My love of shitty magazines is what you would call a guilty pleasure. By shitty magazines, I mean the lower-end titles such as Closer, Reveal, Pick Me Up and Love It!. The ones that are around £1 or under.

I dearly love the random mix of celebrity insight, real-life scandal, fashion, and inane puzzles that fill their cheap glossy pages. My true soft spot is for the real-life stories from fruit and nut bars across the land desperate to share their tales of mortifying grossness and horror for £150.

A few of the best headlines that spring to mind are:

Like Mother Like Son. But People Think We’re Twins!
A Mother and son (he was a transvestite) who decided to have surgery to look like twins.

My Husband May Have a Vagina But He’s All Man
No explanation needed here, I don’t think.

I Gave My Hooves The Heave Ho
A story about a horse lover who had hooves made in place of his feet (but then decided to change them back to regular feet)

In addition to these magical stories, my favourite magazines also have columnists in the form of some of the nation’s best-loved stars. New magazine has mentally vacant housewives’ favourite Peter Andre, another title that has momentarily slipped my mind has swine-faced warbler Kerry Katona and Closer has kebab-scoffing Scouser bimbo millionairess Coleen Mcloughlin. The other columnists pale into pathetic insignificance once you see the gems Coleen has to offer. Her column is entitled Welcome to my World and she really does give us a sneaky peek into her unique universe every single week. She shares with us her tips on fashion, hair, beauty, health and anything else that pops into her little head at that particular moment.

Here I will share with you a few excerpts from her column that will cement why it is something I cherish so dearly.

“A new Italian restaurant opened in Liverpool last week so me and my family went there for dinner. I had garlic bread, lasagne and a side salad with a still water. It was really nice and I’ll definitely go back.”

“I’ve started going out running to try and keep fit. I’ll go out early in the mornings. I really don’t enjoy it to begin with as it’s so cold but after a little while the running will warm me up and then it’s okay.”

“I bought my mum and dad a new house. They’re happy about it but sad to be moving out of their old house.”

“Bird flu is scary. I had flu last week and was really ill. Bird flu would be bad. I am keeping away from pigeons in the street to be safe.”

“What with the sticky summer weather it tends to get really hot in our bedroom at night which really bothers Wayne and keeps him up so I decided to get a fan that I’ve placed next to our bed and it’s helped a lot. He’s been sleeping really well again.”

I don’t know what I can really add to these snippets, since their greatness is obvious. Why settle for soporific scaremongering shit from Polly Toynbee in The Guardian, when you can read all about Wayne Rooney’s unremarkable sleeping patterns?

I won’t say any more about why these magazines are such essential reading since you’re probably already edging out of your seat to make a little trip to the newsagents.