Last week you may have read that the US Postal Service have made something of a cock-up. Instead of an image of the Statue of Liberty appearing on their postage stamp, it’s actually an image of her Las Vegas based replica. Wondering if this was a one off the 7 Reasons team decided to do some investigating. We were surprised – and entertained – to discover that it has actually happen many times before. Here are seven of our favourites:
1. White House, USA. Incredibly, this isn’t the only error the US Postal Service have made this month. In the same batch of new postage stamp designs they also managed to use an image of a White House replica in Atlanta instead of the real McCoy in Washington DC. Luckily this error was spotted before printing began, but still a red face for the guy who has the shutterstock password.
2. Christ The Redeemer, Brazil. As recently as the start of the year the Brazilian Postal Service got themselves into a lot of trouble by using an image of The Angel Of The North on their postage stamp instead of one of the statue of Jesus Christ that looks down on the city.
3. Great Wall Of China, China. In 2005 the Chinese Postal Service made the catastrophic error of using an image of a replica of the Great Wall China on their postage stamp. The replica Great Wall Of China can be found in Splendid China – a theme park in Florida. Sadly, the head of the postal service paid the ultimate penalty.
4. Eiffel Tower, France. To celebrate France’s hosting of the Football World Cup in 1998, the French Postal Service released a collection of postage stamps showing images of famous French landmarks. Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell them that the Blackpool Tower is very much in Great Britain. Printing was discontinued, but not before 10,000 had entered circulation.
5. Tikal Temple, Guatemala. The Tikal Temple which can be found in the Tikal National Park was supposed to appear on this postage stamp. Instead Mexico’s Chichen Itza turned up.
6. Big Ben, UK. As patriotic as we are, we can’t overlook this howler from our very own Royal Mail. They must have had the work experience boy in this week because 5,000 stamps depicting a straw Big Ben rolled off the printer.
7. Che Guevara, Cuba. Probably our favourite error comes from Cuba. This arty postage stamp was supposed to celebrate Che Guevara. Instead, it celebrates Tooting’s favourite son, Wolfie Smith.
As can sometimes happen I forgot about my 7 Reasons duties this morning. In something of a panic I asked the whole of twitter for requests. The one reply I got was, ‘7 Reasons Not To Forget 7 Reasons’. I started but it soon became obvious that there were plenty of reasons to forget 7 Reasons and only one – a Marc shaped one – not to. Thankfully, lady luck was on my side as regular guest writer, Dr Simon Percy Jennifer Best, updated his twitter feed with, “I’ve just found a spoon in my bed”. Dr SPJB went on to question why it was there, but he didn’t need to. The doctor, as with all doctors, is a genius. There are many reasons to take a spoon to bed. Here are just seven:
The Philosophy Of Beds & Spoons by Dr Simon Percy Jennifer Best
1. Have Your Cake And Eat It. That’s right, with a spoon as your bed companion, not only can you take cake to bed, but you can eat it. I’ve never quite understood this idiom. Who has cake but doesn’t eat it? That would be stupid.
2. Defence. All sorts of things can happen when you are asleep as anyone who has seen Fantasia will confirm. The last thing you want is to be attacked by a collection of broomsticks while you are unarmed. Good then to have a spoon to defend yourself with. Threatening enough to help protect you, but not dangerous enough to destroy the house when you swipe at imaginary buckets. Or a shaved lamb.*
3. Self-Esteem. We all have times when we go to bed and can’t sleep. More often than not this leads us in to a state of worry. Women worry whether they are too fat or too thin. Men worry about relegation. While a spoon won’t help keep Aston Villa in the Premiership, it will certainly help a woman sleep peacefully. Think you’re too fat? Look at the back of the spoon. Think you’re too thin? Look at the front of the spoon.
4. Uri Geller. Quite why our bodies feel the need to wake us up in the middle of the night is anyone’s guess, but sometimes we find it impossible to drop off back to sleep. Indeed, the harder we try, the harder it becomes. In such situations the TV becomes our sole-mate. In the good old days Channel 5 used to show live baseball. Now they just show rubbish. Including Uri Geller. Still, at least if you’ve got a spoon in bed you can join in.
5. Dribble. If like me, you dribble in the night, having a spoon in bed would be really useful. Instead of turning the pillow over and letting the dribble seep into the sheet, you can spoon it into a bucket. Yes, you’d have to take a bucket to bed too.
6. Tent. We’ve all gone to bed with a torch and a comic and hidden under the duvet. I do it every Sunday. It’s pretty realistic to camping on Mount Everest. Just fewer yetis. The one thing I always lack though is something to prop the tent up. For any length of time at least. Assuming I take a big spoon I could use that. A big spoon would also be helpful if I wanted to reach something that I otherwise couldn’t. My girlfriend’s perfume for instance. I don’t wear it, but spraying a little bit on the fire really helps it. Obviously I don’t let it get out of control. If it starts burning the mattress I spoon a bit of dribble onto it. Usually does the trick.
7. Waterbed. I’ve never quite seen the attraction of a waterbed, but I could be tempted if I was allowed to take a spoon with me. Let’s be honest, the bed could quite easily burst. Floating out of the bedroom and whitewater rapid rafting down the stairs is not my idea of fun. If I had a spoon though at least I could use it as a paddle.
