The first thing you hear as a writer is that you should always carry a notebook with you so you can jot down all your ideas – and not one of those overpriced Moleskine ones you just buy to look cool either, one you actually plan on using regularly. So for a good while, I did just that. It was during this time that I realised that most of my ideas were far too odd and offensive to feature in any publication. Here’s a sample of a few.

• ‘Denise Richards: what happened?’
• ‘Can you still play the race card?’
• ‘Can we stop pretending Michelle Obama’s attractive?’
• ‘Black guys with relaxed hair: a visual timeline’ (I might still do this one)
• ‘From cheap bastard to frugal genius: the rise of the money-saving expert’

I could go on, but you get the point.

Everyone loves Monocle. This much is certified fact in the ‘menswear blogosphere’ as no one calls it. Whether you’re looking over its fashion spreads, aspiring to import your shelves from Switzerland or talking about how you and the editor went out for tea last night – everyone’s talking about Monocle.

But most people don’t know that Mr Brûlé’s Monocle wasn’t the first magazine called Monocle to exist. Steven Heller wrote an article about the original Monocle, which was an influential magazine back in the 50’s – which was said to have influenced the George Lois-designed Esquire of the sixties as well as New York and Spy magazine. Read the full article here.