7 Reasons

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  • 7 Reasons To Have A Second Birthday.  Today!

    7 Reasons To Have A Second Birthday. Today!

    It turns out that today is the perfect day to have your second birthday.  Here are seven reasons that you should.

    1.  Because You Can.  You might not think you can have a second birthday on June 10th, but you can.  You probably think that only the Queen can have two birthdays, but you’re wrong.  The Queen doesn’t have two birthdays, she has three.  She has her birthday, her official birthday and today, in the Solomon Islands – but nowhere else – it’s the Queen’s official birthday there.  Is it really fair that the Queen should have three times as many birthdays as the rest of us?  Of course not.  No one would mind if you had a second birthday on June 10th, least of all the Queen who’d still be one better than the rest of us.

    2.  Because The Weather’s Right For It.  The date of June 10th falls during the month of June, you may not be surprised to learn.  This means that the weather is guaranteed.  Because on any birthday in June, it will rain.  This will make the weather on your actual birthday – unless that too, falls in June – seem positively glorious in comparison.

    3.  Because It Can Only Improve Your Day.  Today, I was woken at 5:30am by my wife announcing that our son had wet the bed.  “Never mind”, I said, “you can put him in our bed for a couple of hours”.  “I can’t”, she replied, “it’s our bed that he’s wet”.  You need a second birthday to get over that sort of news.  I’m sure that many of you have also woken up to similarly bad news or had unfortunate experiences today (possibly involving rain).  It’s not too late to have a second birthday.  Have it now, you deserve it.

    4.  Because Tomorrow Is World Gin Day.  Tomorrow, in its infinite wisdom, the world – or gin – has decided that it’s World Gin Day.  If you have your second birthday today and request gin, tonic, limes, Angostora bitters, ice and glasses (because receptacles are important), you’ll be perfectly equipped for tomorrow’s festivities.  And you’ll have got the cake-eating out of the way, because if there’s one thing that gin doesn’t go with it’s cake*.  Have your cake today.  And eat it.

    5.  Because Something Good Needs To Happen On June 10th.  Sometimes, when writing about a particular day we do actual research via the medium of Google.  Having researched June 10th, I can confirm that it’s one of the dullest days in history and can disclose that the two events with the most humour potential from this date are that the first public zoo was opened in France in 1794 and Elizabeth Hurley was born in 1965.  It’s not just that you need June 10th for your second birthday.  June 10th needs you.

    6.  Because It’s The Right Time Of Year.  If you have a birthday in February or November, you probably lose out presents-wise because of your special day’s proximity to Christmas.  That’s right, Jesus was born too and he’s far more important than you.  June 10th is almost in the middle of the year and is as far away from Christmas as you can hope to get**.  So, with your second birthday on June 10th, you’ll get better presents and you’ll foil Jesus.  It’s all win.

    7.  Because It’s Jon’s Birthday.  Today, June 10th, is my writing partner Jonathan Lee’s birthday.  If everyone else had a second birthday today then he would age at half the speed of the rest of us (though anyone that saw yesterday’s post might say he’s making rather a good fist of that already***).  We’d all become world-weary and cynical and while, in the Autumn of our lives, our minds had closed to fun, tomfoolery and japery, Jon would still be merrily frolicking away, committing acts of piracy in his garden.  The world’s a much better place for that. Happy birthday Jon.

     

    *If there are two things that gin doesn’t go with they’re cake and cycling.

    **Except for Mecca.

    ***He wrote, in his glass house.

     

     

  • 7 Reasons Windowgate Is Baffling

    7 Reasons Windowgate Is Baffling

    If you’re at all interested in cricket or windows, then you can’t have failed to have noticed that, in a tale that came to be known as Windowgate, a window in the England dressing room got broken by Matt Prior at Lord’s yesterday.  This story then snowballed taking many unexpected twists and turns along the way.  I was listening as events unfolded.  Here are seven reasons that the story is baffling.

