Animal House

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Loaded's unexpected success legitimised (and paid for) James's lifestyle, and it wasn't until he crashed and burned at GQ, and went through rehab, that any sense of perspective kicked in. By 2007, the magazine was taking its staff on a straight pride march around London under the editorship of Martin Daubney, now deputy leader of Laurence Fox’s Reclaim party.

The magazine itself was packed full of the irreverent, half-drunk nonsense that provided many a lunchtime session down the pub, along with some genuinely funny insights. Brown’s claims that he was “trying to create a magazine that competed with Rolling Stone” are a contrast to the way Loaded was often portrayed at the time: as sexist and moronic.But this attitude appears to be a self-defense mechanism that triggered inside Brown to help disguise the pain he was secretly holding back. Bright, loud, funny, provocative, ambitious and careless, loaded was read from the barracks of Afghanistan to the England dressing room at Euro '96. But eventually, to cut a long story short (and to not give away the whole plot), James was made an offer he couldn’t refuse and found himself darkening the door of GQ, which was in need of a good shake up.

Name dropping and bar-propping, the loaded founder’s memoir is a sometimes enjoyable, but more often obnoxious tribute to excess. By the age of twenty two he was features editor of the New Musical Express and at the ripe old age of twenty seven he launched Loaded, a magazine that gave the publishing world such a kick up the arse it hasn’t been able to sit down properly since. But in this instance, there seems to be zero humility from the author, or any sort of inward looking acknowledgement of his behaviour. It’s the first one I’ve listened to where the author bursts out laughing, remembering the times he’s writing about.Cockiness was one of his self-defence mechanisms (“ Don Revie once said attack is the best form of defence, and a lot of his Leeds team is reflected in my personality”); controlling his food intake was another. But more concerning for Brown was the sense that living the Loaded lifestyle 24/7 was putting his life in danger.