It’s Sunday today, so we’ve taken our traditional day away from the reasoning-mine and, as they are often wont to do, our thoughts have turned to food. Now, some time back we brought you what we considered to be the ultimate SPAM recipe – Planked SPAM – but now we’ve unearthed something that has easily trumped Planked SPAM and knocked it into a cocked hat. Whatever that means. Brace yourself! It’s…
Yes, it’s SPAM ‘n’ Beans which is, apparently, exactly right for Saturday night (which is rather a shame as I took my wife for cocktails and to a really good concert in Northern Europe’s largest Gothic Cathedral last night (if only I’d seen this first)). It seems delightfully simple to cook, consisting as it does of two ingredients; SPAM and baked beans. Simply place slices of SPAM in baked beans and cook them on the hob, then serve in some sort of dirty brown pot with congealed sauce oozing over the side. Who wouldn’t be overjoyed to be served this? It seems that the simplest recipes are often the most delicious.*
*Sadly I’m the member of the 7 Reasons team that doesn’t eat meat and – as SPAM is a distant relative of meat – I can’t try it myself. Any readers care to give it a go?**
**7 Reasons will be back tomorrow, without any tummy trouble whatsoever.
It’s Saturday. Or, as we call it around these parts, Richard O’Hagan Day. You see Richard, apart from being a fine writer, is on a mission. A mission to become the third permanent member of the 7 Reasons team. He may not have mentioned it out loud, he may not even realise it himself, but given the sheer number of O’Hagan works we have in the 7 Reasons ‘to be published’ vault, his sub-conscious wants it. Badly. Just take a look at these figures that show the origins of submissions and their associated percentages.
USA – 28%
UK – 23%
Australia – 5%
France – 3%
Canada – 2%
Pakistan – 2%
India – 2%
South Africa – 1%
Muppetville – 1%
Richard O’Hagan – 33%
Exactly. Incredible. And rather disturbing. Which is a shame really because the writer of The Memory Blog isn’t disturbing at all. He’s a great writer with lots of useful advice. Which he will now aptly demonstrate.
Three Men And A Byron
Oh, I know what you’re thinking. It is something along the lines of “He’s a man (allegedly). He knows nothing about how hard it is to have a baby. How DARE he try and offer an opinion on this.”
To which all I can say is, bear with me*, ladies. There’s a point to all of this. I am a father. Marc of this parish has just become father to The Legendary Byron Sebastian Fearns. And Jon has just got engaged, which means that fatherhood is marching towards him with the grim inevitability of a giant spider with a particularly juicy fly snared in its web. There are some serious points which he needs to be aware of, as do any men out there without issue. There’s a big temptation to think that the difficult bit comes around nine months before the birth, but that’s not the case. Once the baby arrives, life is hard for a man.
1. Being a Role Model. You’ve spend the last few decades of your life belching, breaking wind and yelling when you want to. Sorry, but there’s someone else in the house to do that now. Your role is now to be a positive role model for the child, which means an end to coming home bladdered at 3am and trying to make toast using the DVD player, no popping out to the shops and vanishing for three days, and absolutely no supporting Manchester United. (Unless your offspring will be Charlie Sheen’s grandson, in which case you’ve a family tradition to maintain. And even Charlie draws the line at the last thing).
2. Expense. Everyone says that babies are expensive. They’re not. It will be years before they crash your car, or you need to bail them out. People who look after babies, on the other hand, really are expensive. You will find yourself forking out hundreds of pounds a month just so that you can go to work to earn the money to pay the people who look after your child whilst you go to work. It is a cycle more vicious than the one that resulted in a baby in the first place.
3. Pain. Once your female partner has given birth, nothing on this earth is going to convince them that you are enduring any kind of pain whatsoever. The Black Knight in ‘Monty Python & The Holy Grail’ wasn’t brave, he just knew that he was never going to convince his Lady that having all of your limbs lopped off justified reaching for the Aspirin. Being a father means never being able to complain of a hangover again.