    1.  The Explanation.  The ECB’s initial explanation for the incident was that “the glass had been broken after Prior’s gloves ricocheted off a kit bag and knocked the bats, resting on the window pane.”  This seemed almost entirely plausible.  To the abjectly mad.  People who have no concept of the relative mass and density of gloves and bats might also be misled by this statement.  I, as an owner of both gloves and bats, however, am not taken in by what we can only call the Magic Glove theory.  I can categorically state that in over thirty years of glove ownership, I have never seen one ricochet.

    2.  The Withdrawal Of The Explanation.  By the time the explanation was withdrawn, my speculation had become fevered.  So if it wasn’t a Magic Glove, what was it?  Was a lone glove-man in the England dressing room hurling gloves at bats from a grassy knoll?  Were bats being hurled from book depositories?  Were books being hurled from bat depositories?  Was there a shadowy third glove-hurler in the showers?  Oh, they’ve withdrawn the explanation now.  Wait!  That makes it seem even more sinister and mysterious.

    3.  The Explanation For The Withdrawal Of The Explanation.  On withdrawing his initial explanation, England spokesman James Avery said that he “had been working from second-hand information”.  He failed to mention that not only was the information second-hand, it was also implausible gibberish.  After all, second-hand information isn’t intrinsically bad.  I didn’t find out about the sinking of the Titanic first-hand, and I’m fairly sure that you didn’t either.  I’m confident that it happened though, and in the manner that it was told to me.  To blame the implausibility and inaccuracy of a laughably shoddily fabricated account on it being second-hand is preposterous.  What he should have done is blame it on an idiot, because there’s definitely one involved there somewhere.

    4.  The All-New Explanation.  The ECB then had another go at explaining the breakage.  “Prior had his bat on the ledge where the wall met the window of the dressing room. The bat handle bounced off the wall onto the glass and the glass broke.”  Ah, this sounds more plausible (as most things do when there isn’t a magic glove involved).  This account of events is far more believable than the first, unless, that is, you’re an exponent of that arcane and little-known (to the ECB) science, physics.  Newton’s law states that “to every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction”, and that holds true in this case.  In my over thirty years of bat-ownership, I’ve never seen one move of its own accord.  I also believe that if England possessed a magic or sentient bat, Straussy would have been using it in the second innings, so we can be certain that this is a conventional cricket bat.  This means that for it to have bounced off the wall, there must have been an action to which the bat was reacting.  In this case, the only possible explanation is that the England dressing room at Lord’s has a twitching wall; a wall that twitched and caused the bat handle to bounce onto the glass, which then shattered.  In the interests of research I googled “Lord’s twitching wall” and found no account of it, which is strange for a cricket ground with such a well-documented history.  I smelled a rat.*  The second explanation was no better than the first.

    5.  Just What Are They Trying To Keep From Us? So if neither of those explanations are to be believed, what could possibly have happened in that dressing room that would cause the ECB to go to such lengths to cover it up?  Some sort of second Roswell incident?  Was Glen Miller in there?  The Loch Ness Monster?  All the ECB seem to have achieved with their accounts of the incident is to fuel much conjecture, discussion, speculation and publicity.

    6.  I Have A Theory Of My Own.  Some may call it fanciful, some may call it far-fetched, some may call it pie-in-the-sky, but here’s what might – in my mind – have happened.  Competitive sportsman Matt Prior, who was, according to an eye-witness, “…cursing and muttering when he walked up the stairs to the pavilion”, furious at being run out, entered the dressing room and angrily hurled his bat to the floor. It then ricocheted off the floor and struck the window, causing it to break.  This theory of mine is unsubstantiated, unlike the Twitching Wall theory, which has been endorsed by Andrew Strauss (though he was on the balcony at the time and didn’t see it himself), but it does have some advantages over either of the explanations offered by the ECB:  It’s plausible, it’s physically possible, it doesn’t involve a magic glove, it doesn’t involve a twitching wall, and James Avery didn’t say it.

