Talk, with hindsight

I went out and bought the final issue of Talk yesterday. I

wondered if, with hindsight, one might be able to look at it and see

where it went wrong. I thought I would read through the articles and

try to determine what worked and what didn’t, that sort of thing.

As it turns out, there was no need: the inevitability of the demise

of the magazine can be summed up in the pair of numbers (20, 120).

There are 120 pages in the book; the last paid-for ad is on page 20.

Sorry, Mr Galotti, but that ain’t gonna cut it.