.

    buy
    It’s now nine o’clock in the evening and I’m sitting on a stool in the kitchen drinking a bottle of Becks while Izzy makes dinner. I’ve