    7.  The Biggest Mystery Of All.  If my theory were, in fact, true, no one would have batted an eyelid at that course of events.  No one was badly hurt and Prior apologised and was fined.  We would all have put it down to a bit natural frustration and moved on.  The ECB seem to have taken what was a very unremarkable incident and have turned it into Windowgate: An epic tale of ineptitude, implausibility, bullshit and chicanery.   Quite why they did this is the most baffling thing of all.

     

    *Figuratively.

     

  • 7 Reasons Prison Transforms People

    7 Reasons Prison Transforms People

    A lot is said about the prison service. Especially here in the UK. Many people seem to think that being an inmate is an easy life. You have your own TVs and a free day pass. In some cases, you even have your own dogs. Well, bitches. And then, when you’ve done half the time for your crime, you’re released. To be honest, this was an opinion I also shared. That was until the other night when I saw an episode of Porridge. I am now of the opinion that prison does indeed do what it sets out to do. It transforms people. Here’s why:

    7 Reasons Prison Transforms People

    1.  Fitness. Prison is full of bullies. There isn’t a nice way to say this, so I’m going to be straight with you. If you’ve got moobs, you are going to be teased. What better incentive is there then to get you doing pull-ups off the bunk bed? Prison gives you guns.

    2.  Art. You know what really states that you are not to be messed with? Yep, a tattoo. Not of a dolphin on your ankle, but a snake wrapped around your whole body. Probably accompanied by a skull. And a Millwall FC logo. Prison develops the culture vulture in you.

    3.  Crimes. Prison is all about reputation. The axe murderers aren’t going to look too impressed if you turn up and announce you’re inside for serial parking ticket evasion. That’s why, if you’ve still got them, you should use your scruples. You have to transform yourself into a different person. And that means exaggerating your crime. Yes, you are a serial parking ticket evader, but the only reason you evade them is because you stole the cars in the first place then reduced the number of traffic wardens on patrol. Prison teaches you to sell yourself.

    4.  Names. You can’t go to prison and call yourself Marc Fearns. Fearns? You’ll get a reputation as a right nancy boy. You can’t even call yourself ‘The Fearns’, ‘Fearnsy’ or ‘Fearnso’. So you have to be inventive. And call yourself ‘Terror’. Not because you are a little terror, but because it is short for ‘territory’. Which comes from the calling card you leave where you would usually place the parking ticket. The one that says, ‘Marc-ing My Territory’. Prison inspires creativity.

    5.  Goldilocks. Everyone has told you that long, curly, greasy, ginger hair is not the look, yet the impending prospect of a jail term is the only medium that will make you do something about it. You don’t want people seeing your mane as something to hang on to. Prison cures perms. And dandruff.

    6.  Gravel. Joe Pasquale wouldn’t last five minutes in prison. That’s not because his jokes aren’t funny, it’s because he sounds like a girl. You really don’t want a reputation as someone whose balls have yet to drop. Unless you’re a woman. That’s why you need to put on a deep, East End accent. Use Ray Winstone as your benchmark. Prison makes you a man.

    7.  Posture. At home you may readily bend down to pick up the soap. I have heard from some sources that this is not the thing to do in the prison showers. Something about getting slapped on the backside by a wet towel. As such, in prison, you should remain upright at all times. Prison transforms you into an upstanding member of society.

  • 7 Reasons I Won’t Be Using The Self-Checkout Machines At My Local Supermarket

    7 Reasons I Won’t Be Using The Self-Checkout Machines At My Local Supermarket

    I’m not totally against self-checkout machines or progress, but the ones at my local supermarket have turned shopping into a living hell*.  Here’s why I won’t be using them.

