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Guest Post: 7 Reasons The United States of America is Better Than Great Britain

Today we are joined on the 7 Reasons sofa by Simon Best who, when he isn’t committing treason or thinking about trains, is a Youth Worker. Simon’s fantastic tweets can be found here. They are as fine a guide to tasteful living as you will find anywhere.

1. The Weather. In Britain we love talking about the weather but, frankly, the British weather is pathetic, insipid and dull. For 5/6 of the year the weather in Britain is predominantly cloudy; In America they get real weather – winters with feet of snow, scorching hot summers and spectacular fall colours. They might not make a great fuss about it but America actually has proper seasons rather than shades of grey with slight temperature variations.

2. Television. Yes, we have the BBC, and American TV is frequently accused of dumbing-down and being full of cynical product placement; It is also true that the Jerry Springer Show originated in America, but while they have given Britain television masterpieces like the Sopranos, the Wire and Sesame Street, we have given them Wife Swap and Simon Cowell. On behalf of the nation I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all Americans for this affront to your dignity.

3. Roads. As America is the nation of the automobile this might not be a surprising inclusion, but I’m not talking about the quality of the tarmac. Roads and road trips are part of American life. From Kerouac to Chuck Berry, from travelling salesmen to wandering preachers, American roads have enriched western culture; Britain has contributed Chris Rea singing about the M25. It is also impossible to imagine anyone getting excited about a road trip from Plymouth to Inverness, driving the same distance as a journey from Chicago to Memphis – a journey anyone would rather make. In America you can drive for hours and only see four guys with shotguns in a Ford pickup; you’re likely to spend most of any UK road trip stuck behind a caravan driven by someone called Maurice who wears string-backed driving gloves. Drive from Land’s End to John o’Groats and that East17 album your ex put on your iPod is bound to repeat at least 3 times. You can drive across the USA 25 times without that happening.*

4. Music. America is often derided for the schmaltz of Country and Western and the aggression of rap, but it has produced many of the finest musicians ever: The Beach Boys, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Miles Davis, Rock and Roll, Pop, Blues and Jazz were all born in America. America has given the world its record collection. Britain gave America Acker Bilk and Leo Sayer (who both amazingly reached number 1 in the Billboard top 100). Obviously we gave you The Beatles and The ‘Stones too, but they were just copying black American music.

5. Pancakes. American pancakes are, plainly and simply, superior to British pancakes; Thick, fluffy and the size of a plate, they’re delicious with maple syrup. No wonder they eat them all year round. Here in Britain we have our pathetic thin and flimsy efforts once a year – with a lemon.

6. Sporting Spectacular . Americans know how to do sporting spectaculars. The Super Bowl is the American Football equivalent of the FA Cup Final, yet as an event it is more comparable to the Last Night of the Proms and the Lord Mayor’s Show with the viewing figures of a royal wedding. Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Prince and U2 have played the Superbowl half-time; Wembley gets the marching band of the Coldstream Guards and some majorettes. The opening ceremony for the Los Angeles Olympics featured a man arriving on a jet-pack, the best Britain has achieved was the opening ceremony for the 1999 Cricket World Cup when the fireworks failed to go off, Tony Blair’s microphone fused in the rain and Prince Philip spoke. It’s a good thing that China doesn’t play cricket. There is a serious risk that when London 2012 starts, the Olympic torch will be carried into the stadium by Boris Johnson on his bike.

7. Monuments & Memorials . There’s really no contest here. The United States has the Washington Monument, Mount Rushmore and a 500 foot high statue of Crazy Horse that is being carved out of a mountain in South Dakota. Britain has Nelson’s column and what else? The Diana Memorial was a shambolic failure that had to close because people kept slipping in the water, in fact, Britain is so bad at building monuments that for much of the past summer we put living people on a plinth in Trafalgar Square; America would have taken this opportunity to commemorate a former President, a Civil War General or a Baseball star. America doesn’t just stop at statues, pretty much everything is a memorial to someone noteworthy: bridges, schools, highways, parks, buildings. Can you imagine Mansfield opening the Richard Bacon Memorial Roundabout or Norwich naming a new underpass after Stephen Fry? No, of course not. In America these fitting tributes would be a stone cold certainty.