*The shaved lamb wasn’t in Fantasia. Just my bedroom.
In February we discovered that Benicio Del Toro was on Twitter and brought you the news in 7 Reasons to follow @BenicioDToro on Twitter. We weren’t sure whether it was him or not, but we thought the Twitter account was interesting anyway, and we had a big reaction to the post. Firstly, many unhinged people descended on our comments section and began calling each other names (we eventually had to referee this) and secondly, someone stole the piece and reposted it elsewhere without our consent until – after we’d threatened legal action more than once and they’d removed it and re-posted it a few times – their web hosts intervened and shut them down. In all, it was a whole lot of irritation and hassle. So let’s do it again.
Great news, 7 Reasons readers! The Mongolian Navy are on Twitter! Here are seven reasons to follow them.
Swim for your lives! It’s the entire Mongolian Navy! Really.
1. They Won’t Swamp Your Twitter-Feed. I mean, how much news can a navy with one boat, seven sailors (only one of whom can swim) and no sea generate?
2. Comparison. Have you ever felt really down? Have you ever felt pangs of existential angst? Have you ever questioned what you’re doing with your life? Have you ever felt that you’re getting nowhere and that you’re just going round in circles? Well the Mongolian Navy are stuck on the landlocked Lake Hovsgal so they actually are going round in circles. All day, every day. Who doesn’t feel better about themselves now?
3. War Is Hell. I watched the Dreamworks mini-series The Pacific recently and a brilliant, absorbing, and appropriately reverential bit of television it was too. But it was a highly confusing in places because there were many, many characters and they were all dressed identically. The Mongolian Navy has only seven sailors though, so there should be little of that sort of confusion in their Twitter feed. In time, you’ll probably get to know and love the entire Mongolian Navy, which is a lot less time than in would take you to get to know and love a larger navy.
4. Learn About Mongolia. How much do you really know about Mongolia? That’s a question I’ve asked myself on several occasions recently, and in my case, the answer is very little. I imagine that by following the Mongolian Navy on Twitter I’m going to learn a great deal more about Mongolia. After all, they’re landlocked, so it’s not like they’re going to be tweeting about anywhere else.
5. Because You Love An Underdog. Yes you do! You can’t help it. And surely, in naval terms, a navy with only one vessel (a tug) is the biggest underdog of them all. Or the littlest underdog, perhaps. After all, it’s hard to feel any sort of empathy with large modern navies with their state-of-the-art destroyers deploying smart torpedoes and missiles against enemies that don’t stand a hope-in-hell’s chance. But the Mongolian Navy’s epic quest to tow other boats around and keep their lake free from better navies* is something we can all appreciate and get behind.
6. Because They’ll Follow You Back. I’ve looked at their Twitter page and it seems that they’re following the people who are following them back. And who wouldn’t want to be followed by the Mongolian Navy (if you’re going to be followed by a navy, the Mongolian one seems like the best option)? It seems that the Mongolian Navy are as curious about us as we are about them. Let’s tell them what things are like where we live. Near the sea. Or tweet swimming tips, I think they’d like that.
7. Show Your Support. Because no one in Mongolia loves them. As we pointed in out March, Mongolia has a National Men and Soldiers Day, but not a National Men and Sailors Day. This seems deeply unfair. Let’s show them that people out there do care about them. Let’s show our support for by following @MongolianNavy on Twitter.**
*Which is all navies. Even Birmingham has a better navy than Mongolia.
**As this doesn’t seem like too much of a commitment.
No doubt many of you saw the news yesterday morning that as of September this year Twitter is no longer going to be a free service. Obviously Twitter isn’t the most profitable of business models and, understandably, they have been working hard to rectify this. They’ve been using promoted tweets for the last year or so, but apparently they aren’t generating a sufficient revenue stream. So now, in a complete volte-face, they have decided that making the service subscription based is the way forward for them. It’s a shame because, not only do we find it an invaluable communication tool for 7 Reasons, it’s also great fun. We’ve both met some great people and both done things that we wouldn’t have done otherwise. Like create 7 Reasons. Quite frankly, the thought of not having Twitter around fills us with dread. So, in a plea to the powers that be, here are seven reasons to keep Twitter subscription free. If you agree please share this post. You never know what might happen.
1. Revenue. There are better ways to raise revenue. No one likes to pay a subscription; look at how many people subscribe to Sky in the UK compared to the number that watch ITV. This tells us that advertising is a more palatable option than a paid for service. We have contextual adverts here on this website and – apart from notable exceptions, such as Marks and Spencer advertising alongside 7 Reasons That I Hate The M&S Dine In For £10 Deal and Orange advertising on the post 7 Reasons That Life Would Be So Much Better in Black and White – this works well. Would any Twitter user really mind carefully chosen contextual adverts on their Twitter page (obviously not ads for hair loss products, incontinence pads or Greggs the bakers) instead of paying an annual subscription? I think not.