    1.  They’re Confusing.  Now I’m not a man easily confused by technology.  I can put together websites that almost work and look good; I can write HTML and CSS code and I can do things to the inside of PCs too.  And given that the self-checkout systems are supposed to be a user-friendly interface that are accessible to people with little tech-savvy or confidence, you might expect that I’d be able to use them easily.  But they’re bewildering.  Not in and of themselves, but because they are located in a packed group of self-checkouts in a very small space going through different stages of the transaction but bellowing instructions at their customer in the same identical voice.  “Please scan your first item”.  Wait, what!  I’m on my third.  “Please replace the item in the bagging area”.  What!  I haven’t removed the item from the bagging area.  “Please wait for assistance.” Assistance?  To scan a jar of cloves? How daft do I look? Having a row of three machines with only one voice is idiotic.  It’s like having a third member of Jedward.

    2.  Buying Alcohol Becomes Difficult.  Occasionally** I like to buy some beer or wine.  This is not a straightforward purchase at the self-checkout because a light suddenly flashes above your machine (sadly no klaxon) and a member of staff has to come over to approve your purchase.  I have no problem with that whatsoever (except that I haven’t been asked for ID for about two years now); I hold a personal licence to sell alcohol myself.  I have a problem with the amount of time it wastes when I’m shopping in a small store.  Both mine, and that of the person who has to verify that I’m over eighteen.  Because at my local shop…

    3.  When You Need Assistance Everything Comes To A Halt.  In my local supermarket, no matter how busy it gets, the staff working at the manned tills are the ones that have to come over to verify age, remove security tags or deal with the halfwit that’s wondering where the barcode is on a lime, at the self-checkout.  They have to abandon their tills – once they’ve finished dealing with their current customer – leaving you waiting for them to do that, and while they’re dealing with you, there’s a queue of people waiting for the staff member to come back to deal with them.  This annoys everyone.  This means that far from being an efficient system that eases the burden on the staff, they end up spending much of their time travelling between the checkout and the self-checkout and when they are dealing with customers, those customers are ill-tempered.  Essentially their working lives are spent rushing around placating a mob.  They aren’t even equipped with truncheons or tall hats.

    4.  The Machine Tells You Off If You Move Anything.  This is annoying at any self-checkout but, when added to the other frustrations in a small store it becomes infuriating.  The bagging area is tiny and the chances are that you’re probably buying more than one thing.  But if – during your game of bagging area jenga – you move anything in the bagging area, the checkout (or possibly the one next to it, who knows?) bellows at you to replace it.  I don’t go to a supermarket to play a game in which I am forced to balance an assortment of dissonantly shaped objects on a small space while being bellowed at by a robot.  If I wanted to play that game, I’d go to a Japanese television studio.

    5.  The Machine Is Patronising.  Once all the “fun” is over and you’ve paid for everything you were able to balance successfully in the bagging area and you’ve received your receipt (and twelve others), you start taking your items.  And, at some point while you’re doing that, the machine will bellow “please take your items” at you.  But you don’t need to be asked to do this because firstly, you’re already doing it and secondly – unless you’ve been kidnapped by a band of Gododdin tribesman and held prisoner for the past 1500 years or so  – you’ll be aware of how the concept of a shopping transaction works and you’ll already know that once you’ve paid for your items you should take them with you.  And that’s probably when you’ll snap.

    6.  Other Shoppers Will Look At You Strangely When You Argue With It. “I know!  I bloody know!  Of course I’m going to take my sodding items you authoritarian automaton!  That’s what I came here for!   I didn’t come here to give you money and then just leave my goods, that would be cretinous!  I wholly understand that if I leave this lime here with you then when I get home there will be no lime in my gin and tonic.  I get that!  I want the lime!”  It’s much like the modern tradition of arguing with the sat-nav in the car, except that in the car there isn’t a line of slack-jawed people backing away from you and shielding their children from Disproportionately-Angry-Man.  Or if there is, you’re a bus driver.

    7.  Human interaction.  I just like people.  I want to deal with a person:  Not an exhausted, defensive person whose shift has been spent in the service of an infernal machine and in placating the bewildered, the angry and the truculent but a person that is relaxed and at ease in their environs and with their customers.  But I can’t because of the machines.  I miss the happy people that the self-checkout machines have turned into the dejected and the unsmiling.  After all, if I wanted to be scowled at and resented I could just stay at home.

