Oh Comely

This is my favourite magazine. I say that as if I have others that I read. I don't. Well, not with any regularity at any rate. Occasionally, I'll pick one up in the staffroom at work but that's it really. This magazine is quite unlike any other I've ever found and I know only a few other people who read it. I think this is partly why I like it so much. I can remember the first time I read it; I was waiting at the airport to go to my friend's wedding and my flight was delayed so I was looking for something to read. I picked it up because it mentioned boats, illustrating dreams and porridge on the front cover. An odd mix indeed, but on reading it, I knew I had found something special, something that made me smile, something on my wavelength...


Oh Comely is named after a Neutral Milk Hotel song of the same name. They're a lovely Australian band who I was introduced to by my friend Michael. As it turns out, Michael is good friends with someone who works on the magazine but as he first let me hear the band long before the birth of the magazine, I know it wasn't a cheap ploy to make me read it. Not that I'd have taken any convincing! The song he sent me is a particularly lovely one entitled "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" which contains the line "Let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see". We should all do this. There's lots of beauty to be found; you don't even need to look that hard to find it.