What is it about the name Paul? Half the world becomes convinced that an octopus is psychic and half of Paul Gascoigne thinks that a murderer wants to do a spot of fishing. Rather worryingly, that was his sane half. We need to return to normality and thankfully this is where I step in. For all of you who have been taken in by Paul the Octopus, you need to watch this. He’s not psychic. He’s a chancer. Just like me.
A few weeks ago, you may remember Liz Gregory telling us why Summer was great. There was so much agreement with her in the 7 Reasons HQ that we just had to get her back on the sofa. Thankfully, Liz was only too keen to make a reappearance. And this time she’s bought along her box of chalks. Or are they marker pens? I can never tell when I’m sans contact lenses. If you didn’t check out Liz’s blog – Things To Do In Manchester – last time, then you better do it today. Unless you want detention. Right, enough of the stupid school quips, I’m off to the bike sheds.
1. Holidays (Part One). We may as well deal with any resentment up front, so we’ll start with holidays. I get 11 weeks per year. Teachers in schools get more. I understand that people in the real world get insultingly poor amounts of annual leave, and I feel bad about this. But no-one, anywhere (that includes you, Cameron) will take my glorious six-week summer off me.
2. Holidays (Part Two). Last year the afore-mentioned six week summer break began on July 7th. The Ashes series started on July 8th. This point needs no further expansion.
3. The Students. Yes, I know this one is hard to believe; even a cursory glance at The Daily Mail will indicate that the youth of today are a snarling, feral mass, pausing from their casual sex and drug-taking only to mug passing old ladies and commit knife crimes. You may be disappointed to learn that actually, today’s teenagers are pretty much the same as any other generation of teenagers: moody, unpredictable, funny, witty, charming…in short, they are good company. Although I do query some of their musical taste, and the overall aesthetics of wearing one’s jeans halfway down one’s backside.
4. Talking About What You Love, All Day Every Day. I teach English, which means that rather than answer telephones and push bits of paper around a desk all day, a typical Monday might include reading Wuthering Heights (and indeed performing the Kate Bush caterwauling classic as a Christmas treat), acting out bits of Streetcar Named Desire (Stellllaaaaaaa!), and teaching how to write scripts, articles or short stories….it’s amazing.
5. Seasonal Celebrations. Christmas is fun, sure. Christmas in a college with hundreds of sixteen-year-olds who are desperately excited but are trying equally desperately not to show it is even better. Students are also very keen on the confectionary that tends to accompany such seasonal celebrations, and bring it in by the bucket load; there is surely not a teacher in existence who has not felt their waistband constrict at Easter or Christmas due to a surfeit of Quality Street.
6. Stationery. This may actually be specific to English teachers, but every September the pain of a new academic year is soothed by an almighty trip to Paperchase to stock up on novelty pens and notebooks with monkeys on. This is an essential part of teaching, and its impact on the economic stability of Britain must not be overlooked.
7. Students Suddenly Realising You’re Not Ninety. I am not particularly advanced in years, but to my youthful charges I may as well be approaching my hundred and twelfth birthday. Until, of course, you are spotted outside of work, wearing jeans, talking to friends, and maybe (gasp) drinking wine. This prompts much admiration, as students recognise you for what you truly are – a plucky old person with a life outside college. This will raise your kudos above every member of the maths and science departments almost instantly.
I don’t know what I was thinking when I named this piece 7 Reasons That Hay Fever Sucks. I’m not an American teenager, I’m a grown Englishman. If you could kindly imagine it says 7 Reasons That It Is Most Disadvantageous To Be Afflicted With Hay Fever or 7 Reasons That I Find Hay Fever To Be A Bothersome Nuisance at the top of the page, I’d be much obliged.
1. It’s Crap. Fever is an emotive word redolent of all sorts of epic maladies and high emotions. The statement: he has cabin fever tells you that he is gripped by claustrophobia and that he is potentially a crazed or deranged madman who could snap at any moment. The statement: she has World Cup fever tells you that she is in the thrall of one of the world’s great sporting events and is probably in a joyous state of prodigious excitement. The statement: he has hay fever tells you that he is mildly irritated by flora and is prone to snivelling, some welling up of the eyes and occasional bouts of moaning; he probably carries a pocket-pack of tissues. Hay is the least impressive of all the fevers.*
2. Caught Between A Rock And A Hard Place But With Dishonesty, Mean-Spiritedness And The Disgusting And Unwanted Exchange Of Bodily Fluids Replacing The Aforementioned Rocks And Hard Places. I have found that the most efficacious method of relieving my symptoms is Beconase, which is applied by inserting a tube nasally, and spraying. This leads to problems. When friends or relatives start feeling their own hay fever symptoms they often – not unreasonably – enquire, “Do you have any hay fever medicine on you?” The question is always suffixed by this sound. There are two possible answers to this question. Yes or No. If my response is “No”, it would be a lie, and lying is wrong (unless her bum looks big in it). If my response is “Yes”, I either have to refuse to allow the hay fever-medicine-less person the use of my nasal-spray on the grounds that exchanging snot with them would be disgusting, which would make me appear mean, or I can allow them to use it which, as I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, is disgusting. Three choices: Lying, meanness or abhorrence. Hay fever is a minefield.