     

    *Okay, an unpleasant experience.

    **On almost every occasion.

     

  • Two Posts On A Friday?!  What’s Going On?!

    Two Posts On A Friday?! What’s Going On?!

     

    My Lords, Ladies, gentlemen and uncategorised people that aren’t covered in the first three, prepare to be astonished!  Prepare to be amazed!  Prepare to gaze upon something new in wonderment and with awe!  We have something to announce and it’s big news.  Here we go.

    When we opened the 7 Reasons Emporium, we got all the products designed and ready and then we realised that we had nowhere to sell them and the shop got put together as a bit of an afterthought.  We tried to make it work as a part of our website’s theme (and failed) so we had to build a new site for it and we modified an existing theme to make it work.  Neither of the team were thrilled with the look or functionality of this theme and, as people that pride themselves on their eye(s) for design and general web savviness, that hurt.

    We realised that we had to redesign the Emporium for the sake of our own self-respect.  It got to the stage that we didn’t like to look at even.  We weren’t sure when we were going to be able to fit a redesign in (we’ve only just redone the main website) but then one of the team (we won’t mention which one) had a brilliant idea.  “Jon”, he said, “I’ve found the time to redesign our emporium.  I’ve calculated that we waste at least six hours every day just lying in the dark*.  Let’s use those wasted hours to set up a new site and build a new emporium.”  So that’s what we’ve been doing for the last ten days or so.

    Now, the 7 Reasons Emporium 2.0 is here.  It’s new, it’s shiny, it’s got stuff that moves, it looks absolutely bloody lovely and it’s got giant lemons.  We’re so happy with it that we grin like idiots whenever we look at it and feel dizzy whenever we stand up**.  We’d like to encourage you to visit it, to click on things and to generally gaze at it (and buy stuff).  We’re even offering 10% off the price of all t-shirts this weekend to celebrate the relaunch.  We’d love to hear your feedback and product ideas, which can be directed to this email address.  We hope you enjoy the new emporium,

    Marc and Jon.

     

    *Separately.

    **That may be fatigue.***

    ***Or gin.

  • 7 Reasons Cushions Are Evil

    7 Reasons Cushions Are Evil

    Today is National Cushion Day in Oman! No, not really. We just needed a hook to get you reading. A sly move we admit, but one that worked. Assuming you did your good deed for the day yesterday, you’ll no doubt be going to the shops later to buy a pet Kim Jong Il. Have you thought about where you are going to put him though? The reason we ask is that you may well seat him on a cushion. Today we want to warn against this practice. You see, cushions pose more danger that admitting you like croissants.
    7 Reasons Cushions Are Evil
    1.  Zip It. If you look at your cushions, you’ll probably notice that the cover is zipped on one side. This is so you can remove the cover and wash it. A practice we have to do every Sunday after our Saturday guest writer has thrown coke all over the 7 Reasons sofa. Putting the cover back on the cushion is where the danger begins. Zipping it up is never effortless. The zip always gets caught on a loose thread and causes minutes of straining and swearing. Then it suddenly gives way. It flies straight to the end, zipping everything in its path. Fingers, cat tails, lemons, penises*. Everything.

    2.  Vision Impaired. There is no doubt that a cushion cover can make a very good headdress when you are indulging in a little fancy dress. Or role-play. They are particularly useful if you want to be a cheap version of Robin Hood. The Maid Marian And Her Merry Men version, not the Russell Crowe version. The problem comes when it drops down over your eyes. Especially if you’re driving the mini-bus at the time. Bumping into things, like rivers, is quite common.

    3.  On Display. If the 7 Reasons sofa lacks anything, it’s display cushions. For a very good reason. What is the point in them? Are you supposed to move them? Are you allowed to move them? What will the owner say if you move them? If you do move them, where do you move them to? Are you even sure that is a display cushion? What’s the difference between that cushion and that cushion? Display cushions cause trauma.

