As a trenchant critic of Balance magazine in the past, fairness and justice demand that I acknowledge the virtues inherent in the current issue. (And, no, this is not a high-faluting introduction to praising your poem, Northerner. Your poem is really good - and I hope you will accept my congratulations on its publication. But I am speaking with reference to the overall tone of the magazine.)
The editor, Martin Cullen, has obviously taken note of some of the criticism and his observations made a promising opening to the edition.
I was pleased to see that the letters of response to Andrew Fenner's 'Black Sheep' article were selected without fear or favour. (And - to digress - it was interesting that a DSN took objection to it.)
The layout and selected colour schemes were, in my view, easier on the eye.
But, above all, this was the first issue that I have read for a long time where I did not get to the end feeling that I was sitting beneath the sword of Damocles: the doom and gloom atmosphere that has pervaded issues in the past had been dispelled.
I recall clearly a fellow-subscriber on this forum saying that the magazine's note of imminent judgement on sufferers from diabetes could only be so insistently produced by people who were not diabetics themselves. It is hard to make such an assertion about the present issue.
And that is the true measure of how far it has come. Now if that can be maintained.....
The editor, Martin Cullen, has obviously taken note of some of the criticism and his observations made a promising opening to the edition.
I was pleased to see that the letters of response to Andrew Fenner's 'Black Sheep' article were selected without fear or favour. (And - to digress - it was interesting that a DSN took objection to it.)
The layout and selected colour schemes were, in my view, easier on the eye.
But, above all, this was the first issue that I have read for a long time where I did not get to the end feeling that I was sitting beneath the sword of Damocles: the doom and gloom atmosphere that has pervaded issues in the past had been dispelled.
I recall clearly a fellow-subscriber on this forum saying that the magazine's note of imminent judgement on sufferers from diabetes could only be so insistently produced by people who were not diabetics themselves. It is hard to make such an assertion about the present issue.
And that is the true measure of how far it has come. Now if that can be maintained.....