*Unsubstantiated. To be tested during the US iPod Challenge, starts October 1st, 2011. Follow them on Twitter.

January 23, 2010
7 Reasons You Know You Are Still A Child At Heart

1. Aversion to Pavements Part 1. There’s a wall a couple of feet high next to the pavement. That looks like a far more entertaining place to walk. Especially as it’s quite thin and so has an element of risk.

2. Aversion to Pavements Part 2. Cracks. They’re disasterous things to have on pavements. You must avoid them. Stepping on the cracks mean you lose the game. And the world implodes.

3. Your Colleague’s Computer. It looks quite inviting when he/she has gone off to the kitchen to make the coffee round. Especially the email account that is open. Wouldn’t it be funny if you were to send an email to that bloke in IT declaring love for him? Yes. It would be hilarious.

4. The Playground. Walking past it is hard work. It’s instinctive to have a quick look around and see who is in the vicinity. How you would love if it there was no one around? You so want to have one last go on the swings. Just to feel that rush again.

5. Children’s TV. Flicking through the channels whilst on holiday you come across Children’s afternoon TV. You smile as you remember the good old days of Grange Hill and Round The Twist and Mr. Benn. You change the channel but something is pulling you back. An hour later you are compelled to the modern-day Blue Peter, but can’t help thinking that it was so much better in your day.

6. Mannerisms. Giving high-fives and calling people dude and saying cool is still part of your everyday routine. And you do it because it’s a bit silly. And silliness is good.

7. Reach For The Stars. You are in a bar when something S Club 7 or Steps-like fills the air. You look at your friends and shake your head and bemoan why you keep coming to this place. Underneath the table though, you are struggling to prevent your foot from tapping and deep inside you are singing along. Loving it.

January 22, 2010
7 Reasons That We Should Run Manchester City

We, the 7 Reasons team, have decided that we should branch out a bit and take on a new challenge. We have no allegiances with Manchester City, but we have some great ideas on how we could improve the running of the club. Here are 7 Reasons that we should run Manchester City.

1. Wisdom. It is oft said that two heads are better than one. There are two of us, and we have one head each. That’s two heads. Roberto Mancini only has one head. Okay, so his is full of football knowledge and experience while our heads are full of words and Jennifer Aniston, but the two heads will make us a better manager than Mancini, conventional wisdom says so. It is also said that many hands make light work. We have twice as many of those as Mancini, so we should be able to make a substantial saving on the electricity bill too.

2. Bellamy. Craig Bellamy is a brilliant footballer and is in the form of his life at the moment. We’re only too aware, however, that he has, in the past, been an unsettling influence in many of the dressing-rooms that he has been in. We want Craig Bellamy in our team, but we don’t necessarily want him in our squad. We will construct a separate dressing-room for Craig Bellamy and hold solo training sessions for him. This way he can continue to play for us on the pitch, but won’t disrupt our squad. We did love it when he was annoying Alan Shearer at Newcastle though. Annoying Alan Shearer should be a sport in its own right.

3. Bell End. No, not Craig Bellamy again. Colin Bell. When the City of Manchester stadium was taken over by Manchester City, their supporters voted overwhelmingly to name an end of the stadium after their hero Colin Bell. The club, after much procrastination, overruled this decision and eventually named the West Stand after him instead. We would reverse their decision and name the North Stand after him, thus creating the Colin Bell End. The West Stand would become The Hat Stand, The East Stand would become The Last Stand and the South Stand would become The South End, as it’s where Manchester United supporters live. We would also reconstruct the car park, with a new lower level parking bay spanned by The Wayne Bridge, which will be vastly expensive and a bit wobbly.

4. Cars. We don’t know why Stephen Ireland does this to cars, but enough is enough. We’re banning him from the car park. If it were within our power to ban him from the road as well, then we would. He will be fined a week’s wages if any Manchester City fan ever sees one of his cars anywhere, and we’ll donate that money to the Royal National Institute for the Blind, who can use it to help car-lovers that have poked their own eyes out after witnessing his automotive abominations.