    4.  Trip Hazard. At least 50% of the 7 Reasons team can’t stand cushions. They’re always in the way. Preventing him from sitting down. They seem to multiply in number every day. As a result he places them neatly on the floor. Of course, then he goes flying when he’s taking the empty plates through to the kitchen. Which could explain the broken handle on the front of the oven.

    5.  Expense. It’s not just physical abuse a cushion will hand out, it’ll abuse your bank account too. When you redecorate the house, you need to buy new covers for the cushions. Which means you need to buy storage for the old cushion covers. And then you need to buy storage for the storage that’s storing the old cushion covers. And on it goes. And goes. And goes. Until you hear from your bank manager for the first time ever.

    6.  Illegal Entry. A cushion to a pillow is like a rugby league ball to a union ball. You might think they are interchangeable, but they are not. Particularly so when a pillow fight is taking place. Pillows are soft and their cases softer. Cushions are hard with pointy corners. Bringing a cushion in to a pillow fight, apart from being illegal, could very easily result in eye pokage. Naughty.

    7.  Suck Up. Most of the guest writers who spread themselves across the 7 Reasons sofa do so with the elegance and grace that you would expect. Some, however, see the sofa as a piece of apparatus.  Which is why they leapfrog over the back, cartwheel over the armrests and generally treat it as a bouncy castle. It is lucky the 7 Reasons cushions are not decorated with beads or sequins. If so, a few of our guest writers may well have ended up in hospital with a button shoved up their backside. Not pleasant. And a reminder to all that cushions are evil. Even more so than dolphins.

    *Why Marc was washing the 7 Reasons sofa cushions in the buff is something we have never discussed.

  • 7 Reasons That Kim Jong Il Is The Ideal Pet

    7 Reasons That Kim Jong Il Is The Ideal Pet

    Hello dear reader!  At 7 Reasons, we’re not afraid to admit when we’re wrong and today, we do just that.  Once, we were of the opinion that the Komodo dragon was the ideal pet but, though that would be amazing, we’ve realised that there is a superior one.  It’s Kim Jong Il.  Here’s why.

    1.  Kim Jong Il Comes In Many Colours.  Whatever your interior colour scheme; whatever hue and shade your decor, there’s a Kim Jong Il to blend in perfectly with it.  Even if it’s beige.

    2.  Kim Jong Il Is Independent.  Don’t want a needy pet that requires you to take it out for walks or let it in and out five times per hour?  Kim Jong Il is ideal: He comes with his own man-flap.

    3.  Kim Jong Il Annoys The Neighbours.  All the best pets annoy the neighbours, whether it’s next-door’s dog barking at all hours, next-door’s cat pooing in your flower bed or next door’s snake being a snake in close proximity to you.  Kim Jong Il does this too.

    4.  Kim Jong Il Is Loved By Women.  That’s important in a pet.  After all, they’re usually the ones that end up looking after them once the children grow tired of the responsibility.  Surely there isn’t a woman alive that wouldn’t jump at the chance to care for Kim Jong Il.

    5.  Kim Jong Il Is Good With Children.  This is an important consideration when choosing a pet.  You need a pet that can help teach them social skills and engender a sense of playfulness in them.  That pet is Kim Jong Il.

    6. Kim Jong Il Makes Everyone Happy.  Everyone loves the warm, fuzzy joy of pet-ownership (it’s one of the reasons we have them).  They bring delight and wonder into our lives and spread happiness and warmth wherever they go.  So does Kim Jong Il.

    7.  Kim Jong Il Is Easy To Feed.  While other pets have special dietary requirements and often need to be fed expensive and exotic foodstuffs, Kim Jong Il prefers a simple diet of radishes.*

    So there you go.  Kim Jong Il is the ideal pet.  The only drawback is that you might occasionally have to see this.

    Seems a small price to pay.  So let’s all go out and get a Kim Jong Il.  Is a home really a home without one?

     

    *Or sometimes fresh lobsters that he has airlifted to his train whenever he’s away travelling.