3. The Inexorable Breakdown Of Civil Domestic Relations. My wife also suffers from hay fever. This is what the average summer evening sounds like in our house:
“Achoo!” “Bless you.” “Thank you.”
“Achoo!” “Bless you.” “Achoo!” “Bless you” “Achoo!” “Bless you.” “Thank you”
“Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!” “Bless you. Bless you. Bless you.” “Thank you”
“Achoo!…Oi!” “Bless you.” “Thank you.”
“Achoo!” “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!”
“Achoo!”
4. Hay Fever Is Sneaky. Like the Spanish inquisition, traffic wardens, or the urge to use the word macaroon, hay fever always strikes when you least expect it. I didn’t suffer from it at all until I got into my thirties, and now I do. If you don’t suffer from hay fever now, assume nothing, because you might tomorrow. And that will make you feel awful and me feel slightly better. Mostly because of my hay-fever-induced meanness.
5. Other People’s Hay Fever Is Annoying Too. I may be mean, but I try to be polite. That’s how I was brought up. I hold doors open for people and I always walk on the outside of a pavement when accompanying a lady (so that a carriage won’t splash mud on her brocaded overskirts, or in case she faints on being startled by a ruffian or a horse). I also say “bless you” when people sneeze, and when I say it to strangers they often look at me as if I were making a lewd proposition to their grandmother or threatening to kick their cat. If you want strangers to glare contemptuously at you, bless them. For some reason they hate it.
6. Dribbling. Dribbling isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The sight of Cristiano Ronaldo or Pedro Rodriguez dribbling a football is a joy to behold. I dribble too. The sight of me dribbling is less of a visual treat though. I dribble salt-water out of my stinging eyes and snot out of my nose all bloody summer. I turn up at all manner of social occasions and make a striking first-impression with red-ringed eyes, tear-streaked cheeks, a nose that won’t stop running and a fast-diminishing supply of tissues. Have hay fever: Will dribble. Have dribble: Will look disgusting. Look disgusting: Will repel people. Repel people: Will find that there’s no queue at the bar and that you don’t have to buy anyone a drink. Find that there’s no queue at the bar and that you don’t have to buy anyone a drink: Realise that everything has an upside (even dribble).
7. Wahey Fever! A couple of years ago, I justified a sneezing fit to a friend in a pub by saying, “Hay fever”. A stranger at the next table overheard me and enthusiastically replied, “Wahey fever!” before laughing uproariously for a very long time. This still annoys me.
*The statement: she has Night Fever tells you that she is in possession of a very fine Bee Gees single. Or that she is in the throes of an unshakeable urge to boogie. I realise that I’m getting carried away with the fever-statements now. I think I may have fever-statement fever.**
**The statement: he has fever-statement fever tells you that he is afflicted with some sort of typing mania and is still making words appear on the page long after he should have stopped writing and gone to the pub. Stop now man, you’ve written enough. Stop. Stop!
1. Gerd Muller. German World Cup Winner in 1974. He looked like a girl.
2. Mario Kempes. Argentine World Cup Winner in 1978. He looked like a girl who didn’t care. She probably had hairy armpits too.
3. Bruno Conti. Italian World Cup Winner in 1982. He looked like a butch girl and someone had just stolen her skipping rope.
4. Maradona. Argentine World Cup Winner in 1986. He looked like a petulant girl intrigued by her very first waft of something illegal.
5. Rudi Voller. German World Cup Winner in 1990. He looked like a girl who had just sat on a pile of marbles and was beginning to like it.
6. Branco. Brazilian World Cup Winner in 1994. He looked like a girl who may well once have been a boy. And quite possibly a murderer.
7. Emmanuel Petit. French World Cup Winner in 1998. He looked like a girl who had just caught her reflection in a window and realised her ginger moustache was catching the sun a bit too much.
8. Ronaldinho. Brazilian World Cup Winner in 2002. He looked like a girl who was struggling to get the hang of her straighteners.
9. Andrea Pirlo. Italian World Cup Winner in 2006. He looked like a girl who had accidentally come across a car park full of doggers and just couldn’t take his eyes off it.
