The best part of going to the doctor or dentist is arguably the chance to browse magazines while waiting - provided they aren't too out of date, which is often the case.
Those at Tauranga Hospital's Orthopaedic Outpatients surely takes the prize for the oldest.

From a dingy pile tucked away in a corner, the first one I picked up was dated 2000 - yes, 14 years old.

Others were from 2004 and 2005 among the tatty old pile. Not one was reasonably current.

I'll take a book next time. But perhaps some community-minded folk with a few recent magazines could quietly drop them in and do a good turn to long-suffering patients, who often have very long waiting times for their appointments; and who, I'm pretty sure, don't want to be reading decade-old magazines - let alone turn of the century ones. Not to mention the germs they must harbour, if they've sat there all those years.

Maureen Guy, Otumoetai.