    **For fans of looking at Kim Jong Il looking at things, this is the place to go.

     

  • 7 Reasons Sepp Blatter Must Go (Now)

    7 Reasons Sepp Blatter Must Go (Now)

    Today, Sepp Blatter will be re-elected as FIFA President. That is all kinds of wrong. As this video aptly demonstrates.

  • 7 Reasons These Excuses Are Not Silly

    7 Reasons These Excuses Are Not Silly

    Ministers have released the top ten ‘silliest’ excuses as used by benefit cheats. If you haven’t read them yet, you’ll be able to watch the countdown on BBC Three later this year. It’s narrated by Richard Bacon with insights from a bloke who once pretended he didn’t work in Lidl. Understandably. My issue with this programme is that it’s clearly going to be an excuse to laugh at people who are unable to articulate. As such they sound stupid. Having looked through the excuses I am saddened that they are are deemed silly. At least seven are very legitimate. Here’s why:

    7 Reasons These Excuses Are Not Silly
    Ladder Therapy

     

    1.  “I had no idea my wife was working! I never noticed her leaving the house twice a day in a fluorescent jacket and a ‘Stop Children’ sign.” – Hardly surprising given that this man is obviously blind. The ‘Stop Children’ signs don’t come in braille you know.

    2. “I wasn’t aware my wife was working because her hours of work coincided with the times I spent in the garden shed.” – This man’s wife was clearly hiding the fact that she worked by playing an elaborate game of hide and seek. Every morning she told her husband to hide. He scurried off to the shed and only appeared when his wife returned home and shouted, “I give up!”

    3. “He does come here every night and leave in the morning and, although he has no other address, I don’t regard him as living here.” – Shelter are a fantastic charity. For them to be pulled up on this is a disgrace and an insult. I suspect the thousands of volunteers who give up their time to help those less fortunate than themselves feel really great now. Well done ministers.

    4. “I didn’t declare my savings because I didn’t save them, they were given to me.” – Is having a basic grasp on the English language seen as a bad thing now then? Surely to declare savings under the pretence that you saved them is fraud?

    5. “I wasn’t using the ladders to clean windows, I carried them for therapy for my bad back.” – A man (or woman) with a whole lot of common sense. Instead of spending his (or her) benefits on expensive therapists, he (or she) purchased a ladder. It was just as effective and instead of weekly payments of £40, cost just an initial £15. I don’t understand why ministers have a problem with this. Surely they want people to show initiative? If people can find methods of lowering their outgoings how is that not a good thing? One day this man (or woman) might buy a bucket and become a window cleaner. Good for him (or her).

    6. “We don’t live together he just comes each morning to fill up his flask” – Well, this clearly shows that sexism is still rife in the ministerial hood doesn’t it? Just because this woman is single, it doesn’t mean she wants to get into a relationship with every builder whose bum she spies. This woman is perfectly entitled to share her tea bags with whomever she wants. It’s 2011 for goodness sake.

    7. “It wasn’t me working, it was my identical twin.” – Which only goes to prove that one half of Jedward always mimes.

  • 7 Reasons Product Names Are Important

    7 Reasons Product Names Are Important

    A little bit of schoolboy humour for you today. It’s crass, it’s not very clever, but it’s easy. And you might just find it some light relief after yesterday’s telling-off. You may well have heard the story of Chevrolet’s Chevy Nova. The car that didn’t sell because the word ‘nova’ roughly translates as ‘doesn’t go’. Well, today we look at seven other products whose names just don’t seem appropriate. Basically, every thing’s to do with sex.

    1.  The Antidote To Viagra.7 Reasons Product Names Are Important2.  Australians Should Know.

    7 Reasons Product Names Are Important

    3.  Pocket Games.

    7 Reasons Product Names Are Important

    4.  The Japanese Like Hairy Knees.

    7 Reasons Product Names Are Important

    5.  No Flicking Straight To The End.

    7 Reasons Product Names Are Important

    6.  Oral Stimulation.

    7 Reasons Product Names Are Important

    7.  Girl Repellent.7 Reasons Product Names Are Important