10. Carles Puyol. Spanish World Cup Winner in 2010. He looks like the kind of girl who just doesn’t want to be left out.
1. Un-likeability. Almost every successful World Cup team contains at least one thoroughly un-likeable character: Maradona, Rudi Voller, Gerd Muller and Marco Materazzi are all World Cup winners and in their squad the Netherlands have diving, whinging, sour-faced git Arjen Robben (the only thoroughly un-likeable Dutch person), so they’re bound to succeed. How we’ll all loathe him when he lifts the World Cup aloft on Saturday. But, there’s always one.
2. The War. The two nations that will be involved in the World Cup final have history and, when the Netherlands walk out to play, they’ll do so thinking about the war and bearing a grudge. They’ll take to the field having been fired-up in the build-up to the final by reminders of their historical enmity with their opponents. The Dutch revolt and the Eighty Years War will be on their minds and they’ll want to beat the Spaniards. That’s right, Spain. We know they’ll be playing Spain, because Paul the octopus said so.
3. Harmony. The Dutch always fall out with each other during the World Cup; internecine squabbling has undermined their performances at football tournaments time after time. At this World Cup though, they haven’t fallen out. Their whole squad seems united and with common purpose (perhaps disliking Arjen Robben is a common bond for them). Whatever it is, they seem to be getting on like a house on fire. And fire, remember, is orange.
4. Colour. The Dutch team play in orange, and if there’s one thing I know about Orange, it’s that their customer service is excellent. The customers of the Dutch team (their supporters) can enjoy the match safe in the knowledge that their team will go the extra mile to satisfy them. Also like Orange, their coverage is very good too, with Dirk Kuyt working hard and popping up in all areas of the pitch to tackle people and to shoot at the corner flag. I know that’s two things I know about Orange but I got carried away. And while I’m on the subject, as a special bonus fact for you, my wife has just told me that nothing rhymes with orange.*
5. Germany. The best team by a long way in the tournament has been Germany but, as the octopus has predicted that they won’t be in the final, this means that Spain will have knocked them out. This will probably take a lot of effort (perhaps even extra time) and, with a day less rest than the Netherlands, an already out of sorts looking Fernando Torres, and an injured Cesc Fabregas, Spain will not be effective opponents in the final against the Dutch. They’ll have worn themselves out chasing Özil. Or trying to find him on the pitch even. He seems able to disappear and reappear somewhere entirely different unnoticed by opponents.
6. Their name. Part of the motivation for the players will undoubtedly be national pride. After all, the Netherlands is a country which has produced countless gifted teams but has never won anything at the World Cup. Ah, just like Spain, I hear you say. The difference with the Netherlands though, is that at least everyone knows that Spain is called España. Most people seem to think that the Netherlands is called Holland, which is actually the name of a couple of provinces. It’s like calling the United Kingdom Wales. They’ll want to go out there and ensure that we get their name right in future.
7. Spain. It’s summer in Spain, and this means that a substantial part of their population currently consists of Britons. And look how well our teams fared at the World Cup. They don’t have a hope.**
*This doesn’t seem quite right to me, nothing rhymes better with puffin.
**Though at 7 Reasons, we haven’t been right about anything at all during this World Cup, so perhaps they do.
One of the questions we never get asked is, ‘Why do you always write in English?’ Here’s the answer.*
1. Francais. Même si je été dans le décodeur pour le français tout le chemin jusqu’à mes 16 ans, ma connaissance de la langue, maintenant que je suis 27 est assez pauvre. Ou, pour quelqu’un qui n’a absolument aucune intention de se rendre en France, sacrément bon.
2. Deutsch. Vorcestershire schlagen Varvickshire von zehn vickets. Alle deutschen weiß ich whacking beinhaltet ein “V” oder ein “Z” auf der Vorderseite jedes Wort. Es ist ziemlich plump und obwohl Jürgen Klinsmann es macht eine Menge über die BBC, ich kann nicht sicher sein, es ist die Genauigkeit.
3. Italiano. Dato che sembra sempre torto a me che ‘Ciao’ significa ‘Ciao’ e non ‘Goodbye’, è un linguaggio penso sempre destinato a lottare con. Questo, e il fatto che la Mafia parlano italiano. Se sono stato rapito dalla Mafia, davvero non voglio sapere che cosa stanno andando a fare per me. Preferirei che appena successo.
4. Española. “No tengo una vaca, pero tengo un asno”. Es decir todos los españoles que conozco. Significa: “Yo no tengo una vaca, pero tengo un asno.” Lamentablemente, a pesar de ser todos los españoles que conozco. También es inexacta de los hechos. No, no tengo una vaca, pero ni tengo un burro. No puedo escribir 7 razones que no tienen una vaca o un burro. No sé los españoles para eso.
