Category: Posts

7 Reasons To Become A Superhero

1. With Great Power Comes Great… I know it’s supposed to be, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’, but quite frankly they are missing the bloody obvious. With great power comes great power. Sometimes you get lucky and get even more than one. I.E.: Two. Anyway, the point is that I can have great responsibility by becoming a milkman. What becoming a milkman won’t give me is power. Especially in a milk float. So given the choice between becoming a milkman and becoming a superhero, I recommend the latter. Although if we all became superheroes, then we wouldn’t have any milkmen. I might have to come back to this later.

2. The Film. Providing you are a half-decent superhero – and this means you don’t die before you’ve named yourself – you’ll have a film made about you. It’ll also be named after you. Oh, and it will star you. And that’s only the beginning of it. Superhero films usually do very well at the box office. Think of all those royalties. And the costume styled pyjamas. And the action dolls. You’ll be a multi-millionaire before you know it.

3. The Cape. Capes look daft. I know they are supposedly the fashion these days, but the French wear them. That means they must be daft. Unless, that is, you are a superhero. I know what you are thinking, ‘What happens if you are a French superhero?’. Well that’s a bit like saying, ‘What happens if you cross an OXO cube with an idiot?’ The answer is the same. It’s an Oxymoron.

4. The Soundtrack. You would have your own personal one. A soundtrack that would accompany you on all missions. You wouldn’t even need a sound system. The soundtrack is just there. Floating about. Ready to be turned up to loud as soon as you do something good.

5. The Girl. She’s generally the one next door. You’ve probably seen her. No, not her. She lives on the left. It’s the house on the right you want. Yes. Her. As a superhero you will always win her. She’ll probably think you’re a bit weird to begin with – probably something to do with you climbing up the drainpipe to her bedroom window – but you’ll get her in the end. Always. (Unless you are Batman. In which case you get Robin. Which is nice. I suppose).

6. Never ending wardrobe. All superheroes run down the road pulling their shirt apart to reveal their lycra superhero costume. They then go about their superhero business before returning home for the evening. At no point do you see them return to the original road to reclaim their shirt. Nor do you see them nipping down to Marks and Spencer. The only explanation is that they own a never ending wardrobe. Or their Mum lives with them. If your Mum doesn’t live with you, you are halfway there. Nice one.

7. The Fight. Superheroes never lose. Even if they have been strapped to the seabed. In a large microwave. With Jo Brand. It must be amazing to know you can get out of that mess unscathed. So amazing in fact that I am now calling myself Lee-man. He’s a bit like He-man, just with an L and an extra E instead of the H. Seems worth it to get away from Jo Brand.

April 9, 2010
7 Reasons That Match of the Day 2 is Better Than Match of the Day

1. Gary Lineker. Unlike many people, I don’t mind Gary Lineker; he’s knowledgable, charming and his ad-libs are great. In an incident during a live match, when someone in the crowd hurled a coin at Jamie Carragher, the cameras showed Carragher picking the coin up and forcefully throwing it back. “It’s probably his change,” Lineker drolly observed. The problem I have with watching Gary Lineker for more than ten minutes is that I start to crave crisps. Speaking of which:

2. Adrian Chiles. Part-man, part-potato, Adrian Chiles is the television presenter equivalent of Marmite. I like him. I love the seemingly limitless supply of daft questions that he uses to torment Lee Dixon:

“Did Ian Wright ever borrow your shorts, Lee?”

“Did Tony Adams kiss you like that when you scored a goal, Lee?”

“Did you ever get the ball mixed up with a balloon, Lee?”

“Did they celebrate like that in your day, Lee?”

Some people can’t stand him though. Stewart Lee likened watching him to “… being stuck in the buffet car of a slow-moving train with a Toby jug that has miraculously discovered the power of speech…A Toby jug filled to the brim with hot piss.”

I’m firmly in the I-like-Adrian-Chiles-camp and I even miss his much-criticised beard. Anyone interested in starting a campaign to bring it back?