4. Language. Whilst we are at it, you might as well brace yourself for the fact that ladies in labour are not always the politest, and that you may be about to learn a few new words. All of them directed at you and several of them anatomically improbable.
5. Empathy. For many years, you and the prospective mother of your prospective child have lived in harmony, anticipating each other’s needs and desires. Having a baby will put an end to all of that. There are two questions that you should never ask a woman in labour, and one of them is “How does it feel?”** You should never ask this question, because you will receive an answer which puts you in the one situation in which you are unequipped to empathise. The answer is “Like the worst period pain ever”***
6. In-Laws. If you produce a baby, your in-laws will visit. Need I say more?
7. Space (Lack Thereof). You might be thinking that the saying that babies might be small but they need a lot of stuff is some sort of urban myth. There are certainly many urban myths about having a baby and you’d be right to disregard them**** but not this one. Work might expand to fill the time available, but nothing beats the rule which says that baby stuff expands to fill the space available. There’s a great temptation to think that you can get around this by moving to a bigger house, but it won’t work. There will still be stuff everywhere. And what is more, you’ll have to work more hours to pay the bigger mortgage, meaning you need more childcare, meaning that you need to work harder to pay for the childcare, and so on until death, really.
On the other hand, children are great fun and the hardship is well worth it. Yes, even the bits where she swears at you.
*I said bear WITH ME, not ‘bear down’. Stop it! Now! Think of the carpets!
**You’re not old enough to know the other one
***There’s actually a question on Facebook which says ‘Which hurts more, having a baby or a kick in the testicles’, which has only been answered by bigots and idiots. And the teenage daughter of a friend of mine, who has experience of neither.
****Disregard any books you might be given, too. The babies can’t read them and so have no idea what to do
The other week this video was uploaded to YouTube. It is a hand tickling a penguin. We wish to advise viewers of a nervous disposition that the film contains disturbing sights and sounds.*
I know what you are thinking. Absolutely shocking! This is an outrage! A penguin should never be tickled! We quite agree. There are a whole host of reasons why. But this is a look at the first seven:
1. Pain. You may think that is the sound of a penguin laughing. If you do, you’d be wrong. That is the sound of a penguin screaming. How cruel. I expect penguin ticklers such as the owner of the arm in this video also put live crabs and in boiling water and laugh when the crab starts whistling. It’s not whistling! It’s screaming. That’s why you should always bash its skull in before dropping it in the water. Much more humane. I would never advocate smashing a penguin’s skull in, but at least it’s quicker than tickling it to death.
2. Urine. Usually, when someone starts tickling me, I feel the need to visit the bathroom and relieve my bladder. This is most inconvenient, especially when I am on the bus. I know I’m not the only one. When that fruitcake went around tickling everyone on the number 14 there was a mad dash to get off at the next stop. If a penguin had been on the bus I dare say he too would have needed to hop off. So, if you don’t want a penguin to wee on your hand, don’t tickle him. Or her.
3. Fight. A penguin could slap you to eternity. And when you get to eternity it’ll keep slapping you. Those flippers aren’t just for swimming you know. Well, no, you probably don’t know. Unless you’ve tickled a penguin.
4. Sex. Apparently, tickling can be used as a foreplay technique. To be honest tickling myself has never done anything for me so I have never bothered. But for those of you who do find a good tickle pleasurable before practicing the art of baby making, what are you going to do if the penguin tickling gets you a bit horny? Are you going to be able to stop yourself? Having sex with penguin – with or without consent – is not just wrong in the eyes of 7 Reasons you know. It’s wrong in the eyes of the NSPCA too. And quite frankly, even if it was legal, having sex with a penguin in someone’s eyes is just a tad inconsiderate.
5. Emperors. Once you’ve tickled a penguin it’s very had to justify stopping. Are you just going to tickle baby penguins? Or female penguins? Or penguins in a zoo that you can tickle with Ken Dodd’s tickling stick? Where do you draw the line? Personally I would have drawn it at least thirty miles before Ken Dodd’s tickling stick came into view, but I’m not a penguin tickler. What would you do, for instance, if you were faced with an emperor penguin? Would you tickle it? An emperor? An emperor, let me remind you, is a monarch. A sovereign ruler. If I was to tickle the Queen I wouldn’t get away with it. If you tickle an emperor penguin, neither will you.
