Schoolgirls at risk of Katie confusion

WHEN I heard that Katie Price had created her own magazine, all about herself and imaginatively titled Katie, I Googled it. It wasn’t because I yearned to know more about the fleshoholic formerly known as Jordan. I simply couldn’t believe that there was a single scrap of information left that she hadn’t previously revealed, published, broadcast and generally waved frantically in our faces. To be honest, I assumed there already was a magazine all about Katie Price; I just thought it was called Heat.

So, imagine my surprise when Katie turned out to be a really charming mag “for cool girls”, with free bracelets and lip gloss, a chocolate pudding recipe and fab info on “all your fave stars!” Yey, I thought, at last some sense from Jordan – but no, I was wrong. The Katie magazine I’d inadvertently Googled was a comic for primary school-age girls. The magazine Ms Price is launching this week is properly called Katie My Magazine and includes nothing so interesting as a chocolate pudding recipe.

However, if you’re hooked on all things Jordan, Katie My Magazine is £3.99 well spent. Features range from “My tattoos and what they mean” to “Blinging your wardrobe Katie-style”. In “Rated or Slated”, Price gives her verdict on other celebrities’ style (Lady Gaga: Rated! Christine Bleakley: Slated), and if you want “More lip-gloss! Bigger eyelashes! Higher hair!” then you’ve come to the right place.

Any fans hoping to find that Katie is also a domestic goddess might be slightly disappointed, but at least it’s easy to emulate her style in the kitchen. Her article on “How to cook my perfect Sunday roast” starts with the instruction to “buy cauliflower cheese ready-made and stick it in a dish”.

Basically, in its pages you can discover what Katie can’t live without (her own range of beauty products: surprise, surprise), what’s “Inside my bathroom cabinet”, how “I can’t just leave one Rice Krispie in the bowl: there has to be two” and her favourite smell (“sweaty horse”).

With the first issue so jam-packed with all this fantastic Katie trivia, I’m slightly worried that she won’t be able to fill 115 pages as regularly as her adoring public may want, but I’d be foolish to underestimate Ms Price’s talent for self-publicity. So I’m looking forward to the next issue and her advice for tip-top personal hygiene: “I always use five pieces of quilted toilet paper for the first wipe, four for the next, and three for the last one. If you need to wipe again, then keep on using three sheets until you get the all clear!” Or perhaps a discursive editorial: “Pull my finger – Funny or just rude?”

By issue ten, I imagine the fiercely private Ms Price may be forced to start venturing into unexpected territory: “Superstring theories – Are they really so super and is the chafing worth it?” Or maybe: “20th-century British prime ministers – Style wars! (Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman: Rated! Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Slated)”. Followed, no doubt, by: “Makeover Special – inside the Cabinet war rooms. Katie blings the Blitz!” and “The Rosetta Stone: What it all means”.

I’m sure I’m not alone in eagerly anticipating Katie’s personal take on issues such as: “The Edinburgh tram project – What went wrong? Five important lessons from recent European urban transport initiatives (includes 3D full-colour pull-out of Katie straddling an open-top Blackpool tram!)”

Once she’s mastered more culinary skills (“My mouthwatering monster baps go down a treat!”), she might even find a way to combine her new-found cooking talents with some serious psychotherapy: “The last Rice Krispie: How I overcame my obsessive cereal disorder and learned that Snap and Crackle don’t necessarily need Pop.”

Given that most people are simply calling Price’s comic – sorry, magazine – Katie, I’m concerned that many parents of small girls could get very upset indeed should Katie My Magazine accidentally get delivered.

However, if fans of Jordan find they’ve inadvertently subscribed to the wrong Katie, I reckon they’ll be perfectly happy. It’s aimed at people with a primary-school reading age, it offers lots of cool info on lip-gloss and, best of all, the price of this Katie is only £2.40.