3. Alan Shearer. Alan Shearer is the dullest man in the world. He’s always on Match of the Day where he provides no tactical insight and no wit. Essentially, he just states the bleeding-obvious in a really dull way. Here’s a Shoot magazine interview with him from 1991 (click on it to see it full-sized):

4. Whooshing. Both MOTD and MOTD2 suffer from this. Seriously, could the sound effects that accompany the opening titles be more ridiculous? At the end of the title sequence, there’s about thirty seconds of whooshing noises, for no reason. Why? Stupid pointless bloody whooshy noises! MOTD2 wins here as I’m quite busy on Sundays and I usually manage to miss the first couple of minutes of it.

5. Kevin Day. While MOTD is serious and analytical, MOTD2 is a more light-hearted and jovial affair. The most obvious manifestation of this is the presence of former comedian Kevin Day. His role is that of the travelling buffoon, turning up at a different ground every week to mock daft supporters, eat pies and generally annoy the clubs’ staff. I want his job: I can mock and annoy, I can eat pies. My football team is crap too. And I’m cheaper.

6. Keown. Martin Keown often appears on MOTD2. Martin Keown is the scariest man alive, scarier even that Sebastien Chabal. When he’s on screen I find myself trying to slide down the sofa and hide behind the coffee table. Conversations with my wife tend to go like this during MOTD2:

“Are you scared of Martin Keown, darling?”

“Yes.”

It doesn’t matter who asks the question. We’re both afraid of Martin Keown. He mostly appears on MOTD2, so even if I didn’t believe it, I’d tell you that MOTD2 was better. Otherwise he might beat me to death with a rock. Or discover fire and burn an effigy of me in his cave. While grunting, possibly.

7. Finale. The denouement of MOTD2 and, often, the highlight of Sunday is 2 Good 2 Bad, and it’s obviously the part of the show that Chiles relishes too. This means that Match of the Day 2 ends on a high. Match of the Day doesn’t though, it ends with the knowledge that if you don’t get off the sofa soon, you’ll have to watch the awful title sequence for the Football League show, featuring chirpy-cheeky football fans having a knees-up, and then watch Manish – apparently lost – wandering aimlessy around the studio introducing the show. Why can’t he just stand still? He’s been doing it for almost a season, why doesn’t he know where to stand yet?

April 8, 2010
7 Reasons To Get On The Wrong Train

1. For A Seat. Why is it that whenever you get to your train it’s full and the one on the opposite platform is empty? Every bloody time it happens. You end up having to sit with some woman from Birmingham. Every bloody time. Get on the wrong train. Get a seat. Get a woman from Worcester.

2. For Thinking Time. You’re going to be late for work anyway. You always are. The excuses are wearing thin. Your dog can’t die every morning. He’ll get bored lying. Getting on the wrong train gives you more thinking time.

3. For First-Class Travel. Get on the wrong train and travel first-class. You may as well, you’re going to get chucked off anyway. May as well get chucked out of comfort when you’ve had your free tea and newspaper.

4. For The Adventure. The Unknown. Where will you end up? Will you get on the Love Train or the Midnight Train To Georgia? Or will you end up in Luton. It’s like Russian Roulette. On trains.

5. For The Journey. The journey is always better than the destination. Remember all those school trips? The coach trip was always so much better than the actual Geography fieldwork you had to do in the…erm…field.

6. For Escapees. The likelihood is that you aren’t reading this in prison, but if you are – and you are lucky enough to escape – it is worth remembering that if you don’t know where you are going, you can be sure no one else does.

7. For A Different Time. Who says it is the wrong train? It might be the right train and just the wrong time. So okay, I suppose that does make it the ‘wrong train’, but it isn’t necessarily the wrong train. If you catch my drift. Or should that be train? Either will do. Do you? No, I can’t remember what I asked either.

April 7, 2010
7 Reasons It Takes 7 Songs To Tell You Who You Are

I’m a bit weird. I thought you should know. Sometimes I sit on the tube and listen to music. Nothing weird there I admit, but sometimes I sit on the tube, listen to music and decide to play a game. I switch on the shuffle function and decide that the next three songs will tell me what sort of person I am. So for example, Billy Joel’s Piano Man would tell me I am a musical instrument engineer. Now, the more observant of you will have noted that I am not. Which is why Piano Man never has been in the first three. It really is that accurate. So today, here are the first seven songs that emanated from my speakers after I had clicked shuffle. They tell you exactly the kind of person I am. That’s right. Weird.