6. Role Reversal. Anyone who seems to think that tickling a penguin will entertain it seems to be forgetting something. A penguin is supposed to entertain you. By telling you a rubbish joke. Something along the lines of, ‘Why don’t you see penguins in Britain? Because they are afraid of Wales!’ That sort of thing. You then get to eat it. Tickling a penguin would make you look weird. And you might scratch all the chocolate off.
7. Psychedelia. That’s right. What happens if you end up trying to tickle the 7 Reasons psychedelic penguin? Or indeed a psychedelic penguin not related to 7 Reasons at all. I don’t know. I’ve read the first six reasons and so I know not to tickle a penguin. As a result I can only guess. I think it probably includes hallucinations though. Hallucinations that feature giant penguins trying to tickle you. That doesn’t sound good to me. So my advice is don’t go there. Keep sane and leave the psychedelic penguins alone.
Right, I think that’s everything. As you were. Without the penguin.
*Not really. It’s actually quite cute.**
**Don’t read this until you have read the whole post. It sort of undermines our reasoning.
Breaking news: The world is debating whether or not to look at a photograph, and here at 7 Reasons we have an exclusive. We have got hold of the picture that you should never, ever see, and we’re going to let you, our thoroughly grown-up readers, decide whether you want to look at it. The 7 Reasons team have viewed this graphic image and it’s fair to say that we were somewhat taken aback. In fact there was gasping and a bit of vomiting. We’re going to post a link to the picture at the bottom of this post but before you go there, let us explain why you shouldn’t look at it.
1. You Don’t Need To See It. Would your life be improved immeasurably by viewing it? No. Quite the opposite, in fact. If you want to look at it, it’s only because of morbid curiosity. You don’t need to see it, and your life will not be enriched by viewing it. Trust us on this, we’ve seen it, and once you see the picture, you cannot un-see the picture. It’s like Pandora’s box except it’s not Pandora’s box, it’s a box belonging to someone else. Don’t look into the box and certainly don’t zoom in on it with your mouse. The RSPCA don’t take that sort of thing lightly. Don’t look into the box!
2. It’s Gruesome. The image is bloody horrible. It’s truly sickening to behold and it will haunt you until your dying day. If you don’t want to see something so abhorrent that you might try to poke your own eyes out with a spoon* don’t look at it.
3. There’s A ‘Hole. A big ‘hole. Where once there was life, now there’s a big gaping ‘hole in the foreground; something vacant. You really don’t need to see the ‘hole. Viewing the ‘hole is a truly hideous and traumatic experience that you can well do without. I would have been better off without ever having seen the ‘hole. You will be too. Don’t look at the ‘hole.
4. It’s Puzzling. It really is. Imagine you’re a Viking and a blue cat wearing jeggings is explaining string theory to you. It’s more confusing than that. And you don’t get to wear a beard or one of those horny hats either.** There is nothing in the world that makes less sense than this image***
5. It’s Graphic. We don’t really know the circumstances under which the photograph was taken; perhaps it was hurried, we don’t know, and frankly we don’t want to think about it any further. But there’s still a fire visible in the background and there’s flesh. Much flesh. It’s apparent that the scent of burning flesh would have been strong when this picture was taken. You don’t need to see that or even think about it. In fact, stop thinking altogether. It only leads to trouble. Don’t think and don’t look at the picture.
6. Side-Effects. We’re reasonably young and healthy here at 7 Reasons**** and we felt unwell when we saw it. So we wondered what this image could do to readers with any underlying health problems and, even though we’re not real doctors, we’ve come to a conclusion via a process of wild speculation and abject conjecture: This image could kill. And dying would be inconvenient as you’ve probably got things to do this afternoon or dinner plans. Don’t look at the picture. And don’t die.