5. Human Cloning. Carlos Tevez is brilliant. He’s clearly one of the best players on the planet. It’s not so much his skill that makes him amazing to watch, it’s his desire, his energy and his propensity for turning up in every area of the pitch. We will put in place a human cloning programme to clone Tevez. The technology’s almost there already so it won’t be too many years before we’re able to field a whole team of Carlos Tevez, from 1-11. Not only will they be able to outrun and outplay the opposition, they’ll also scare them silly. What’s more, our Tevez Cloning Facility will be based in England, which will ensure that the national team will be successful for years to come too. In order to guard all of the silverware that we’re going to win, we’ll manufacture Tevez security guards – possibly with wings and/or hooves – to guard the trophy room. We will rule the football world and, eventually, we may use an army of them to take over the actual world. Try not to concern yourself about that though.

6. Scarves. At least 50% of the 7 Reasons team already own a sky blue scarf, so there’ll be no need for all of the supporters to go out and buy yet another new scarf in imitation of us. We will also implement a new rule that nobody may knot their scarf in the same way as the person seated next to them. That will introduce variety into the stands, because frankly, we were a little freaked out when we watched them play last Tuesday.

7. Advertisments. We can’t top the “Welcome To Manchester” advert. But we will keep it, and put more of them up, everywhere. You won’t be able to walk down the street in Manchester without seeing loads of them. We will also put them up in Manchester, New Hampshire and Manchester, Ohio. The locals won’t have a clue what they’re about, but we don’t care. We just want to use Carlos to frighten them a bit. That’ll teach them to buy our chocolate factories.

January 21, 2010
7 Reasons To Have Milk

1. You can play professional football. Or at least you can play for Accrington Stanley. A club whose trials – according to Ian Rush – include the ability to pass, shoot, head, tackle, swear at the referee and drink milk.

2. It stops you falling over. Milk makes your bones strong. Strong bones mean standing up straight. No one will laugh at you if you stand up straight.

3. The Milk Moustache. I don’t have to put my contacts in to realise that Elizabeth Hurley is a splendidly attractive lady. Though I did have to put them in to work out what was on her top lip in this ad. It’s milk. Definitely milk. I’ll be honest with you, it does something for me. Even more impressive is the choice of glass. Note it’s Hurley-esq shape. Clever. Anyway, drink milk to make a milk moustache and send the photos to us.

4. You’ve just won the Indy 500. Since the late 1930s, the winner of the Indy 500 has been given a bottle of milk to celebrate with. The driver even gets to choose from three different varieties. Whole, 2% or skimmed. I can only assume that caps react in different ways depending on the fat content.

5. You’ve got a banana. Don’t you just hate it when you discover a banana on your person, but no bottle of milk?

6. Play catch-up. Now, whether you think Margaret Thatcher was right to stop free milk for school children is an entirely different debate. Which is probably just as well seeing as I can only think of two reasons why it was a good idea and one reason why it was not. That’s well short of the seven reasons I need. But I digress. The fact is that Maggie did stop the milk. And as a result millions of children missed out on a pint of the white stuff every morning break. It’s time to play catch up before it’s too late.

7. You’ve been lied to. You see those white marks on your fingernails? Well that is leukonychia. The result of a lack of calcium. Or so my parents told me when I was a child of the eighties. I am now 26 and I have just found out that this was a lie. A lie! A lie to make me drink more milk. In the last twenty years I have milked dozens of cows dry just to try and get rid of the imperfections. (The marks on my nails I mean, not the cows). And today, just after I have bought another eight pints, I find out that the white marks are just a result of trapping my finger in a drawer about six months ago. I’m incandescent with rage.

January 20, 2010
7 Reasons to Shop at Sainsbury’s

1. Nectar Points. Sainsbury’s give you lots and lots of Nectar points. They always remind you to hand over your Nectar card and, when Christmas comes, you can exchange your hundreds of thousands of points for a pound off your shopping.

2. Not Tesco. Sainsbury’s isn’t Tesco so you can be fairly sure that your money won’t be contributing to an evil empire’s master-plan for world domination. I once caught a glimpse through the doors of my local Tesco’s stock-room and it was full of stormtroopers. Eventually a man called Garth, wearing a black mask and an aqualung, came and ushered me away. As he escorted me down an aisle of tinned vegetables I asked him, “Which is best, your own-brand baked beans or Heinz?” He pointed at a tin of Branston beans, which floated into my basket, and he said “The sauce is strong with this one”. He was right.