5. Cymru. Er fy mod yn gwerthfawrogi y dyffryn Rhonda, ni allaf ond teimlo Cymraeg yn iaith hynod arwyddocaol meddwl i fyny gan y rhai sydd hefyd yn ystyried ei bod yn briodol i bobl dalu dod i Gymru, ond yn ddigon hapus i adael iddynt adael am ddim.
6. 中。我有一個英文鍵盤。它沒有任何對這些有趣的彎曲線的事情，中方稱為’字母’。我拒絕買中文鍵盤，因為我已經擁有英文鍵盤是在中國。
7. Zomerzetish. Moy noledge of wes cernty diolec is limiturd to sayin ‘cumbine arvester’. There r ownlee a limiturd numbur of posts I curn wroite aboot ‘cumbine arvesters’. An dis is won of dem.
*Google Translate can not be held responsible for any inaccuracies.**
**Neither can I.
It was all going quite well during the men’s final at Wimbledon yesterday. And then, after the presentations, while I was writing today’s 7 Reasons piece, Clare Balding suddenly – and without any prior warning – said, “…and he’s posing now in various different ways with the trophy. How many things can you do with the Wimbledon trophy?” Thanks Clare.
1. You can wear it on your head.
2. You can utilise it as occasional seating.
3. You can hide behind it (poorly).
4. You can take it to the prom.
5. You can climb inside it.
6. You can take it to Slough (cautiously).
7. You (well, he) can come back and win it again next year, and the next year, and the next year…because Rafael Nadal can win it as many times as he wants to. He is one of the single most impressive athletes I’ve seen. Never mind the natural talent and effortless grace of the pompous Federer; never mind whatever it is that Murray’s supposed to bring to the game; never mind confining yourself to the sport of tennis, even. Nadal is awesome. A brilliant, and entirely self-made competitor, at the top of his game – in large part – due to effort, application and dedication. I can’t think of a more formidable athlete in all of sport.
Oh, and thanks Clare, I had plans last night, damn it.
It’s Sunday again and, now that the World Cup has reached the semi-final stage, there’s no football today. So, what better way to spend our time than thinking about football? Not making predictions, obviously, our track record there is worse than…well…anything. We predicted that England would beat Germany handsomely and yesterday, half of the 7 Reasons team confidently stated that the German defence would be no match for this man.
So, today we won’t be speculating on anything that might happen in the semis or the final. We’re shying away from conjecture and sticking to observation. Here are some World Cup doppelgangers that we’ve spotted during the tournament so far.
Do you look like anyone that’s played a part in World Cup 2010? If so, get in touch and send us pictures, we might add you to this page. Unless, of course, you look like Carlos Tevez. We don’t want nightmares.
Returning to the 7 Reasons sofa for his second stint as a guest poster is student and Muse fanatic Rob. A. Foot. When he’s not loading the back of removal vans he can be found playing his saxophone/piano/harp/french horn/penny whistle (all at the same time) on his blog, There Is Music In The Breakdown.
1. Tidying. A horrible piece of collateral that comes with moving. First of all, you have to tidy up the clutter that has gathered around the house since the day you moved in. No matter how tidy you think you’ve kept the house, there’s always more. Looked behind the sideboard? The plant pot? Under the sofa? There’ll be more behind the desk, all those little things that have been knocked off over the years. Good luck picking up all of that rubbish.
2. Estate Agents. Widely regarded as the slippery eel career, a nasty necessity of the moving business. First of all you have to show a number of them around your house, just so you can see how much money they think that they can get out of the poor sod who has to buy your house. Then you hand over a key to them. The equivalent of handing the key to heaven to Lucifer, but with slighty less ramifications to all humanity.
3. Having people look round your house*. So, you’ve tidied your house, chosen the most ambitious estate agent, now you just have to do one little thing. Find someone who actually wants to buy it. Hmm. That means having people look round. Which means polishing every visible surface until you can see the inevitable fly in the air, hovering around the house and not wanting to leave. Then you leave the house in the hope that the estate agent doesn’t scare off any potential buyers, and that the fly hasn’t started breeding.
4. The post-visit call from the estate agent. So, did the people like it? Or did they think that the garden wasn’t big enough for the horses that they planned to get? Well, they’re certainly not going to tell you their concerns to your face, they aren’t going to be that impolite. So, you wait for the call from the estate agent to hear what the damage is, and how little they want to move into your house. So you then repeat steps 3 and 4 until, mercifully, someone decides that they want to buy the house. Then you get more problems for your trouble.