Dancing In The Dark – Bruce Springsteen. I can’t dance. Switching the light off is always my first move. Admittedly this looks stupid at three in the afternoon and gets me in trouble when I am out clubbing*, but needs must.

Wings Of A Dove – Madness. That’s right, I’m vain. I don’t have wings, but I do have arms. I also find the sensual properties of Dove for Men Wing Lotion particularly welcoming.

No Words – Neil Diamond. This is generally what happens when my girlfriend asks me what I am thinking. Well, she got fed up with hearing the word, ‘Nothing’.

The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore – Robson & Jerome. Believe me, if your iTunes shuffled to Robson & Jerome while you were writing a piece entitled 7 Reasons It Takes 7 Songs To Tell You Who You Are, you would be hoping the sun ain’t gonna shine anymore. In fact you’d be hoping the world was going to end. Sharpish.

Yes – Coldplay. I’m a Yes man. In general, I’ll say yes more times than I say no. It creates opportunities and gives you new things to do with your life. Like thinking up 7 Reasons posts. Like writing 7 Reasons posts. Like editing 7 Reasons posts. Like getting annoyed because the 7 Reasons post you have just thought up, written and edited is actually rubbish. Like sticking pins into your Marc Fearns voodoo doll because you said yes to him last October.

Sussex By The Sea – Horsham Borough Brass Band. I am good at geography. To be honest I didn’t need the Horsham Borough Brass Band to give hints as to which Sussex they meant. But like them I like to clarify things. Like England By France. Or in a dream England Bye France. Or in an even better dream England Buy France, England Sell The French, England Send Gordon Brown, Germaine Greer and Janet Street-Porter Through The Channel Tunnel, Lock The Door And Melt The Key. Epic.

Waiting For A Star To Fall – Boy Meets Girl. Yes, I’m naïve. I also think the sky is going to fall on my head and Steven Gerrard is going to learn the words to the National Anthem before the World Cup starts in June.

*Yes, I have been known to go clubbing. I’m not all about tea and crumpets.

April 1, 2010
7 Reasons That Golf Is The Wrong Sport For Businessmen

Businessmen play a lot of golf, and business golf is a accepted part of business culture – there are even books about it. Here are 7 reasons that golf is the wrong sport for businessmen.

1. Location. Business takes place in the city – an urban environment – but golf takes place in the suburbs or in rural environs. Therefore, golf is in the wrong place. As a businessman, this means you have to travel to the golf course. What you need is a sport that you can play in cities, thus saving travel-time and expense. Snooker or pool would be ideal. After all, things always go better with a drink and you’ll have a big table that you can put your paperwork on.

2. Stuff. Golf requires an astonishing amount of equipment. There’s all manner of paraphernalia to lug around – so much of it, in fact, that you need to carry an enormous golf-bag, or hire a man to carry it for you. Some people even use electric buggies (a whole special car to convey golf equipment!). This is clearly ridiculous. Carrying your golf equipment around is incompatible with being businesslike. What you need is sports equipment that fits into a briefcase. A Frisbee is perfect.

3. Assessment If you compete against potential business partners over a few holes of golf, what are you really learning about them? That they don’t like to get their pink trousers muddy? That they can chat about very little while waiting to tee off? A more challenging sport will teach you far more about them. Rugby union, for example. You’ll learn far more about your potential business partner’s drive, desire, sense of ethics and commitment when he’s growling, biting your ear and trying to remove your testicles with his hand or when he’s spear-tackling your head of marketing. Rugby union is a team game. There’s no “I” in rugby union. Well, there is, but someone will poke it out sooner or later.

4. Clothes. Golf requires you to physically exert yourself. Golf also requires a different set of clothes than business. This means that you have to shower and change once your round of golf has finished. This is inefficient use of time. This is time you could spend working and earning money. Unless, that is, you earn your money in the men’s changing rooms, in which case…er…er…do carry on.

5. Women. You don’t see women heading out to the golf course to “network” or play “business golf”; they usually prefer to conduct their business at their business premises, and it’s quite hard to fault that sort of logic. If you’re playing business golf, you’re doing business very inefficiently – as you’re only meeting men. You need to be in an environment that’s agreeable to both sexes. I don’t know what that place is, but there must be at least one, even if it is always at the wrong temperature.