7. Trust. Now we’ve put the link to the picture just below this paragraph and we’re going to let you decide whether to look at it or not. But, before you make that important decision, consider this. If you look at the image, you’ll be doing it for the wrong reasons as – and we’ve made this quite clear – it’s bloody horrible and you don’t need to see it. We hope you’ll trust that the judgement of the 7 Reasons team in this matter is sound and that we have your best interests at heart. So when deciding whether to view it, remember that if you choose to look, you’ll be letting us down and you’ll be letting yourselves down too. Oh, and you should probably lock away your spoons.
Jon had to get this close to see what he was doing
1. Replacement. I wear monthly disposable contact lenses. For those not in the know it means I can wear a pair for 28, 30 or 31 days before they automatically dissolve into my iris. Occasionally though, the lenses become irritating or torn before the 28, 30 or 31 day limit arrives. When this happens I get rid of them and put in a new lens. It makes sense. So yesterday when my left lens started irritating me, I threw it in the bin. I then went to bed. And I slept. Soundly. This morning I rose, showered and went to put a new lens in. And this is when I realised I really should have checked I had a spare left lens before I got rid of the irritable one. Because I didn’t. There was no lens. Not one. Zilch. Oh dear.
2. 2006. England lost to Portugal on penalties and I broke my leg playing cricket. As far as I can remember those are main the highlights from that year. You probably still have visions of at least one of these. Something else happened in 2006 though. I bought a pair of glasses. You’d probably only remember this if you were my joint optometrist/stalker. The glasses in question can be seen above. Now, five years is a long time in eye years. Mine have deteriorated quite a lot and as such so have the minus numbers on my prescription. As a result, unless I am up very close and personal, I can’t see a bloody thing through them. The wise among you may question why I haven’t purchased glasses since 2006. Well, I have. It’s just that I sort of lost them. Twice. And losing stuff is an expensive hobby. Which is why I haven’t bought anymore since. So basically, I’m blind. I’m wearing these glasses but I’m blind.
3. And Scary. I don’t like me in glasses. Especially these glasses. I think I look like I am trying to look inside your brain. And I’m not. I’m really not. To be honest with you I’d probably struggle to find your head with these on. But I can’t tell everyone who sees me that I am not as scary as I look. If someone came up to me and told me they were not as scary as they looked I wouldn’t believe them. So how can I expect other people to believe me? Until I can get my eyes on a new lens I am going to have to look directly at the floor. At all times. If I can see where it is.
4. Vision Express. I don’t know much about other opticians as I’ve always been with Vision Express. For contact lenses at least. They’re a touch on the expensive side but they do offer added benefits. Apparently. And a free quarterly magazine which I last received in 2009. So I guess they could improve their service a bit. One thing they do offer is free replacement lenses if you accidentally tear one (or throw it in the bin). The two mile blind walk to the branch is somewhat frustrating, but at least you know you’ll be able to see on the return journey. Or at least you would be able to if Vision Express had the lenses you require in stock. If they don’t you have little option but to make the blind walk home. And no, you can’t get a bus. You’ll probably get on the wrong one. Or get in the cab of a fire engine. You might get lucky though, it might not be moving like the one I tried to get into was.
5. Irrational Behaviour. Now, I have never felt the inclination to rummage around in bins before, but that could well have been because I have never lost my sight before. That’s why you’d have found me in a bin at about 11am today. Or my hands at least. Don’t worry, there was nothing else in the bin apart from a tissue. And the packaging from a new pen. Hopefully you will have worked out by now that I was looking for my left contact lens. I found it. All crisp and brittle. In a move that would startle eye health experts the world over the lens is now sitting in cleaning solution in my desperate attempt to bring it back to life. And you know what, yes, I am going to try and wear it again. Because I’m a rebel. An irrational rebel.
