I would say she’s mid-forties – although I’ve never been able to get her to confirm her actual age – and believe me I’ve tried. I sit down in the chair across from her desk. She indicates for me to come in with a huge white toothy smile. Her door is already open when I reach her office and she’s on the phone. I switch on my Mac, take another gulp of coffee, burning my tongue in the process and set off for the short walk through the open plan office, heading towards Vicky’s office. So for now, I’m resigned to writing about easy listening. But still, it’s mainstream, and I want to talk a little off the beaten track. The good thing, recently, is a lot of the major rock bands have mainstreamed a little from their early stuff, to pull them into the Top 40, and now the gals who read Etiquette are listening to them, so it gives me the opportunity to talk about these bands. Bands that deserve a shot at the big time. And all I want to talk about in my articles are rock bands, metal, indie, and brand new bands bands that no one knows about who I’ve come across in clubs. I’m not so much into girlie music, well, except for Adele, I love her, but basically I’m more a rock, indie kind of girl. The only downside of my job is that I have to keep the music mainstream as that’s what the readers of Etiquette are in to. It’s been running for a year now and has been well accepted by the readers. At first, when I started here I was just a column writer, but Vicky wanted me to keep working here and, with that and my constant nagging, she let me take my column and make it a full feature page. It’s not my ideal job, working at a fashion mag, but I like Vicky a lot. I grew up with music as my dad is a musician. I’m a good writer, and even better at music. My job at Etiquette is to write up reviews on new album releases, talk about popular bands and singers, and also do the odd interview, that type of thing. This job was meant to be a filler until I could get a writing job working for somewhere like NME or Rolling Stone, but six years later and I’m still here.

The two loves of my life always were, and still are, music and writing, in that order – so it was a no brainer for me what I wanted to do when looking at university courses after I finished sixth form. It was the first and only writing job I could land after finishing university. So in essence, I’m a music journo that works for a fashion magazine. Etiquette is … well it’s a fashion magazine. Vicky is my boss and owner of the magazine I work for – Etiquette. “Tru, it’s Vicky, get your cute little butt in my office asap, I need a word.

I pick my ringing phone up just as I’m sitting down at my desk, taking a quick sip of my first coffee of the day.

The mighty storm by samantha towle