6. Length. Golf takes too long. It takes you out of the office for hours. If you must use the company’s time to participate in sport, you could find one that takes less time. 100 metre sprinting is a quick sport. Here’s how to combine it successfully with business: Walk to a point that’s 100 metres away from your desk, then run back to your desk as fast as you can; because that’s where you should be – at your desk – getting work done.

7. Displacement. Is your work really so dull and frustrating that you need to go to a field and repeatedly smack a ball with a stick? Aren’t you just avoiding work when you’re playing golf? If you didn’t hang around on the golf course “working”, then your actual working day would be so much shorter and you could spend your free time doing what you really want to do. Spending more time with your family or…er…playing golf.

March 31, 2010
7 Reasons It Sometimes Takes 7 Hours To Write 7 Reasons

Hour One. Have a cup of tea, watch the Australian Grand Prix highlights, remember I need to do something. Can’t remember what that something is. Drink tea. Remember that something is write a new 7 Reasons post. Reluctantly sit at desk and look around for inspiration. Rather worrying I have used everything in my room as inspiration before. This might be hard work today.

Hour Two. Come on Jon, get your act together and start thinking properly. It’s really not that hard to think of 7 Reasons. Just think of a topic. Watch the IPL for a bit and come back. You’ll have an idea in five minutes. 7 Reasons Lalit Modi Is A Twat or something. Five minutes later start on new post. 7 Reasons Lalit Modi Is A Twat. Genius.

Hour Three. This is getting ridiculous. The only reason I think Lalit Modi is a twat is because he has exploited the market and is making a shed load of money from it. I want to do that someday. That would make me a twat. I don’t like that idea much.

Hour Four. Okay, this is now officially ridiculous. I need to put this to the side and come back to it. I should go for a run and punch a few unsuspecting dog handlers. But it’s raining. A lot. I like running in the rain, but not when it’s raining. A lot. New idea: 7 Reasons To Run In The Rain. Erm…

Hour Five. This is getting beyond the ridiculous now. There are no good reasons to run in the rain. Only muppets run in the rain. That’s it! 7 Reasons Muppets Run In The Rain. Reason One: Because they are lazy and rain water will wash their shoes. Brilliant Jon, that is quite possibly the worst reason you have ever thought of. How about 7 Reasons You Can Tell A Lot About Someone From Their Running Preference? Am I writing a 7 Reasons post or a bloody thesis?

Hour Six. This is now officially beyond the ridiculous. Six bloody hours to write 7 poxy reasons?! I need help. Maybe someone on twitter can do this for me? Does anyone want to put me out of my misery and write tomorrow’s 7 Reasons piece for me? Five hours it has taken me so far. FIVE hours. Reply from @sophietonks Seven hours should make it the perfect 7 Reasons post then! Ooh! There is something in that! I can write about why it took so long to write today’s post. Thanks Sophie!

Hour Seven. I am going to make this idea work. It’s either this or I have to email Marc and tell him I can’t do this anymore. Open up my email account and start typing the message. Can’t bring myself to press send though. I’ll force this idea through. Somehow. I just need to remember what the hell I was doing six hours ago. I could just make it up. No one is going to know. 7 Reasons People Know You’re Lying. Why has it taken me seven hours to think of that? I could have probably written that in thirty minutes. I need tea.

March 30, 2010
7 Reasons To Replace Your Car With A Tank

1. Parking. Parking a tank is easy. You can park it wherever you like. You’re not going to damage it by clipping other vehicles – unless replacing your car with a tank catches on – and you’re not going to get a ticket for parking it illegally. This is because (unlike cars) tanks don’t have windscreen wipers, which is where traffic wardens put parking tickets. They can’t clamp you either, and your local traffic wardens probably won’t have a tank trap – if you live outside central London, that is.

2. Camouflage. Many tanks come with camouflage paintwork which – if, unlike me, you can spell the word “camouflage” correctly on your tank order form – is great. This means that you don’t have to look at the unsightly tank parked outside your house. You can also have many hours of fun by parking it in your driveway and watching the postman walk into it.

The unsuspecting postman, a split-second before the big surprise.

3. McDonalds. McDonalds is a popular fast-food outlet. There are thousands and thousands of them. You can only drive your car through a few of them though. But when you have a tank, every branch of McDonalds is potentially a drive-through branch. Feel free to do that, even if you’re not hungry.

