After three years as an annual publication, Intelligent Life has just been launched as a quarterly. I got a copy of the inaugural issue as a subscriber to The Economist, the new magazine’s sister publication. The sisters are like day and night, though. From the very first, Intelligent Life struck me as alien. I was reluctant to open it even. Posh and bubbly, it felt like something that got into my hands by sheer mistake. Lying on my table, it looked kind of lost, too. When I leafed through it at last, my first impression only got stronger. But the advertisements sealed my disappointment. In one single issue I found no less than six full-page ads for snooty watches. Worse, one of these ads took two and another three full pages! Which only goes to show that the new magazine is meant for slaves, albeit slaves silly enough to have their shackles made of gold and splattered with precious stones.

Addendum I (January 21, 2008)

Ever since I lambasted Intelligent Life for its snooty watch advertisements, I started noticing them in The Economist, too. In most issues there is at least one of these, as is the case in the current issue, but sometimes there are two or even three. The irksome ads have started me thinking about my reading habits. Am I acquiring slave habits little by little by reading the mighty newspaper week after week, year after year?

Addendum II (February 11, 2008)

The second issue of Intelligent Life arrived in this morning’s mail. The first thing that came to my mind was to count the watch advertisements. As it turns out, this time around there are no less than nine of them. True, there are no two- or three-page watch ads in this issue, but it is still clear that the situation is getting worse. Or are they only teasing me? Namely, I sent this piece to the editor of The Economist as soon as I wrote it.

Addendum III (October 24, 2015)

Having come upon this piece in one of my random searches of my writings, I could not but cringe at the memory of Intelligent Life. I immediately checked it on the World Wide Web and learnt that it was still alive. Now a bimonthly, it is considered to be in its own lofty category in terms of culture and lifestyle. Yuck. At any rate, I am glad that I have long abandoned The Economist, too. Yuck, again. But I am still irked by the recollection of those advertisements of snooty watches in the two sister publications. Both of them are meant for slaves, no doubt whatsoever. The only badge of slavery that comes close to the watch in its potency is the mobile phone doubling as a personal computer. Not for nothing are the two merging at this day and age. By now, ads for snooty smart watches must be all over the pages of Intelligent Life and The Economist. Yuck, again and again.