2. Relationships. I met the girl I am going to marry on Twitter. In a roundabout way. I wasn’t actually being myself, which means she’s actually marrying a spoofed professional sportsman. Luckily that’s pretty much what I am anyway. There are people out there who, perish the thought, actually pretend to be themselves. And there are people out there who are now married because of Twitter. Or reunited with friends and family because of Twitter. Or working together because of Twitter. Or sharing a cell with Big Bear because of Twitter. That just seems like an awful lot of great stuff that is going to be lost come September.
3. Fail Whale. When Twitter reverts to a subscription based service they hope to keep 25% of their users. I think it’ll be more like 2.5% but either way the Fail Whale will no longer be part of people’s lives. In the two years I have been using the network the Fail Whale has become more than a sign of overload. He has become a friend. A reassuring sight in an uncertain world. A reminder that you can’t always have what you want when you want it. In this respect the Fail Whale is a great philosopher. Communicating with us in a language the modern generation can understand. Who are we going to listen to when we can’t turn to the Fail Whale? The only Fail Whale I can think of is James Corden. And philosophy is not his strong point. Even more depressingly, neither is comedy.
4. Organisation. You have to be organised to maintain a regular subscription to something (unless you’re so disorganised that you subscribe once and remain subscribed for eternity), and organised people aren’t necessarily the most interesting people. But that’s who you’ll find tweeting in the future. Jack Kerouac, Keith Richards, Dionysus, Dorothy Parker and Queen Ranavalona the 1st of Madagascar are all fascinating characters that would be monumentally interesting tweeters, yet would find it too much hassle to maintain a regular subscription to a social networking service, even if they weren’t drunk, high, mythical or dead (or in the case of Keith Richards, possibly all of those things). This would leave Twitter in the hands of dull people, for whom renewing their subscription to Twitter would quite probably be an annual highlight. It would become a showcase for tweets by Michael Vaughan, His Excellency Baron Sir Lord Sir Alan Sugar of Sir Hackney Sir, the third Nolan Sister and Oprah fucking Winfrey. Subscription would make Twitter a duller place which would, paradoxically, make people less likely to subscribe.
5. Access The Inaccessible. Twitter is a great outlet if you want to hear the thoughts of people/things who you otherwise couldn’t. Bronx Zoo Snakes for example. Or dead dictators. Adolf Hitler has his own twitter account. Well, actually, he has about twenty, but I think nineteen of them are fakes. The real Hitler is worth a follow just so you can get a better understanding of how his mind works. If you don’t follow Hitler (and I would never encourage it) I can inform you that he’s still an angry midget. He still has issues. A recent update stated, “I’m sick of bonsai trees being so small.” When we have to pay for Twitter, answers to GCSE history questions just won’t be as informative/entertaining.
6. Expense. Unfortunately, whether you subscribe to the service or not, it’s still going to cost you. Remember the old days when it cost 12p to send an SMS or 28p to send a letter? Assuming you leave the service, it’s going to be those days all over again, only this time we’ll have to alert all of our followers every time we do something. So for us that’s 2000 texts or postcards we’ll have to send out every time we publish a new 7 Reasons post. And what if Bob replies with a text or a postcard? If we decide to reply to Bob we’ll also have to send a text or postcard to everyone who follows both 7 Reasons and Bob. What a nightmare this is going to be. Looking on the bright side at least I have free texts. Looking on the dark side stamps now cost 41p.
7. Subscription Misses The Point Of Twitter. Or, if not the point of Twitter, it misses what we all love about it. The freedom. It’s an egalitarian melting pot where views, thoughts, ideas, opinions and links to Failblog can be disseminated amongst users without some sort of hierarchical class distinction getting in the way. If it’s made a subscription service then – especially in the current harsh economic climate – many users will be excluded for no fault of their own. Should being unemployed, poor, a single-parent or a resident of the Republic of Ireland really be grounds for exclusion from social media? No, it shouldn’t. It’s vital that Twitter remains subscription free. Please retweet this piece if you agree.
Regular readers of 7 Reasons might be not have been aware that half of the team has been expecting a rather special delivery for the last fortnight or so but we have and now, I can proudly announce, that it has arrived. My new spectacles are here. I’ve never had to wear them before and here are seven reasons that there is no stigma attached to wearing them whatsoever. None. At all. Got that?
Spectacle-ur*
1. Because I Got To Go To The Optician. And while I couldn’t write about my experiences there – because it’s been done far better already – I was able to enjoy a unique facility that is provided by my local Specsavers: Their waiting area overlooks the front door, just inside of which is a loose doormat. I have never been so royally entertained by slapstick in my entire life. The sight of almost all of the hapless and unsuspecting customers stumbling through the door was one of the most entertaining things I have seen in a long while. And they would have been able to enjoy the sight of me stumbling out onto the busy street half an hour later if this were not an optician. There is no stigma attached to physical comedy and even Norman Wisdom is cool. In Albania.
2. Because I Am Long-Sighted. I’m not near-sighted, short-sighted, ordinarily-sighted, conventionally-sighted or even averagely-sighted; I’m long-sighted. This is optician-speak for awesome. I can see a long way. I have super-sight. There is no stigma attached to being awesome. Superman is only unofficially awesome and he can get away with wearing his underpants on the outside of his trousers. I am officially awesome, therefore can easily get away with spectacles. And perhaps even the checked-shirt.