4. Traffic. You may be surprised to learn that I’m not an expert on military hardware. One thing I do know though, is that all tanks come with a long pointy-tool at the front. It’s a fantastic feature that cuts down on road-congestion superbly. You just point it at things – pedestrians, aircraft, cyclists, other vehicles – and they move out of the way. Quickly! You may even end up with the whole road to yourself.

5. The school run. You know the game they play outside the school gates – the one where parents compete to see who can turn up in the largest, least appropriate vehicle for manoeuvring in an environment that contains small children? In a tank, you’re the winner. Unless, that is, another parent turns up with larger, more incongruous vehicle like an aircraft carrier or a Hummer.

6. Continental motoring holidays. Driving in Europe can be a stressful business, but not in a tank. In a tank you don’t have to fear Italian traffic, you don’t have to drive at a million miles-per-hour on the Autobahn and you don’t have to drive on the wrong side of the road – or even on the road at all. When driving through France you’ll find that entire towns and villages will come out to greet you offering kisses, bearing cheese and wine, throwing petals and waving drapeaux blanc. This is their instinctive reaction to the arrival of a tank, do not be alarmed.

7. Fuel. Tanks are very un-economical and their fuel-consumption can often be measured in gallons-per-mile, but don’t worry. When you replace your car with a tank you may find that you’ll spend less money on fuel. After all, Shell Petrol Station is not a request and they’ll probably let you fill up for nothing. They may even throw in a pasty and some Air Miles.

March 29, 2010
7 Reasons Your 3am Phone Call Went Down Badly

1. Romance. I don’t know if you woke Julie up, but I suspect that you probably did. Women are mysterious creatures and, who knows, perhaps your innovative approach to wooing Julie by interrupting her slumber and slurring, “Julie, I miss you Julie” is a piece of revolutionary brilliance which will completely change the way that men conduct their pursuit of women. Or perhaps she won’t be swayed by that. Have you considered a more traditional approach? Flowers seem to go down well. As does being George Clooney. Try those.

2. Focus. Your fundamental argument for reconciling with Julie is flawed, if repeating,”…but why Julie, why?” eighteen times can be considered an argument at all. It will be helped by losing the repetition and irrelevant rambling and by focussing it a bit. I’ve made a cue-card with some bullet-points on it; these appeared to be the main things that you wanted to say.

*But why?

*I miss you.

*JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

*Dave. Dave. Dave?

*You’ve taken my shoe.

Space

3. Virgin. You’re on the wrong mobile network. Virgin Mobile has a multi-hour specific-number-ban system option (catchy) on its network, designed to stop people drunk-dialling in the wee small hours. This is yet another great innovation from Richard Branson, who was frustrated when every time he drunk-dialled his love interest, it went straight to voice-mail.

4. Alcohol. You dropped the phone. Twice. I’m no relationship scientist, but I think that Julie probably doesn’t enjoy it when you do that. I suspect that it hurts her ear. There’s a fine line between being endearingly-tipsy and being a paralytic-nuisance. You may have erred across it during your fifteenth pint of Carling.

5. Bad comparison. You asked, “What’s Dave got that I haven’t?” Well, a nice smile, a fake tan, a knack for not stating policies and popular support among his party, for a start. Unless you were referring to a different Dave, in which case, who knows? Dave definitely has a girlfriend though. She’s called Julie.

6. Texting. You used your phone incorrectly. You could have texted instead. A simple one would suffice: “Julie, I’ve been a fool. Please end it with Dave and take me back. I promise not to sleep with Debbie again, that was a mistake. Kind regards, Very Drunk Man”. That’ll do. Pop it into your phone now, then you can just send it the next time you’ve had a few beers. Julie will be able to enjoy your attention at a time that’s convenient to her (and her solicitor) and you won’t be billed for a half-hour phone call.

7. Audience. Your audience didn’t appreciate you. There’s a time and a place for drunkenly phoning people at 3am, and that time is during the day (when you’re sober) and that place is not-outside-our-bedroom-window, York, England. You left your shoe on our front wall, by the way.

