Pleased someone else feels that way. Completely out of place. Heppo did his best to remain detached from the test drive process, but ultimately failed. Hope this isn't where the Word "jumps the shark". I echo please don't do it again.

are you seriously telling me that as well as Suede on the cover we've got DH writing a feature on Bentley Rhythm Ace too? This 90s revival is going too bloody far.

If I got the chance to head out somewhere, stay in luxury hotels and drive fast cars about on the condition that I wrote about it a bit, I would. Heppo wrote about it amusingly and from the interesting perspective of someone who doesn't haul around in luxury tubs for a living. At the end was the obligatory little puff bit, written with tongue jammed in cheek.

I thought that the article worked perfectly. Let he or she who would turn down such a jolly cast the first stone.

I am also not yet founding the SODHAK (Society Of David Hepworth Arse-Kissers)

piece on Steely Dan in this months Top Gear magazine apparently.

piece on Steely Dan in this months Top Gear magazine apparently.

What the fuck was that rubbish? I kept waiting for the punchline that never came. It appeared to have been written for a Sunday Times Magazine commission that never came. I was, for the first time in my life, embarassed by something in Word magazine (I think the "Cor! Lumme" bit was the end for me) and the result was something between Jeremy Clarkson and an even bigger wanker.

I'm all for the magazine covering subjects beyond music but this was just dreadful shite. Save it for an in-flight magazine guys.

...Little & Large, at the height of their celebrity. It was something to the effect that while their schtick was Eddie goofing around manicly while Sid "played the part of a man just standing there", the fundamental problem was "that Sid Little *is* a man just standing there". The premise, the conceit, was simply too thin.

I can see that David thought, 'What the heck, let's give this a go, take the ludicrous largesse on offer and raise a gentle eyebrow at it'. The trouble is, instead of "playing the nods'n'winks role of a man on a freebie", he *is* just a man on a freebie. Either the Bentley is the story (in which case, yes, it's a Sunday supplement piece and nothing I'd want to read) or the freebie itself is the story. It was the latter, but it didn't work.

I guess we can't really blame David if the raw material for a decent gentle satire type piece didn't really present itself on the trip (rich boring people, champagne, flash cars, a dirt poor post-Soviet playground - short of Boris Johnson going along, I don't see the potential for much wry humour angle myself). But it's fair enough The Word trying something a little different - but I too hope they don't go further down that particular path.

Still, I don't mind because - and this ISN'T one of those 'toadying to the staff' moments, it's simply an expression of a key reason why I have a subscription - David's writing is generally the best thing in the magazine and it's kind of endearing to know that even the Hep has an off day.

If I offer Heppo the opportunity of pulling off three point turns in my ancient Fiat within the confines of the luxury car park opposite The Ship & Mitre. Liverpool maybe he might finally make it 'oop North for one of our N.W.Massive Mingles. What d'ya think? Bet you're tempted now David.

It's about the junket. Duh.

I enjoyed it, but I think it should've been written in the style of Troy Queef. That Bentley was a bitch, and he spanked it.

It was "Oooops, here's a free trip. How can I bend it to justify the piece?" Simply didn't bend it far enough. That's all. Please don't do again.

and these lines made me laugh audibly:

"Oh dear," said the HBGR once we were past. "Awright," said Mick Jagger on the stereo

The more features that aren't about music the better, as far as I'm concerned. What I love about The Word is the quality of the writing and diversity of subjects covered. If I started to think of it as just a music magazine I'd stop buying it.

Suggestion for a future article: Kate Mossman drives a Bugatti Veyron around Mississippi looking for the devil at various highway intersections.

"We were somewhere around Tallin, on the edge of the tundra, when the drugs began to take hold."

needs to decide what its aiming to be - a music magazine or something along the lines of GQ et al.
Next month Mark Ellen has a free luxury weekend at the Savoy and tells us what is was like!

I quite enjoyed it but I kept wondering if the people at Bentley knew who DH is and whether they would have got more for their largesse from another journalist and publication. There can't be many Word readers in the market for a Bentley (although I suppose some loaded old rock stars may read the magazine they feature in).

There are quite a few articles about things in different issues that I don't really have much interest in but the quality of writing generally makes up for the lack of interest in the subject. As here.

Not everyone will like everything. But there's enough things to like in Word not to get too hot under the collar over the odd one that you don't.

As a subscriber to both Mojo and Word I read them both for different reasons. MOJO only for the music, Word for music related topics. In the past Word has written excellent pieces on the music industry, on record collecting and on record stores etc. I generally like the non music stuff too because by and large it is about people who tend to be quite 'rock and roll'. However I have little interest in articles written about luxury cars however the article is dressed up. For this reason I am rather pleased that both Mojo and Uncut have remained faithful to music.
To my mind Woprd writing about luxury cars is no different to HMV selling electronics. Dont do it guys, it's the slippery slope.

Like goatboy above, the words 'cor, lumme, mother' were cringable.

I didn't particularly feel the tongue was anywhere near the cheek either, in fact it felt to me that it was an article DH was somehow forced to write and felt very uncomfortable doing so.

I have no problem with non music content, sometimes my favourite bits, but if you want classy irreverent writing on car junkets just buy a collection of P J O'Rourke's articles, now that's how to do it, and I'm not particularly interested in cars.

I've ever read in The Word, but I do think some of the comments are a bit of an over-reaction. It started off as a gentle satire (the intro in particular suggests that Mark Ellen had suggested inviting the Word as a bit of a joke and was surprised to get taken up on it) and then DH admits he actually quite enjoyed staying in a luxury hotel and driving a fast luxury car.