3. Wearing Spectacles Is A Necessary Public Service. Because I’m long-sighted, there’s almost nothing that I wouldn’t be able to see if I weren’t wearing them. The spectacles are actually needed to tame my sight. If it weren’t for them, the Hubble space telescope would probably be redundant and people as far away as Addis-Ababa would need curtains (if they don’t already). I’m wearing them for the greater good and there should be no social stigma attached to philanthropy.
4. I Need Them To Look At A Screen For A Long Time. I’m not going to guilt-trip the readers of 7 Reasons by suggesting that I would go blind writing my half of it if it weren’t for the glasses, but I would. Because I have to stare at a screen for a long time and I occasionally have to look at this image. Which always makes me try to stab myself in the eyes with a pencil. The glasses are necessary protection against this. If only they made spectacles for the mind.
5. Because Science Is Cool. Science is currently seen as hip and interesting, and glasses are a universally acknowledged signifier of scientific knowledge and capability. Watch any Hollywood movie – or Thunderbirds – and you know that the one in the glasses is the scientist; usually it’s Jeff Goldblum. Does Professor Brian Cox wear glasses? No. Do I (very occasionally) wear glasses? Yes. So to those unfamiliar with him, this makes me the better scientist. Right until I start to talk about quarks and molecular something-or-other and get distracted and end up talking about Ray-Bans.
6. Because They’re Ray-Bans. I love Ray-Bans. I’ve always worn them as sunglasses and I once got called a Ray-Ban geek by an assistant in a Ray-Ban shop, just because I knew the model numbers off by heart. And what the little codes on the arms mean. And I foolishly mentioned it out loud. Once. And my spectacles are Ray-Bans that I can wear at night and indoors without looking like a complete cock**. This is progress. Now the only place I can’t wear Ray-Bans legitimately is in bed when I’m asleep. And perhaps even then I could put opaque lenses in and use them as the world’s coolest eye-mask. Wearing spectacles is another step on my journey toward having Ray-Bans permanently affixed to my face. And Ray-Bans are cool: In my head, if not outside it.
7. Parenthood. I’m now a parent and, in years to come, when Byron Sebastian Fearns is making the long and daunting walk to his father’s desk to receive some sort of stern admonishment, I will need to move the glasses to the end of my nose so that I can look over the top of them while rebuking him. Because I know – from experience – that no telling-off is complete without that. And that putting clingfilm over the toilet bowl is frowned upon by people in glasses. Bugger. I used to love that.
*Yes, I did type this entire piece using only one hand.
Yay! It’s Friday. In the words of Rebecca Black, “fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, back seat, woohoo!, are you old enough to drive? Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun!” There is even more reason to celebrate today because this weekend the clocks go forward. Lighter evenings here we come. Hang on! If the clocks go forward, doesn’t that mean we lose an hour from our lives? Well, yes it does. But don’t worry, here at 7 Reasons we have invested countless minutes researching and analysing this issue. And the good news is there is no need to panic. Here’s why:
1. Sleep. It’s only sleep we’re losing, and sleep is awful. When I’m asleep nothing of interest happens to me (unless I’m having the dream when I’m being chased around the dining room by a horse named Keith again), and I’d wager that nothing interesting happens to you either (possibly not even the Keith dream). Sleep just isn’t a desirable state for people. After all, narcolepsy is considered an illness, not a talent, and no one (except Audley Harrison) ever celebrates being knocked unconscious in a fight. That’s because sleep is rubbish. We’re all better off with less of it.
2. Sleep Walking. If you are having the dream in which you are being chased around the dining room by a horse called Keith, it might not be a dream at all. You wouldn’t know, you’re asleep. There is a possibility that it’s actually happening. Maybe, in your dream state, you got up, left the house and went to a local field. Here you crept up on a horse and shouted ‘Keith!’ in his ear. Keith stirred, got annoyed and then chased you back to your house. You didn’t shut the door in time so you spent the rest of the night being chased around the dining room table. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that this whole episode will last for one hour less on Sunday morning. And one hour less being chased by a horse called Keith means one hour less in which carnage can be created.
3. Awake. If you are not asleep, then the chances are you will be awake. Given that it will be 2am though, you won’t be sober. So from the flowerbed in the park you won’t even notice the disappearance of an hour. You’ll be too busy talking to a tulip.
4. Refund. If losing an hour from your life really hurts, don’t worry, you will automatically get it back in October. All you have to do is stay alive. Good luck!
5. Wood Pigeons. We can stand to lose an extra hour from our lives; I know this because of the wood pigeons. My wife and I were recently cooped up in a small room without the internet for several hours and we were forced to look out of the window for entertainment. The only things of note that we could see were a branch railway line and some trees. The trees contained wood pigeons. Here is a sample of the conversation:
“Ooh look, darling. A wood pigeon.”
“Yes dear.”
“Ooh look, darling, there’s another wood pigeon. Look! Look! In the next tree.”
“Yes dear.”
“Which wood pigeon do you prefer?