March 23, 2010
7 Reasons That This Pen is Stupid

1. Shape. When the lid is on, the pen is oval-shaped and it puts me in mind of a rugby ball. That should be a good thing as the Six Nations is on at the moment, but look at the colour. It’s blue. And it’s not even the dark blue of France, it’s light-blue, the colour of the Italian team. Italy are the worst team in the competition – worse even than England. This pen exudes the acrid stench of failure. And I don’t want to smell failure when I’m writing. I want to smell coffee. Or soup.

2. Emasculation. The pen is two inches long. Two inches! To men, having a two-inch-long pen is bad. Having a two-inch-long pen is unmanly. To women, a two-inch-long pen is unsatisfactory too. A big pen is much more desirable to both sexes. Big pen is good. Small pen is bad.

3. Gift. The pen is a gift. The worst kind of gift – it’s a gift from someone who lives in the same house as me. This means that I can’t just put it away in a drawer or re-gift it. I have to keep it here on the desk where I can see it. I can see it right now. It’ll be months before I can move it to the box in the loft where I hide all of the unwanted gifts. Months.

4. Writing. Look at this picture of my hand. Do you see that blue speck in the centre of my palm? (you may need to fetch your glasses for this one) No? I’ll tell you then. It’s the pen. How, you may ask, does a hand that size write with a pen that size? The answer is badly. Very badly. In fact, if I had to use the pen to write this 7 Reasons post, it would be four words long and those words would be “bloody”, “fucking”, ”stupid” and “pen”. And they would be illegible.

5. Blue. It’s a Highlighter pen. In blue. I – like a lot of people – write in blue ink. This means that the pen is completely useless as a highlighter. It has the opposite effect. It’s an obscurer. If I want to make my words appear fuzzy and indistinct, it’s the pen to use. Otherwise, it’s useless.

6. The Horatio Pyewackett Caractacus Fearns test of Pen-Stupidity. I own a cat that attacks pens. If he sees one, he pounces – whether I’m using it or not. When hoovering under the sofa (infrequently), I always find several pens that he’s stolen and then lost under there. Can I get him to attack this pen? No I bloody can’t. And I’ve rubbed catnip on it. Even my cat knows that this pen is stupid.

7. Suppository. I’ve just realised what else the pen reminds me of. It looks like a suppository. Appropriate really, given what I’d do if with the pen if I ever encountered the feckless cretin that designed it. Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid bum-pen! Grrrr! I hate this pen!

March 19, 2010
7 Reasons You Know Spring Has Arrived

1. Cheery People. As soon as the sun comes out people start smiling and being happy. It’s so annoying. At least it seemed to be for the cashier in WH Smith yesterday. All I said was ‘Good Morning’ and she looked at me as if I’d just molested her cat. (Not that I know what that look is. Obviously).

2. Chuggers. Or to give them their more politically correct name, tossers. Okay that maybe a bit harsh, but there are bloody millions of them now the sky is blue. It’s hard not to feel resentment towards them when you have to get past what seems like the gauntlet from Gladiators everytime you want to get to the tube station.

3. Legs. They are beginning to protrude from shorts. I am not the biggest fan of men’s legs – you’ll probably find a whole other sex who prefer them more than I do – but it is the men who get them out first. It’s that musty aroma you can smell.

4. Near Death Experiences. This may sound cruel, but I strongly oppose mobility scooters – when I am outside. When the sun is out, the brightness makes it much harder to read the cricket score on my phone. Therefore I am going to be concentrating more on getting the angle right than looking where I am going. Under such circumstances I have a habit of not walking in a straight line and so venturing into the path of a mobility scooter is not so much a possibility as a certainty.

5. Australians. Yes, they are arriving. In droves. They seem to disappear during the winter months – probably to hibernate – but now they are back. And why do none of them seem to work? All they do is sit outside the Walkabout, drink and watch me play dodgems with mobility scooters. What am I? A tourist attraction?

6. Builders. Not that it is particularly unusual to see builders, but it is unusual to see them working. Hopefully they’ll get a bit done before they have to stop again in June due to the dangers of sunstroke.

7. Smoke Alarms. This might sound strange, but the warmer it gets the more regular the sound of a smoke alarm. Usually mine. I would like to blame this on an electrical fault, but no one is going to believe that. It’s more to do with the fact that I put cheese-on-toast under the grill, head off to open the windows and accidentally become distracted in front of the mirror.

March 16, 2010