To hold the nuts in poker is to hold the best possible hand at that point in the game.

Probably derived from the term the bee's knees which led eventually to the "dog's bollocks" which became the "mutt's nuts".

A weekly men's lifestyle magazine published in the UK.

Nuts was first introduced in January of 2004 as the first men's weekly magazine in the UK (rival magazine Zoo was launched just days later) at the introductory price of 60p, later going up to £1.20 but going back down to 60p again some weeks. Nuts is published every Wednesday and the TV guide inside starts from the next day and carries on until the following Thursday.

While it might seem when first seen on the shelf as being an abridged version of other men's mags such as FHM or Loaded, Nuts actually concentrates more on how a real bloke might conduct his life over the week with the following sections:

Nuts News

Found at the beginning of the magazine, Nuts News contains a round-up of the interesting and bizarre news for the week. Whilst this can be seen as being similar to such publications as FHM, the weekly basis of Nuts means that this is all pretty relevant to when the magazine hits the shelves, not a month or two past its sell by date.

Boy's Toys

Every issue of Nuts contains reviews on highly priced gadgets such as the latest in MP3 players and remote-controlled cars. For the boy racer there's a nice review of the latest in fast cars too.

Features

Similarly to rival monthly publications there's also other one-off features in Nuts, such as celebrity interviews and real-life stories. Although these are every bit as interesting (or sometimes not in the case of the interviews) as in monthly publications there's only usually one or two each of these in Nuts as opposed to say three of four of each in a monthly magazine. There's always a feature containing scantily-clad model(s) too but refreshingly naked women and sex doesn't form the backbone of this magazine.

The TV guide

This is my favourite part of the magazine. As mentioned above, it runs from Thursday to Thursday. Both terrestrial and satellite/cable channels are covered, and accompanying major programs is a frank and sometimes humourous description of what is going to happen. The beginning of the guide features a double-page spread with a few of the week's best programs on, and each day features "Must-See TV" containing the shows that the writers think blokes are going to be most interested in. (none of that family-oriented pap here) The satellite page for the day contains a pick of the best films on as well.

Reviews

Nuts contains reviews of the latest books, DVDs, computer games, movies in the cinema and music. All styles of these mediums are reviewed, not just the ones that the editors think will be extremely popular. I find this part of the magazine extremely useful and it has led me to purchase quite a few DVDs and films.

Sports

Not being much of a sports fan myself I usually merely skim through the relatively lengthy sports section at the back of the magazine, however for a sports fan there is quite a selection of articles to choose from in here, covering typically laddish sports such as soccer, F1 and other motor sports, as well as more manly sports like boxing.

The main thing for me that sets Nuts apart from the larger monthly mags is that as it is published weekly the information in it is actually relevant to the here and now and does actually cater to men from all kinds of different walks of life. (I'm hardly the sporty type but I do still get a lot out of it. Likewise someone who isn't interested in gadgets is also likely to still find Nuts interesting.) Above all, though, is that there isn't the environmentally-abusive waste of paper taking up dozens of pages that is the fashion section.


Nuts website: http://www.nuts.co.uk

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