That is an hour we could happily have lost from our lives.
6. We’re Only Losing The Dark. It’s spring! It’s just going to get lighter. The hour we’re losing is an hour of darkness and who needs that anyway? Birds turn themselves off at night, so we’re getting an extra hour of birds, with all of the beaks, eyes and feathers that entails. Obviously that means there’ll be an extra hour of bird poo, but that means I get to see my apoplectic next door neighbour shake his fist at the sky and furiously wash his car more often. This is a bonus. More birds, people. More birds!*
7. Cure. Let’s be honest, if you are panicking about the clocks going forward, you are screwed. There is no cure for this ailment. So you have a choice, panic every year or stop being a tit and get on with it. 7 Reasons recommends the latter.
Yesterday my writing partner Jon wrote about a man in Folkestone who has had his stereo and CD collection confiscated for playing Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman at “ear-splitting” volume through the night. Jon wrote brilliantly. Jon, however, did not have an explanation as to why anyone would play I’m Every Woman at an abnormally high volume and put it down to “… feminist undertones that are far too subtle for my man-sized brain to detect”. He was wrong though. Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman is not a feminist anthem in the least. It’s a hateful piece of misogyny. Women: Here are seven reasons that you should not listen to Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman.
1. “I’m every woman”. Women are subjected to many idealised and unrealistic representations in the modern media: They’re shown waiflike airbrushed models in every magazine and told they should look like them; they’re shown domestic goddesses in ideal kitchens and told they should cook like them. They’re shown Kirsty Alsop and told to do whatever the hell she says. In short, women are burdened with unattainable and unrealistic expectations. It is oft said that a woman should be “a whore in the bedroom and a chef in the kitchen”, but for many women, this is an unattainable goal. Not for Chaka Khan though, she’s every woman: She’s a whore in the bedroom, a chef in the kitchen, an iron lady in parliament, a ballerina in the dance hall, a rocket-scientist in the rocket and Mother bloody Theresa of Calcutta in Calcutta all rolled into one. How is any mere mortal woman supposed to compete with Chaka Khan? They can’t. She’s every woman. Any woman hearing this will feel inadequate.
2. “It’s all in me”. Chaka is also a massive slut. It’s all in her. Whatever it is, she has all of it. In her. That leaves none for the rest of you. Not a drop. Not an inch. Not a sausage. And how does Chaka Khan spend her remaining leisure hours?
3. “I can…mix a Special Brew”. That’s right, she spends them making cocktails for tramps. Do you do anything as virtuous and worthy as that? No, of course you don’t. None of the rest of you have even considered donating your free time to servicing the beverage needs of vagabonds, have you? No. Only Chaka Khan is this benevolent.
4. “I can read your thoughts right now”. She knows what you’re thinking too. She knows that you’re thinking, “What a smug bloody bitch, how am I supposed to compete with her?” Or, if you live in Folkestone, “Aaaarrrggghhh!!!! Turn it down you bastard!!!!”. Whatever bad thought you are thinking about Chaka Khan, she knows about it. And this doesn’t bode well for you because…
5. “I can…put fire inside of you”. Yes, Chaka Khan can make you spontaneously combust! As if it weren’t bad enough that she’s making you ordinary non-super-awesome-Chaka-Khan-women feel like wretched and inadequate harridans, she’s threatening you too. She can summon the power of fire! The message is clear: Don’t anger Chaka Khan ladies; she can set your innards alight; she can singe your ovaries and toast other bits that I don’t know the names of. Chaka Khan can kill you with her disco inferno. And she probably will because…
6. “Danger or fear, instantly I will appear…” You’re aware that Chaka Khan knows when you think bad things about her and you know that she can make you burst into flame. So you are in danger, and you’re probably afraid. And you should be very, very afraid because that’s the very point when Chaka Khan will appear! Instantly! And she’s likely to be furious. But you shouldn’t just be afraid of spontaneous combustion, you should be afraid of being in the same room with her full stop. Because – even if she’s in a benevolent mood and you find that you aren’t on fire – you’ll look like a feckless inadequate in comparison. Because she can do even more than you previously supposed…
7. “Anything you want done baby, I’ll do it naturally”. It’s not enough that she’s bloody every woman that can have any man (and has) and that she can read your thoughts and make you burst into flame at will, Chaka goes on to tell us that she can do anything. Naturally. This means that she can change your mood with crystals, she can heal your ailments with reiki, she can beat you in a gardening contest without using fertilizer, she can probably put up bookshelves using whale-song. She’s not merely omnipotent, she’s environmentally sustainable, GM free, solar-powered, dolphin-friendly and her farts probably smell of unpasteurised organic monofloral honey (or at least they would if she farted but she never, ever does). The only thing that Chaka Khan apparently can’t do is nothing. Artificially. Which isn’t really much of a flaw as far as I can see.
So there you have it. Playing Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman at an ear-splitting volume is a crass act of misogyny that is calculated to make any woman listening feel inadequate, envious, unworthy, paranoid, afraid, very afraid and when – with tear-streaked make up – she’s sobbing in terror and doesn’t think she can sink any lower it makes her feel just that little bit more inadequate. And fat. Chaka Khan is a heinous oppressor of women and I say we should burn the witch.
