The January Issue....
Christmas and all that is over, which can only mean one thing. In the words of Sir Mick Jagger, it’s time to…..take it eeeeeeasy babe! Yes, it’s January, and a brand new year for your favourite online friend, Debased Magazine. To celebrate our sixth issue, and to guide you gently into 2011, we bring you a cheery month’s worth of our extra special magic.
We’ll start of in Cairo, where Sophie Mei has travelled to bring you lucky dance connoisseurs all the sparkle of the Nile festival. Then, it’s over to our now resident writer, Kirk Yeomans, who delivers his review of "Gulliver’s travels" and offers some valuable insights on dating.
Elsewhere, I meet a strange spectre in Wentworth Castle Gardens, and Sofire Rosa gets the ultimate last word on “Burlesque”, where Christina Aguilera, Cher and a Barman with a seriously dubious sexuality collide.
So enjoy this little bundle, and we’ll see you in February, for our loved up Valentines celebration with a difference.
Till then…
Kisses
Sarah.
About Debased
“The city is a woman, bigger than any other Oh sophisticated Lady, I wanna be your lover...”
or so sang Jarvis Cocker on the 1992 Pulp album Gift recordings track, “Sheffield Sex City”.
But what exactly, if anything, has happened to Sheffield, once the jewel in the industrial north's crown, since the days of frustrated indie bands an the gender blurring electro pop of Phil Oakey? In a moment of rose induced madness, we joked that someone should write a magazine to let us know, something with the potential to shake up the floods of jaded rags that litter the social haunts of the city, with tales from forgotten places of excitement and intrigue.
Admittedly, it was always destined to be a shaky start, with a team comprised of a belly dancing burlesque starlet from the Merseyside area, a would be novelist, and a French fashion student. Although seemingly this reads like a character synopsis for a UK version of Melrose's place, this was in fact, the perfect beginning for what became known as Operation Debased. We wondered why Sheffield seemed to lack the sparkle of other Yorkshire cities – where were the cabaret clubs, the freaks, and the all night glamorous dives? Where was the dirty, gorgeous ambience that cities were supposed to possess? The city lacked that particular gene, and it was no great feat to see why.
South Yorkshire has always remained somewhat of a square peg in the county sex map. Whilst our West Yorkshire cousins in Leeds proudly fly a multicoloured flag for all things extravagant and even a little debauched, Sheffield very much remains cool and calm, maybe even a little conservative. By the logic that New York is the city that never sleeps, it wouldn't be too harsh to say Sheffield is the city that never woke up. Which begs the question – is it? Is it really just a smattering of late night bars full of students and their followers placed next to a few high couture boutiques? Where do people go....to play? Armed with this furtive and suggestive question, Debased set out to investigate what really happens in Jarvis Cocker's Sheffield Sex City in the 21st century.