3. Save. In order to do their bit for the environment, Sainsbury’s give you a penny every time you use your own bag. I’ve started using one bag per item. That’s a penny off everything, which is much better than Nectar points.

4. Jamie Oliver. He sounds like the love child of David Bellamy and Janet Street-Porter and looks like the love child of a frog and a toad. He is also the public face of Sainsbury’s, earning millions of pounds a year representing them. Don’t let that put you off shopping there though. With that sort of money, he can afford not to have to do his own shopping so you’ve got no chance of bumping into him there. Besides, he’s actually done some good things. Never mind all that Fifteen stuff or the making children eat healthy food nonsense, he called BBC Radio 5Live’s Victoria Derbyshire a “stupid cow”. And you thought he was an idiot.

5. Toilet light. I’ve never used a toilet in a supermarket. I don’t consume anything while I’m shopping and, as a man, I aim to spend the shortest possible amount of time at the shop, so I’ve only ever witnessed the toilet light from the outside. It would appear that Sainsbury’s fit all of their supermarket toilets with bright ultraviolet toilet lights. The dazzling brilliance of the blue-hued-glow which everything is bathed in whenever the toilet door is opened is astonishing. A friend of mine went into the toilet while I waited for him outside and when he opened the door I had to use my hand to shield my eyes from the glare. When he emerged it looked like one of the final scenes from Close Encounters of The Third Kind. If you’re making a sci-fi movie on a budget then go to Sainsbury’s.

6. Grape Nuts. Sainsbury’s is one of the few shops in the U.K. where you can buy this amazing American breakfast cereal. It’s like malted gravel in milk. Brilliant.

7. Comedy. The automatic doors at my local branch of Sainsbury’s are fantastic. They are the slowest automatic sliding doors in the world and are more entertaining than many spectator sports. Between the shopper arriving at the door and the door opening, there is a four second gap. This is fine if you’re expecting it, you know that you should stop and wait for a bit – I use the time to get my shopping list out. Unsuspecting customers don’t stop though, because no one usually has to stop and wait for an automatic door, and they walk straight into them. If you find watching people walk into doors funny – and I certainly do – then my local branch of Sainsbury’s is the one to shop at. They even have a handily placed seating area next to the doors that you can spectate from. You won’t find that at Asda.

January 19, 2010
7 Reasons To Watch The 2010 Australian Open

1. The Men. All the big guns are there. Nadal isn’t moaning about his back. Federer isn’t crying. Del Potro has stopped growing. Murray has smiled a couple of times. It should be a classic. It probably won’t be, but it should be.

2. The Women. The most popular Belgian exports since Tintin and Snowy will be taking part. That’s right, it’s Miss Henin and Miss Clijsters. You can decide who is who. What a relief it is to have someone other than a Williams or a player whose surname ends with the letter ‘A’ to watch.

3. Goodbye Aussie, Goodbye. That’s to the tune of ‘Let’s go Aussie, let’s go’. I suppose you could do the latter, you just need to shout ‘Home’ afterwards. The state of tennis is Australia is horrendous. I mean it’s almost as bad as it is in the UK. And that’s bad. But at least in Andy Murray, the UK has a chance. Even if that chance would rather win for Scotland or Murrayville. Australia’s hopes remain with Lleyton Hewitt – a man who would probably struggle to beat me while I prance around pretending to be Greg Rusedski – and Samantha Stousr – a lovely girl, but not one who will make it past the 4th Round. It’s great!

4. Two Weeks. Two weeks is a nice time for a tournament. Not too long, but long enough to get us out of January. It hasn’t been a great month for anyone really. It just got worse for me. My toast landed butter side down.

5. Sex Appeal. I don’t care what you say. I am shallow. Female tennis players are hot. The good news is that Australia is also hot and so they may entertain the idea of wearing fewer clothes. I suppose the men might do it too. Not that I understand why anyone would care.