5. Finding a house. So, you’ve finally managed to sell your house. But, it has taken so long, you’ve lost the original ambition and optimism that arrive with putting the house on the market, when you scouted around for suitable houses. All the houses that looked to be perfect were sold months ago, so you now have to find something that will always pale to that ideal house which you had found. It now becomes a slog as you look round house after house, all with their flaws. Until you give up and go for the least bad house.
6. Moving Day. I consider myself a veteran of moving days. Having experienced 7 of these in the 17 years of my life, I’m getting bored of them, to say the least. First, you have to make sure that you have packed everything away in the correct boxes and that they’re sealed up and marked correctly. Then, check that you haven’t left something important and expensive, but small, say, a camera or gold plated iPod, lying in a corner somewhere, waiting to be left behind and found by the next family to live in what was your house. Then you have the fun moment of arriving at the new house and checking through every box to make sure that the removal men haven’t broken anything valuable, say, some expensive china crockery given to your parents as a wedding gift 20 years ago. Then you get to unpack. Fun.
*7. The surprise visit. The worst nightmare of any prospective homeseller. The people who “happened to be in the area” with the estate agent decide, on a whim, to have a look round your house. You’re lucky if you get a phone call half an hour before they arrive. So, you have a mad panic to make the house presentable, which, inevitably, doesn’t help much. So you edge around the house while they look round, trying to avoid confrontation, where they may ask what sort of fire is in the hearth, when it is clearly an open fire. This is where a buyer bunker would come in handy. You’d stick it in the bottom of the garden, underground. You could kit it out with all that you need, a digital radio so you can listen to Test Match Special and a packet of Hobnobs.
I know what you’re thinking, ‘Blimey! He’s gone for the impossible post!’ To think like that though, is to underrate my brilliance. Or is it naivety? Either way I am going to do what Andy Murray’s PR Agency has consistently failed to do. Make the miserable, moaning, anti-English, I-don’t-wanna-play-for-the-Davis-Cup-team, tennis supremo, look amiable. Wish me luck.
1. He Always Comes Back. At least when Murray loses, he fronts up, comes back and takes the flack. And you can’t say that about all Scots. Anyone seen that Scottish Prime Minister we once had?
2. Money Is Nothing To Him. Andy has confirmed that he would happily play tennis for free. Which is tremendous of him. I would like to announce here and now that I wish to take him up on his offer. All prize money should now be sent to me. Thanks.
3. Judy Murray. If you don’t like Andy, start now. You are disliking the wrong Murray. Judy is the annoying one. She is the one who thinks Wimbledon is too traditional. And she’s smug. It’s not a good combination. I just look at her and feel annoyed. Try it. It makes you respect Andy. I mean, he has to put up with her all the time.
4. He Has Restraint. You have to hand it to Andy, how he hasn’t punched Gary Richardson yet is something of a miracle. Along with 90% of the nation, he always looks like he wants to. Whenever he tries to walk from the practice courts to the locker-room, Richardson is there, asking stupid bloody questions. ‘How did practice go today, Andy?’, ‘How are you going to play today, Andy?’, ‘Are they your balls Andy?’. And if that’s not enough, Richardson then does the immediate post-match interview, which, without fail, goes like this, ‘Well done. You’ve won. What’s your reaction?’ Come to think of it, if Murray thumped him then I’d probably like him even more.
5. COME ON! Remember the days of the Tim Henman fist clench and the whispered, ‘Come on!’? We all used to hate that. We all wanted him to show a bit more emotion. With Murray comes emotion. When Henman won a great point, he’d clench his fist, look to his mother and father and jog to his chair. Then he’d realise it was only 15-40 and he still had two break-points to save. With Murray, it’s completely different. When he has played a great point he’ll come back out of the crowd, scream about Bonnie Prince Charlie, show his muscles and generally get pumped up. In fact, we get to see Murray at his most excitable point. I pity his girlfriend.
6. He’s Due. I don’t mean a Grand Slam, I mean a smile. The fact is though, that Murray isn’t going to smile until he’s got what he wants. England’s footballers were smiling having been beaten by Germany. Idiots. I only want smiling when you’ve won something. Something major. This is surely what Murray is waiting for. I have faith that he has a great big smile. If we all like him and get behind him, he might just show it to us one day. Possibly on Sunday?
7. He’s Our Only Hope. The fact remains that without Murray, Briton’s have no one to support. You may as well support me for all the other British players coming through the ranks. And you really should be thankful to Murray that you don’t have to do that. Despite what people say, my drop-volley really isn’t worth your applause.