6. Dishonesty. I wear my contacts every day. Except Sundays. That at least is what I tell my optometrist. Obviously, being a normal person, I wear my contact lenses every single day including Sunday and lie to my optometrist. Oh, don’t pretend you’re not the same. But now I’m not wearing contact lenses at all. Which means when I tell my optometrist that I wear my contact lenses every day except Sunday I’ll be lying about six days of the week. At least when I wore my lenses I was only lying about one day of the week. Throwing away my contact lens has made me dirty,
7. Time. Throwing away a contact lens destroys your day. Or, in this case, the next day. It’s now 2pm. Today’s 7 Reasons post should have been uploaded at 9am. That’s five hours ago. Trying to restore my sight – and so far failing – has taken five hours! That means I am five hours behind schedule. This means I will have to have my lunch at 6pm. And my dinner at midnight. I’ll go to bed at about 3.30am. And get up at about 11am. And the process will continue. Always. I’ll never post a 7 Reasons piece on time ever again. I’ll be late for my wedding. I’ll try and make a baby in the middle of the biscuit aisle in Tesco. I’ll end up in the wrong coffin. This is a disaster. Because I can’t see I am always going to be five hours behind the world.* And not just in the brain department. What a nightmare. What an absolutely hidoeus nightmare my life has become.
We’re back! We’ve been away and while we’ve been away things have happened and that was lovely. But now we’re back, and it’s great to be back. Here are seven reasons why.
1. We’re Bigger And Better. Since we’ve been away, we’ve grown. Now we’ve come back bigger and better than ever. Bigger because Marc has used the holiday to practice his eating, and better because…well, we’re bigger than ever. More is more.
2. We’re A Force For Good. Last week we did the Osama Bin Laden gag to end all Osama Bin Laden gags and now he’s dead. Coincidence? We think not. There’s no telling what we’ll be able to bring about next just by poking fun at it. We’re hoping it’ll be untold riches or a book deal or something, but if we inadvertently end global poverty, homophobia or Masterchef then so-be-it. We make things happen.
3. We Keep France Honest. Ever alert, ever vigilant, the 7 Reasons team (well, Jon, he’s nearest) is keeping an eye on France. Now that 7 Reasons is back, there’s almost no Frenchist act of treachery or stupidity that you won’t get to know about. You’ll hear it right here first. It’ll be like being in Paris but with tea and no glass pyramid. Unless you have a glass pyramid in your house which, on balance, would be very weird. Why would you have one of those? Why?
4. We Give You A Sense Of Purpose. We post every day. Without fail*. So when 7 Reasons appears in the morning/afternoon/evening/at bedtime (delete as appropriate based on location/how slowly the team are writing that day) you know it’s a day. And that it’s a different day to yesterday. And to tomorrow, though you won’t know that until tomorrow is today, which is when a new 7 Reasons post appears. Yay!
5. We Are Refreshed, Rejuvenated, Reinvigorated And Many Other Words That Begin With Re. Before we took a break we said that we would come back more creative and so far today we’ve looked at the ceiling for a bit. We’ve also come up with a new blog idea called Lunch Wars in which we post pictures of our lunches and Lunch Wars readers get to vote for their favourite. It’s the ultimate lunch-versus-lunch death-match to the death; the most awesome epic sandwichy battle you’re ever likely to see; a titanic struggle of biblical proportions in which two sandwiches – two trained, honed butties at their physical peak – go head to head in colossal combat…
6. We Need To Do This. Because the 7 Reasons team have wives and children and fiancés and parents and siblings and nephews and nieces and cousins. And a friend. And when we’re not busy reasoning here, we’re busy hanging out with them and talking about sandwiches. And they need a break from us. They’ve grown haggard over the last fortnight. Haggard. And they get very upset when their sandwiches lose.
7. We’re Shiny And New. Look! Look around**, we’ve revamped almost everything. There’s stuff that lights up and stuff that moves and stuff that changes colour and probably stuff that stays still too. And there’s some stuff over there. Just look around and click on things. You can’t wear them out (hopefully). Go forth and look at the shiny-shiny. We’ll be back tomorrow***.
*With some fail.