Anyone who witnessed the draft version of this post will have seen that it was originally entitled, 7 Reasons Having A Penchant For Chaka Khan’s ‘I’m Every Woman’ Is Perfectly Natural. And there were seven reasons. Loose reasons, but seven reasons non-the-less. It was ready to be published. Only, I couldn’t do it. For the first time in my life I had written something I couldn’t even pretend to believe. Having a penchant for Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman is not perfectly natural. In fact, it’s wrong. Very wrong. So wrong that it’s actually inexplicable.
Before we get to the reasons for this, let me first set the scene. Last night I choked on a peanut. Or at least I would had I been eating peanuts. I was quite happily half ignoring the BBC regional news – that’s South East Today for me – when a story shocked me to my very core. A man, a man from Folkestone, has had his stereo seized after he continuously played Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman at an abnormally high volume.
Here’s why that’s an inexplicable thing to do:
Chaka (or Khan)
1. Logic. Right from the outset this song makes little sense. ‘I’m Every Woman’? How is that even possible? Rosanne Barr was a big girl, but not even she could be classed as ‘every woman’. Rather surprisingly she has only ever been classed as one. From this I come to the conclusion that I’m Every Woman has feminist undertones that are far too subtle for my man-sized brain to detect. So while I can understand the need for Germaine Greer to dance around the kitchen with her rolling pin, for this man I can not.
2. Choice. While there is nothing wrong with this man pitching his tent in the camptastic field, one does have to question his choice of song. I mean, anyone with half an ear drum can confirm that I Feel For You is a much finer work than I’m Every Woman. It starts with a guy who has a stammer trying to say, “Chaka Khan” for goodness sake. Genius.
3. Realisation. I’m a fairly impassive person. What other people think of me doesn’t bother me in the slightest – which is probably just as well really given the current standings in Sunday’s 7 Reasons poll. I have never had a problem admitting that my music collection includes some inexplicable titles. Billie Piper’s Honey To The B for example. This doesn’t mean however that I actually enjoy listening to the album. No, honestly, I don’t. In fact I think it has been hidden in the loft by my girlfriend. As I have got older, my musical tastes have evolved. To such an extent that if I even so much as see my copy of Louise’s Woman In Me I break out in a cold sweat. I know not to touch it.* It’s a self-preservation thing I think. I don’t believe that Folkestone man doesn’t feel the same way when he approaches his CD rack. Which makes his decision to go through and actually play his music even more baffling.
4. Guilty Pleasures. Obviously, when I say my musical taste has evolved, that doesn’t mean I don’t get a twitch on when certain songs I probably shouldn’t like float out of the speakers. Boy Meets Girl’s Waiting For A Star To Fall is probably the most guilty of these pleasures. What I wouldn’t do though, is play it so loud that the entire neighbourhood has a party in the street and I appear in The Daily Express. The Daily Telegraph maybe, but not the Express.
5. More Logic. I think I do understand a little of what Folkestone man must have been going through. I can relate to his predicament slightly. If I am watching cricket and my girlfriend is vacuuming I have to turn the volume up to hear what the commentators are saying. That is the natural thing to do. I presume from my experience that Folkestone man had little choice but to drown out the sound of his neighbours banging on the wall by turning up the volume. What I don’t understand is why he didn’t pause his music until the banging had stopped? Obviously that’s not something I can do if I am watching live sport. The knowledge that I am watching something five minutes after it has happened makes me feel violently ill.
6. Jobsworths. I guess the thing that really baffles me about Folkestone man is that he clearly likes keeping ‘Noise Officers’ in jobs. Noise Officers! Do we really need people whose full time role it is to identify what is too loud or not? No we don’t. It’s bloody obvious. If can hear it and I can’t control it, then it’s too loud. Maybe if Folkestone man and his ilk turned down their music, these noise officers could go and do something useful. Like chase burglars.**
7. The 7 Reasons Test. It has taken me far too long to come up with six reasons, let alone seven and quite frankly I need to get on with my life. But this only goes to show how inexplicable playing Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman abnormally loud is. If it was explicable I would have probably been able to reason it in thirty minutes. As it is, it has taken me a good three hours to get this far. I’ll be honest, this has been my worst 7 Reasons experience since 7 Reasons It Sometimes Takes 7 Hours To Write 7 Reasons and at the moment I have very little interest in returning to this site ever again. I’m turning to drink. And for once I don’t mean tea.
*Rather interestingly this CD isn’t in the loft. I am looking at it right now. Sweaty, but tempted.
**Whoever came up with the idea of Noise Officers needs to get in touch with me today to prevent a 7 Reasons rant on Thursday.***
Marks and Spencer have a Dine in for £10 meal deal in which you select a main course, a side-dish, a dessert course and a bottle of wine and pay only ten pounds for them. Other supermarkets have similar deals but I don’t shop at them, so I’m only qualified to write about my abject hatred of the M&S meal deal, which seems to be aimed solely at people who dine together in even numbers. Anyway, here are 7 Reasons that I loathe it. With every fibre of my being.
Grrr.