6. Commentary. I am not sure how I’m going to do it, but I must find myself a feed to watch a couple of the 1st Round match-ups. Not because they’ll be classics, but because the commentators are going to be stuttering and spitting all over the place. And as long as they are not spitting over me that sounds like fun. Phillip Krohlschreiber v Horacio Zeballos. A complete mouthful. Then we have Kimikio Date Krumm v Yaroslava Shvedova. Seriously, who names their daughter ‘Date’?

7. Women’s Final. This year it will last more than twenty minutes. I promise. Last year’s final was so quick that by the time one of the ball boys had retrieved a stray ball, Safina was already taking her make-up off. This won’t happen again. If it looks like an even remote possibility, the organisers will deploy their streakers. A reason to watch in itself.

January 18, 2010
Russian Roulette Sunday: The Words Behind The Words Behind The Reasons.

It’s Russian Roulette Sunday and this week we thought we’d give you a flavour of the creative process that goes into 7 Reasons. A lot of correspondence is generated through the running of this website – much of it more bizarre than the stuff we usually post. It entertains us, so we thought we’d post an out of context glimpse at it. We’ve been inspired to do this by the brilliant internet phenomenon, sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com. It seems that the entire world has being reading that. We’re pretty sure that there are octogenarian Japanese soldiers on desert islands still fighting World War II, unaware that it has ended, that have been reading that blog this week. We’d like to pay homage to them by bringing you…(Deep movie-trailer voice)

The Words Behind The Words Behind The Reasons

“Interestingly, if you swap the H and M around from Helen Mead you get Melen Head.”

“A siren is audible in the background when my name is mentioned. This is unsettling.”

“I have no other feedback, but I am conditioned to working in sevens.”

“Sorry for the length of this email, it was meant to be short. I suppose anything is better than putting tinsel up”

“I don’t care if I am deemed to be a bad sport.”

“The current situation is that I am a genius and everything is working again.”

“I loathe revisionism, but I think it’s justified…I’m pretty sure that no one will notice if it disappears.”

“If I haven’t tweeted by about midday tomorrow, it is not because I’m not near a computer, it is because I’m spinning the tag cloud around. I find the way that it moves absolutely mesmerising. In fact, I’m off to play with it now.”

“You’ve probably grasped the concept just by looking at the picture. It’s a tombola”

“While writing this I came up with a fifth possible (and became Donald Rumsfeld).”

“You basically want to steal my Jolly Interesting ideas and pass them off as 7 Reasons’ own? I like your style.”

“Then I went to the bathroom and had an idea. I wasn’t even in the bath, just near it.”

“Anything with a half naked woman goes down well with me. Even a photoshopped half-naked woman. She’s like our mascot.”

“There is always a rogue apostrophe. Just like a Bond Villain would leave a bullet, I leave an apostrophe. It’s my calling card.”

“Surprisingly enough I do have a postal address. Are you sending me a mug?”

“I don’t know what the opposite of “hurrah” is, but imagine that it says that here.”

“You’ve been on fire this week. Thirteen hours early sometimes, but on fire.”

“Realising a tie points to your penis and using it as a comedic observation is quirky; Realising a tie points to your penis and looking it up on the internet is weird. A fine line, admittedly.”

“I have just broken the internet. Nice touch!”

“I retire.”

“I believe that I have addressed all of the things that I needed to and more (except for thumbs)”

“I’m fairly certain that we can say the wrong thing seven more times.”

“Feel free to do a celebratory dance.”

“Being back at my parents who live without wi-fi means I may be slow when it comes to replying to emails. Or I may just be ignoring you.”

“…we can announce that the 2010 logo will be auricularly-challenged Post-Impressionist painter, Vincent Van Gogh.”

“Sarah, via the medium of the comments section, is criticising your “leavc” typo in the post…you might also want to swap the “Ike” for “Icke”, “Barak” for “Barack” and “Lettermen” for “Letterman” which she has failed to notice, before she does.”

“Congratulations on being a genius. It feels good doesn’t it?”

“Didn’t I suggest a film the other week? Stop stealing the best ideas.”

“I have some issues with you ending up with Sandra Bullock and me getting the eye from what could be an amorous polar bear confused by my strange hat/scarf thing (a harf? A scat?), it doesn’t look like that will end well.”

“They are on my browser. Maybe your computer was just cold last night.”

“Aryan Fraulein dating sounds like a niche market to me, but maybe one we could exploit.”