**If you’re reading this on your Kindle stop looking around.
Tomorrow, people up and down the land will be watching and ignoring the Royal Wedding in equal measure. I’ll probably be in the former category as I’ve been invited. Not officially you understand, but I’m assisting the photographer, Clayton Bennett. I’m holding his tripod or something. Clayton and I aren’t invited to the Wedding Breakfast but we will be hiding behind a curtain with this beauty.
Here are seven reasons you should join us and celebrate with a commemorative pizza from Pappa Johns:
1. God Save The Queen. If, like me, you are a royalist but not monarchist then you’ll probably have an interest in the wedding even if you are not caught up in all the hyperbole. Eating a commemorative pizza says, ‘Congratulations Will and Kate, I wish you the best of luck for the future,’ without going over the top. If you are a monarchist you’re probably from a generation that doesn’t eat pizza.
2. Elizabeth Who? If, on the other hand, you are an anti-royalist and/or a republican – like that Welsh girl who is now Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard – you can rid some of that anger by biting the King presumptive on the neck. Given that you’ll probably also be giving the world snide commentary on twitter, a pizza is the perfect accompaniment to keep you fuelled.
3. It’s Loaded. Some people will be having street parties tomorrow. It’s not really my type of thing, but food certainly is. And, if I were going or heaven-forbid put in charge of organising such an event, I would certainly turn to the commemorative pizza. Why provide various plates of salami, pepperoni, cheese, pepper, ham, sweetcorn, onion, olive, mushroom and jalapeno when I can have it all on the same one? Mixed in. On a doughy base. I would save a lot of time, a trip to Tesco and hours of washing up.
4. Sharing. A pizza, unlike a sausage for instance, is ideal for sharing. I hope we all agree that we could never share a sausage. Especially a cocktail sausage. A pizza though, loathed as I would be to do it, can be shared. And that’s what the Royal Wedding is all about. At least according to Big Dave. We’re all supposed to share in this happy day according to him. And if Dav’s sharing his pizza then I think we should all follow in his example. No double dip for us.*
5. USA! USA! I like Americans. I like Americans because they like our Queen. And Princes. And assorted others. And they like them more than we do. I also like them because they adhere to the maxim that when it comes to food ‘quantity beats quality’. While paying £10 for a mushroom on a stick of celery is okay once in a decade, I would much rather a stack of nachos for $5. Anyway, the point is that the company selling the commemorative pizza is Pappa John’s. An American company. So there you go. You know your royal wedding pizza is coming from a team who love royal weddings and you know it’s going to be huge.
6. It’s Free! Assuming enough of us buy it that is. Imagine if we all ordered a commemorative pizza. Pappa John’s would be inundated and unable to cope. They would never deliver it within forty minutes which means we get it free. All we have to do is whack it in the oven for ten minutes and it’ll be as good as new. Obviously we don’t want too many people ordering because if they do we probably won’t get the pizza until June. And it’s too hot to eat pizza in June.
7. Mystery. That’s right, you don’t have to eat the pizza. You can keep it. In the loft. Then, in many years time, when you have grandchildren and you are searching for an old train set, you’ll find it. Once the mould is scraped off you can put it on the kitchen table and stare at it. And then you’ll wonder who the hell these two people are. That Kate girl looks a bit like Queen Catherine, but who’s the bloke? He looks like Walter from the Beano.
*A recession double dip I mean. Obviously we’d get the garlic dip.
Terrible news, 7 Reasons readers. According to the UK’s Identity and Passport Service, 10,000 passports per year are thrown in bins. Probably. This – if their apparently baseless supposition – is to be believed, is an awful development. At 7 Reasons we are firmly object to bins with passports and are wholly opposed to the internationally travelling bin. Here are eight reasons why.*
1. Relationships. We don’t have wholly idyllic relationships with our bins, it has to be said. They’re generally old, ugly and a bit smelly. That aside, they don’t seem to have any great expectations of us and are generally quite happy to take any old rubbish from us (except glass, paper, cardboard, plastics, aluminium, more glass and compostables). If our bins had passports and were suddenly free to leave, we would miss them, and our gardens would probably look like this, assuming that they don’t already. In fact, hoping to god that they don’t already.
