While the overall number of magazines starts to decline in an inexorable and obvious trend, Wired magazine has cocked a snook and launched the first issue of Wired UK.

The advertising was a little suspect for sub-editorial pedants, with the tagline “The future edited” which cried out for a comma somewhere, and the tagline for the magazine itself “The future as it happens” will be an impossibility against web features given its monthly print run, but these are just minor gripes.  The magazine itself is a triumph in quality reporting and analysis about our digital lives. 

The paper is high quality eco.  Other magazine publishers should take note of its feel.  Traditional glossy magazines feel like a lipstick-hungry 3am tart compared to the Wired front cover.

The articles have are mandatory smattering of deeply tech themes, but all related back to mainstream life.  Photographs of bespectacled technicians posing in front of server racks are more frequent that your average GQ, but that’s on brand.

The must article for issue one covers a crack squad of salvage divers who make the A-Team look like Top Cat’s gang.  It’s a reprint from the US version, but worth it.  It can be read online here  and it is not surprising that it has been optioned by Dreamworks. 

Most of the issue is published online – as it should be.  The post-apocalyptic flood photos of London are worth a look, and while I am consistently skeptical about features that predict the future, Wired lays itself on the line and, should it survive, will be able to review the success of the predictions in a future edition.