Tim Southwell, Bill Borrows, and Ben Marshall bicker their way through the origin story of loaded, starting with how soulless and try-hard the early-90s men’s mag scene felt and asking: what if a magazine actually sounded like your funniest mate in the pub? Tim recounts teaming up with James Brown via Leeds United and being on a Barcelona trip in 1992 that sparked the “best night ever” vibe the magazine would bottle. They salute publishing genius Alan Lewis for backing proper writing, discuss the stillborn versions of the magazine that never made it (“The Right Stuff” and “Rogue”) and explain how loaded’s radical design and focus on peculiarly British humour, icons and idioms helped forge its identity. Despite depressingly negative focus groups full of idiots, huge magazine company IPC green-lights the project for some reason but then drops the b ...