Russian Roulette Sunday: 10/10/10 10:10
It’s Sunday! But it’s not just any Sunday, it’s 10/10/10. And, because at 7 Reasons we’re really quite cool – despite all the tea-drinking and war-buffery – we’ve posted today’s piece at ten past ten. So, at the very moment that this post goes live it is 10/10/10 10:10. And that causes us a bit of a problem. Because we only know about the number 7: We know lots about the number seven, and we know cock-all about the number ten. But we’ve done some research, and here are five things about the number ten. Because it’s 10/10/10 10:10 (which is five of them). I’m sure you get that.
Look! Some Tens.
1. Binary. 10, as a binary number, means 2. The binary way if displaying 10 is 1010. Therefore…er…we really don’t understand binary. And it doesn’t contain the number seven. You can only understand binary if you wear spectacles.
2. Virgins. Virgins, according to the bible, come in tens (Matthew 25:1-13); half of them foolish, half of them wise. We did not learn this by googling “virgins”, by the way. Mary was also a virgin in the bible, making a total of 11, which is also a binary number. In Procul Harem’s Whiter Shade of Pale, there are sixteen virgins. Though I appear to have become become completely sidetracked from the number ten, which is what we’re supposed to be celebrating.
3. Lobsters. Lobsters have ten legs. As do all crustaceans, apparently. Which makes them two better than spiders, and eight better than Piers Morgan.
4. Italian. The number ten in Italian is dieci. The Italian for leader is duce (a phrase which is usually associated with Mussolini. They sound quite similar to the untrained ear. I once left my wife seated outside a café in Milano to finish her coffee and settle the bill while I bought a newspaper. Several minutes later, I returned to find an agitated-looking wife still seated at the table. “I thought you were going to pay the bill”, I said. “The waitress came out and kept saying, “Duce, Duce” when I asked her how much we owed. I gave her a ten euro note and she hasn’t come back with the change yet”, my shocked-looking wife replied. Fortunately we were able to avoid an international incident.
5. Harry Potter. The tenth highest grossing film of all time is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Which is abjectly depressing. And it’s not even the highest-grossing Harry Potter film. It does, however, go to demonstrate that money isn’t everything. And it goes to show that the number ten just isn’t as good as the number seven, so we were right all along.
Normal service – involving a proper number – will resume tomorrow. But not at seven past seven.