1. They’ve Got It Surrounded. It’s the weekend and there they all are. The throng. A grey horde of people aged over fifty-five standing four-deep, apparently transfixed, around the Dine in for £10 (But Only If There Are Precisely 2.0 Of You And Absolutely No Singletons Or Children Welcome) display. Some of them are actually viewing the food, picking it up and inspecting it, but many are not. A lot of these people seem not to have any involvement in the decision over what to eat at all, but there they stand, in the way of anyone else who might conceivably want to see the food. My wife, for example, will want to see the food. As will other customers so, if you’re not actively looking at the food, why not step away from the food? Hello! Hello! We want to see the food! Actually, I can already see the food – as all people over the age of fifty-five are tiny – but I can never get within nine feet of it for fear of damaging the doddering Lilliputians as I lumber through the waist-high mass of grey to get to the growers choice salad bag. Get out of the way! Other people want to see the food!
2. It’s A Compromise. Putting together a meal from the Dine in for £10 menu is a study in the art of compromise. And compromise is an abomination. Did Churchill compromise? Rarely. Did Neville Chamberlain compromise? Yes. Ergo, compromise is abominable and speaks with a Birmingham accent. So when my wife and I put together a meal from the Dine in for £10 menu it becomes a power-struggle that even the UN would back away interceding in (we don’t have any oil, for one thing). I approach the menu searching for the most interesting and tasty thing there, and my wife approaches it searching for the most insipidly dull and bland thing that they have which, in turn, causes me to become angry and refuse to compromise further on any of the other courses or the wine (just imagine Hitler food-shopping or, if you shop at the same branch of M&S as me, look for the angry giant bellowing “Who the hell has fish and chips with a side dish of rosemary new potatoes?!”). So in the end, neither of us get the meal we want. I can’t really blame M&S for this, it’s my own fault. If I wanted to eat nice, tasty, well balanced meals I should have followed Simon Cowell’s example and married myself.
3. It’s Discriminatory. I’m not a single person but, between bouts of not being single, I have been. I remember it well; a time when I would always find things exactly where I left them and had much more space in bed. But single people today need that extra space in bed because they are required to eat twice as much as people in couples to take advantage of the Dine in for £10 offer which will, ironically, increase their chances of remaining single. Or perhaps I’m being fanciful there. No one (in Europe) is actually going to eat twice as much to take advantage of a special offer, so the offer discriminates against single people. But M&S don’t care. They seem perfectly happy to condemn the single to evenings of dining – on full price non-special food – alone while viewing whatever television programme they fancy without interruption and in their pants. But surely being single is tough enough without being excluded from special offers? What if you were unfortunate enough to be a widower? What if, after the two of you have enjoyed a Saturday night ritual of dining in for £10 for a few years, your tiny grey husband dies (possibly crushed to death by a giant food-Nazi next to the ultimate potato mash)? There’d be no more Dine in for £10 menu for you. How iniquitous.
4. It Forces Extreme Measures. Many of the best ideas are borne out of adversity and, much in the noble tradition of Barnes Wallis inventing the bouncing bomb or Soviet cosmonauts using pencils in space, I have formulated a plan; a method by which single people might take full advantage of the Dine in for £10 offer and stick it to the man by enjoying a spinach and beef roulade followed by a raspberry panna cotta at the cheaper price. Single people need to find a food-buddy. They can do it by placing a personal ad like this:
Fiscally frugal food-lover (Male, early thirties, GSOH, NS, NK) with a penchant for rosemary and lemon crusted seabass and the green pea, bean and vegetable layer seeks similar to take advantage of the M&S Dine in for £10 offer. Must be willing to consume a lesser share of the profiteroles. All applications welcome but please, no time-wasters or merlot-drinkers.
By getting organised, single people can take advantage of the Dine in for £10 offer. But should single people have to resort to their guile, cunning and organisational adroitness to take advantage of the same offers that are unconditionally granted to couples?*
5. It’s Being Discriminatory Again. My wife and I qualify for the meal deal now, but what if we were to have a child one day? It’s not inconceivable (and nor are children, hopefully). Or three children? We’d be disqualified from the offer. Cruelly cast asunder by Marks and Spencer. Because you can’t feed three or five (or any other odd number, I won’t list them all) people from the M&S Dine in for £10 menu. In fact, only one person has ever successfully accomplished a similar feat: His name was Jesus and what he did with the wrong quantity of food for a gathering of people is spoken of as a miracle (which is a biblical word meaning fiction). So – miracles aside – families that contain an odd number of members are excluded from the deal too. The father, the son and the holy ghost can’t take advantage of the Dine in for £10 deal but Hitler and Eva Braun can.
6. Paying For The Thing. Okay, so – after about an hour of pushing tiny grey people around and bickering with your partner about broccoli – you’ve carefully assembled all of the components of the meal and you take them to the checkout. But when you get there they don’t ask you for ten pounds. They ask you for seventeen. “I thought that it was all a part of the Dine in for £10 offer”, you will state. And then they’ll press the Total button and say, “Oh yes, I hadn’t pressed the Total button”. This happens every time. Just press the Total button! We know we’re saving money, we don’t need you to remind us of that every time we buy the meal deal – that’s why we’re buying the bloody meal deal in the first place. All you’re accomplishing by reminding us of the money we’ve saved is to make the widow in the queue behind us cry.
