Ah, nostalgia. What a wonderful beast it is. It’s like a warm blanket, or an old animal pelt (sorry Cheeky Monkey), that you can draw around you in the cold, dark nights. It’s comfortable, it’s snug, and it smells of fags and piss and old booze and many a good night of years gone by. In today’s unsettling world, with the spectre of world destruction looming and environmental catastrophe hanging over us, sometimes all one wants to do is snuggle into some smelly fur and relive one’s glory days. And then take action to make them happen all over again.
When Loaded first came into being, it was about celebrating the great moments in life. It was about bottling those things that made the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. It was about plugging into what excited and enthralled you and sharing that with the readers through the pages of a magazine. It was the journalistic equivalent of a great night out, or the moment the ball hits the back of the net – an analogue of the point of orgasm, but in a written form.
As I survey the world from my lair here in Wardour Street, I see a place decimated by the culture wars, a landscape dominated by the dopamine-hungry, craving the gratification so cheaply given by the appearance of a red splodge on social media, saying you have been validated by your peers. For too long have you been cheated by the content creators of the world, with them feeding you dreck and short-changing you with inferior morsels of cultural sustenance. Where is the love? Where is the passion? Where is the unbridled enthusiasm for the above average, the astonishing and the absurd?
But wait, young pups, there is another way. The Loaded way. In these pages you will find a celebration of all things good that make life on this strange rock we inhabit worthwhile. The finest in music, sport and film and all else that sparks your mojo; a most excellent feast of cultural meats that would shame the most bacchanalian of buffets.
And with that, I present to you the latest incarnation of the finest magazine to have ever graced the face of this earth. Draw up a chair, my dear fellows, grab yourself a bacon sandwich and be prepared to drop it when you cast your eyes on the treats we have in store for you. Good work fella? Oh yes, good work indeed.