2. The Bins Might Go Somewhere Nice. Possibly Nice. Or Marseilles. And why wouldn’t bins want to go to somewhere exotic? This could lead to the world’s most popular beauty spots looking something like this.**
3. Postcards. People are rubbish at writing postcards. They’re usually bland, dull, slapdash affairs that convey little. Who’s to believe that bins would make a better job of it?
4. Bin-men. And what about bin-men? They become apoplectic with rage and petulantly start hurling rubbish and bin lids about if our bins are three feet away from where they expect to find them, let alone if they’re nine thousand miles to the left of the back gate gambling in Las Vegas or hiking in Peru. They’d be livid if they had to cross an ocean to fetch them.
I started searching Google Images for pictures of angry bin-men, then a bout of existential despair overtook me and I started looking for other, happier images. Please imagine an angry bin-man. I’m sure it won’t be too difficult.
5. Air travel. Airports will be even more hellish – if this is at all possible – if bins travel internationally. The queues at check-in and at Wetherspoon’s will be swelled by their ranks, and as for security…
Just a couple of bins at the metal detectors could cause this.
6. Mystery. And what if all the bins left Blackpool? How long would it be before anyone noticed? Years, probably.
7. Terrorism. If bins had their own passports, it could be possible for fugitives to secrete themselves within them and use them as international transportation. That could have all sorts of consequences. Could we see sights like this?
Osama Laden Bin!
7 Reasons will return tomorrow before going on holiday again for a few days. We will not be taking our bins.
*No, of course not. Only a fool would expect anything other than seven.
**Half of the 7 Reasons team thinks that Paris already looks like this.
Today it is my lady’s birthday. ‘My’ being me, Jon, and ‘lady’ being Claire. In the midst of discussing what she would like to do for her big day, I discovered that she’d really like to go to Bath Spar. My initial reaction was one of questioning. ‘Really?’ I thought, ‘You want to go to a Spar for your birthday?’ And then it dawned on me. She didn’t mean a Spar, she meant a spa. I thought about it. I did some research. I tried my swimming trunks on. And in the end I came to the conclusion that taking your lady to a Spar is so much better than taking her to a spa. Here’s why.
1. Types Of Water. Bath Spa offers warm water. Spar offers natural still water, spring water, purified water, mineral water, sparkling water, elderflower water, tonic water, isotonic water and loads of other waters that I really can’t be bothered to look up. That doesn’t matter though, I have offered enough. For variety take your lady to Spar. For tepid results take her to a spa.
2. Products. In a Spar you can purchase a vast range of suncreams, fake tans, cosmetics and plasters. All are new and nicely packaged. In a spa, while they may be free, these products are certainly not new. They are all mixed together along with hairs and dead skin cells and happily float about on top of the water. Who in their right mind would wish to expose their loved one to such an environment on their birthday?
3. Dressing Gowns. A spa is a fantastic place hiding place for people who have escaped from hospital. They’ll blend in seamlessly. You’ll have absolutely no idea which dressing gown adorned visitor is healthy, ill or dangerous. At least if you see someone in a Spar attired in just their dressing gown you know they’ll be recaptured very soon. Or they’ll head back to their halls of residence.
4. Sights. Let’s be honest, there are some people who perhaps don’t look after themselves as well as they should. As a result they are fatties. Fatties with clothes on the majority of us can just about bear, but fatties with no clothes on are a sight we wish we never have to witness. Spar, being a decent public service provider, have a rule. ‘Shoppers must wear clothes’. A spa of course just lets anyone and anything in.
5. Boredom. I have never been to a spa before but from what I hear there is a lot of sitting around in water doing not very much. A bit like when you fall asleep after Sunday lunch. I have, however, been to many a Spar. And many a Spar sells magazines and newspapers and even the occasional DVD. So the choice is simple. Take my lady to a spa so she’ll be bored for two hours or take her to a Spar where she can relax with a film, magazine and six hundred bottles of wine? I’m not an idiot.