7. The Third Pie. Marks and Spencer does something further to confound us all. As a part of their 2 for £10 menu Marks and Spencer offer a key lime pie. Which comes in three portions. Why three? We’ve already established that there’s only room for two people in this meal, what do they want us to do, fight over it? Go outside and scour the streets for a total stranger to hand it to as a random act of kindness? Perhaps they think we’re so abominably cruel that we’ll invite a dinner-guest – a single dinner-guest – round to watch us consume the rest of the menu before we reward them with a tiny dessert? I know this for certain; cats will not eat key lime pie, no matter how much cat food you mix in with it, so what’s with the third pie, Marks and Spencer? The third pie is sinister, frustrating and baffling. As is the rest of the Dine in for £10 deal.
*No. (But your conscience will surely have told you that already).
Hello 7 Reasons readers! It’s Friday here in the world, but in Mongolia it isn’t. In Mongolia, today is Men and Soldiers Day: The day when the good folks of Ulaanbaatar (and the parts of Mongolia that we can’t name) celebrate men and soldiers. Are men and soldiers the right people to be celebrating though, we asked ourselves. Doesn’t it seem a little unfair and iniquitous to be only celebrating men and soldiers? We think it is. We think there are far more deserving groups for modern Mongolia to celebrate. Here they are.
1. Men and Sailors. Now, the more observant of you will point out that Mongolia is a landlocked country and as a result have little need for sailors. While I might agree with you, it doesn’t stop Mongolia having a Navy. Indeed, as recently ago as the 13th Century, Mongolia had the third largest Navy in the world. Sadly, these days it comprises of three boats, two guns and seven sailors. Laughable you may think, but when I tell you that only one of the sailors can swim you will understand the gravity of the situation. Mongolia should be celebrating their sailors before they’ve all gone.
2. Men and Roy Chapman Andrews & His Merry Men. A name not familiar to most of you I am sure, but in the early 1920s Roy and co explored Mongolia in a fleet of Dodge cars. He was intending that his trip to Mongolia would help him discover something about the origin of man – why he thought Mongolia was the place he’d find this remains a mystery – he’d have probably had more luck in Lidl. Unsurprisingly he discovered little about man, but did discover a treasure trove of dinosaur bones. Not my words, those of Wikipedia. Then in July 1923, he became the first man to discover dinosaur eggs. All this leads us to believe that Roy Chapman Andrews inspired the creation of Indiana Jones. Given the success of the franchise, I feel it only proper that we should celebrate the real-life Indiana. And when I say ‘we’, I mean Mongolia.
3. Men and Weathermen. In summertime the temperatures can reach as high as 40 Celsius in Mongolia and in the winter drop as low as -45 Celsius. That is some extreme weather one has to stand outside holding a thermometer in. No one ever thinks about this though do they? All they care about is whether they need the camel or the bus the next day.
4. Men and Trans-Siberian Train Drivers. The Trans-Siberian railway line cuts through Mongolia as it joins Russia and China. A trip from St Petersburg to Beijing – taking in Ulaanbaatar – can take anywhere from between fifteen days to a month and a half. The first reason that Mongolia should be celebrating this dedicated group is that they are bringing in tourists which of course boost the economy. Secondly, do you know how hard it is to stand up for a month and a half? No, neither do I. But that is what these train drivers do. Heroes. The lot of them.
5. Men and Yurt Manufacturers. While Mongolian soldiers might once have blazed a bloody trail across Asia under Genghis Khan, the Mongolian Army is no longer the all-conquering behemoth that it once was. Mongolian yurts, however, unlike Mongolian soldiers, can be found all over the world and are something of a national Mongolian symbol. You can even order them online. Can you order a Mongolian soldier online? Well yes, probably, this is the internet we’re talking about, but a yurt would look better in your garden and would be less terrifying to your womenfolk and neighbours.
6. Men and Economists. The major currency of Mongolia is the tögrög, the tugrik or the tugrug, it depends who you ask. And if you ask me, it’s the tugrug. I don’t know how many tögrögs there are to the tugrik or how many tökraks there are to the tugrug (I just made one up myself, being an economist is fun!) but anyone who has invented a currency that has at least three names – one of which sounds like a silent comedic prank – should be celebrated. And then locked up.
7. Men and the Sun-Starved Geeks That Update Wikipedia. If it weren’t for Wikipedia, how much would we know of modern Mongolia? Sure we all know about Genghis Khan and the yurts and…the…yaks and things? But Wikipedia – fortunately – knows everything. I, for one, was flabbergasted to learn that Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan and that on November 21, 2005, George W. Bush became the first-ever sitting U.S. President to visit Mongolia. To the rest of the world, Wikipedia is a shop window for Mongolia, spewing-forth fascinating facts and marvellous Mongolian minutiae for our amazement and astonishment. Mongolia should celebrate the people that update Wikipedia from their bedrooms in their pants. And so should we. Wikipedia, we salute you.