I quite like the idea that the writers turn their hand to other pieces occasionally - even if I don't like the piece it's what keeps the magazine interesting to read.

what an over-reaction. A bit tongue in cheek and moderately amusing even for one who has no interest in cars. Would have thought we would all have been storming Word Towers about Tone blathering on about leadership (but not apologising for the Irish famine) but you really just have to laugh or go bonkers.

(The) Word has never been just about music. The reason I started buying it and then became a subscriber was precisely because it covered more than music. Here's the cover of the first edition:

Note the "Music and Entertainment now" .

I didn't enjoy the Bentley piece myself, but it's not like I was forced to read it at gun-point...

Not sure how the Bentley piece fits in myself but as the magazine veers further away from what it once was so the readership will change. Those who loved it for the music writing will have to make the choice whether there is enough of it in the mag to warrent the outlay or if, like myself, they only buy one glossy a month then more complete music coverage and reviews are availible as we know in other places.
I must admit that for me it does seem to have lost it's way somewhat and is having a bit of an identity crisis.

A bit of light mockery relaying what it's like to be swept up in the super-rich - rock star milieu - world of car jollies, at Bentley's expense, spread over, ooh, less than two pages, and you lot moan like a bunch of spoiled kids. DH even manages to slip in, "No surprise, then, that I couldn't keep it up for long.", which made me snort, but you still whinge.

No one comments on two full pages arguably wasted on rejected Duffy - fresh from Pirelli - work-in-progress promo shots, presumably because it's the Dame in the lens.

You are all naughty boys and should stop complaining until you have something worth complaining about.

It wasn't like it wasn't explained as to why DH was on the trip, and I thought he did his best to keep it as wry as he could without offending his hosts.

Anyone who's ever been on a junket knows you could string a six-part comedy series out of it. But you don't as it would just be rude. Leave it a few years.

I thought it was really entertaining. I had a knot in my stomach waiting for an awful car crash. I thought DH captured the terror and thrill of speed just so. And I'm not that bothered about fast cars.

To me, the OP is just bitching for sake of it. In fact he should have written his post in green ink.

As far as I can see some people are annoyed about the piece and some people are annoyed about the people getting annoyed about the piece.I'm getting annoyed that some folk care enough about stuff like this that they can find the time on a Saturday evening to get upset and write on a forum..........BOLLOCKS I MUST GO OUT

...hit the nail on the head there. It's a bloody good plan and it might just work.

Herbie Hancocks Watermelon man on in the car at full voliume and it sounded bloody good.
And no the car wasn't a Bentley.

The latest in a long line of bearded, young American troubadours, Ben T. Lee presents his new album Frosty Mountain Dew, recorded on an old four track in the woods (natch).

Monkey Tennis!

but Heppo can keep taking the handouts bless him and No. 13 Baby is just sublime on an ipod on the bus

me and my magazine are in different countries but all this *its all about the music* bollocks is just sad.

Eh? That's a bit odd.
And then I ignored it. I find cars very boring.

...you did the right thing there, Ad!

that I spent last night in Estonia, in the back of a Bentley, with Keith Richards? It was all going marvellously until he declared that he was really looking for a neater Tallinn bird.

...of the Rolling Estonians?

Ella Fitzgerald - "Shall We Dance"

What's sounding fantastic in yours?

Give the man a break. Free stuff is one of the few perks left to a journalist. There's nothing wrong with writing about a junket as long as you can make it entertaining.

On the other hand, that eco-trip out to the Antarctic from a few years ago, really WAS the worst thing ever to appear in the mag.

the amount of pleasure I've had from reading Hep's stuff over the years , never mind the free podcast. If we grudge him a bit of fun which he then writes up beautifully, I don't think it says much for us.

the Chris Craig was more to blame and its a scandal still all these years later

(#102) has arrived just this week in Australia (by pack mule presumably), so I've read the much maligned Bentley article for the first time today.

I really can't see what all the fuss was about. It was beautifully written with DH's usual lightness of touch, entertaining turn of phrase and just the right amount of piss-taking. I note he was at great pains to couch the piece in "who, me?" terms and sensed he deliberately dumbed the whole thing down in an effort to distance himself from any guilt by association with a beautiful, fast, expensive car. Just like Dylan's Mr Jones, he knew something was happening here, but he had little or no idea what it was. Or so he would have us believe.

That alone should been enough to placate the naysayers, but apparently not. Short of keying the bloody thing as he left, I don’t see what else he could have done to make the piece more Word friendly.

I expected wailing and gnashing of teeth at the "advertorial" article in the current issue (105?). Personally I found it quite an amusing piece and "my first headphones" would have been an interesting article anyway, so the fact that they got a company to pay for it is even better.

I read a lot of car and motorcycle mags and it was great to read a piece like this from a non-car lover's perspective. I particularly liked his description of the car 'being consumed by the horizon.' Much like my description of when riding a very fast motorcycle and getting a feeling of being projected on to the horizon. Some people really do need to lighten the fuck up and stop complaining so much about an inch-and-a-half wide column's worth of text. Or just stop complaining so much in general.

...because I know it must take a lot of factors to keep a magazine solvent and all that, but on a personal level my heart sank - truly - when I saw the headphone thing in the current issue (the current UK one, Moje, with Noel G on the cover). I've read and enjoyed most of the current issue while on hols - but I will NEVER read the headphone article, nor anything similar in future issues.

As I said, I'm not huffing and puffing on the sidelines about it - there's much more in sorrow than in anger about this - but if the 'sponsored feature' type stuff becomes regular I'll factor it into my subscription renewal decision as and when. And if I'm lost as a subscriber, presumably the advertorial thing will have worked its magic and I'll be replaced by six other people who don't mind that sort of thing. And so the world turns.