6. Entry Fee. For a two-hour session at the Bath Spa it costs £25 per person. For a two-hour session at a Spar (not necessarily in Bath) it is free. This should be enough to persuade you, but should you need further evidence keep reading. If you don’t like the Spar, you can leave. You need not feel guilty about doing so and no one will ask you why. If you don’t like the spa however, what do you do? Well you’ll probably pretend that you do like it for a start. And then you’ll stay for the whole two hours so you get your money’s worth. There’s a complete logic fail in there somewhere. A massive one.
7. Associated Costs. So you’ve been in the spa. Now you’ve got to dry yourself and re-apply any make-up, hair wax or fake nails you may have lost. Then, when you get home, you have to use electricity to wash and dry your swimsuit and towel. This is all costing you money. When was the last time you went to a Spar and had to wash your towel because of it? Exactly, never. I’m not making my lady do unnecessary washing on her birthday. And neither should you.
The 7 Reasons team are going on holiday for a few days! Here are seven reasons why.
1. Jon. Jonathan Lee is often thought to be self-obsessed. In no way do we want to add to the Jonathan Lee narcissism rumours here, but he does need some repairs doing to his computer keyboard and the keys affected are – in no particular order – J,O,N,A,T,H,L,E and the space bar. The time off will enable him to get it fixed (the computer, not the self-love) and to spend some time with his fiancé. They have a wedding to plan.*
They're getting married!
2. Marc. Marc Fearns has just had a child. He seems to have forgotten to take any time off though; he just learned to type with one hand. He’s had a really sick cat too. He has had a good night’s sleep recently (sadly, spread over the course of a fortnight) and is now so confused that he gave the vet his son’s name on arrival at the surgery the other day. If he doesn’t take some time off soon, he may end up enrolling his cat in the local baby group and training his child to chase ping pong balls. That would be considered bad parenting. He wants to spend more time with his child. And his cat.
I want to spend time with my daddy. No, with the owl. I prefer the owl.
3. Other People. Other people take time off, and we want to too. We love what we do here – that’s why we do it – but we looked at other people taking holidays and paternity leave and sick days and whatnot and thought, we’d quite like to try that. That looks like fun. Look at those relaxed, happy people that have seen the sun in the past year and didn’t get their tans from a computer screen. Wouldn’t it be nice to be them? So for the next few days, we will be. We might even become nudists. It’s going to be great.
4. Creativity. Because we’re creative people. And time off means that we have more time in which to have ideas. And then when we come back, we’ll act on those ideas. It will keep things fresh and interesting for us, and for you. Who knows what we’ll think of?**
5. Tinkering. The absolute best thing about taking time away from writing and making things is that Marc gets to tinker with the website. And that’s what traditionally happens when 7 Reasons takes a holiday. Marc breaks the website and has to spend days trying to repair it while Jon swears at him from Kent, or sometimes from Sussex. If you visit it while we’re away, who knows what you may witness? It could be the regular 7 Reasons website, you could end up witnessing one man’s epic struggle against the combined evils of CSS, HTML and the bloody jQuery Colourbox plugin, or there may be a repeat of the most memorable incident and you might see a horse again. Anything could happen.
6. Scheduling. Because we’ve scheduled it really well. We’re only going to take the two bank holiday weekends off and will be back on May 3rd. So we will be posting next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It’ll be like we haven’t been away at all, except that we will have. So the disruption will be minimal, which is the absolute best form of disruption. Which means that we’re really spoiling you with this disruption. You’re welcome.
7. We’ll Still be Here. Other than there’ll be fewer new posts over the next fortnight, 7 Reasons will remain (except for any calamity resulting from Marc’s tinkering) unaffected. The 7 Reasons Emporium will remain open, selling yellow t-shirts in many new and surprising shades of yellow, and all of your favourite posts will still be here. We’ll also be tweeting from our archive while we’re away. Feel free to come and visit.
We hope you have a lovely bank holiday weekend, whatever you’re doing, and we look forward to seeing you again soon,
Marc and Jon.
*Claire has a wedding to plan.
**If you do know please get in touch, it will save us a lot of time and effort.