“My body may sleep, the 7 Reasons portion of my brain does not.”

“I can’t overstate how categorically The Great Outdoors and Cliffhanger_1 aren’t there.”

“I’ll be standing on the desk, arms aloft, running around impersonating an aeroplane and at least two other things.”

“You’re like Richard Bacon to my Arlo White.”

“Ask the next person you see to pat you on the back. That should work.”

“I always feel out of my comfort zone writing about sport. Norman Mailer wrote about sport. Hemingway wrote about sport. It’s quite intimidating company.”

“You’re like Lynne Truss to my er..Lynne Truss.”

“I have no problem with you leaving the apology in, you’ll be pleased to know. I accept it.”

“I was hoping that we might “break” America. That we’ve gone over well in Widnes is scant consolation, though I concede that it would be bloody funny if it happened to someone else, or in a sitcom.”

January 17, 2010
Guest Post: 7 Reasons The Wedding Day Can Go Wrong

Today’s guest post is written by esteemed American Architect Nicholas Kennedy, who, as well as being instrumental in the building of the Burj Khalifa, is also a newly married man. Inspired by his experiences on the day, here are 7 Reasons why the Wedding Day can go wrong. You can follow him on twitter here.

1. The Date. Choosing New Years Eve as the day of your wedding may seem like a good idea at the time, but in hindsight it’s a total nightmare, especially when you consider ours was in New York City. The place is packed. The transport links are slow. There is snow everywhere. Having your aunt and uncle enter the church half way through the service is never good.

2. The Ring. Remembering to get the ring for your soon-to-be-wife to the church is one thing, remembering to wear yours later at the reception is another. Taking it off after the ceremony so you can have a shower is accepted. Forgetting to put it back on is not apparently.

3. The Best Man’s Speech. The best man is usually your brother or best friend. If possible give it to your brother. Not having a brother meant I had to give it to my best friend. This means he just makes up a whole load of crap. I do not have any wives in Dubai.

4. The Groom Speech. It doesn’t matter how long you have practised for or how many rewrites you have made, you will be prone to nerves. So much so that trying to get the words out of your mouth without swallowing them is quite hard. At least that’s what I found.

5. The Sister. She can do any number of things to try and ruin your day. Mine decided to sneeze throughout the service.

6. The Bridesmaid. If you are my new wife your best female friends are quite short. This means they like to wear high heels, particularly if they are a bridesmaid. The problem is that high heels can snap off if they get lodged in a drain outside the church. It’s the Best Man’s job to carry superglue, unfortunately mine was too busy working on his ‘jokes’.

7. The Seating Arrangements At The Reception. Leave this type of thing to the fiancee or the future mother-in-law. If you get involved you will end up trying to separate parents from their four year old daughter. Something that doesn’t go down at all well.

January 16, 2010
7 Reasons to Hate the Thaw

1. Brown. The thaw is brown. Everything is muddy, slushy and brown. The grit that was scattered onto the snowy roads and pavements and is now visible, is brown. The river is brown. The bare trees are brown, the uncovered grass is brown, Gordon is Brown. Nothing good is brown (except beverages and beverage based desserts, obviously).

2. Slush. When the snow is on the ground it’s a pure, blank canvas which will be affected in an obvious way by whatever is on top of it. When it melts, however, it’s just a brown, wet slushy mass. We all know what’s in yellow snow, but we’re not sure what’s in all those brown slushy puddles. What is it? It could be anything. It’s slush, but it’s not blue and doesn’t taste of cherry, which is a big disappointment.

3. Snowmen. The streets are full of dying snowmen. Is there anything sadder than that? They are like urban, wintery versions of Ozymandias, whose power and grandeur and gilded age has passed into ruination and decay. Soon they will be a distant memory as they assume the form of an old, discarded hat and some twigs scattered on the ground. My neighbour’s snow-penis is also looking distinctly unimpressive at the moment. Perhaps I should forward to him some of the many emails I receive offering me Viagra.

4. Nice. The snow is a special time. With the passing of the snow the nicety will go. When you encounter a neighbour walking down your snow-covered street in a blizzard you generally smile at each other, glance skyward and tut. When you encounter police with their riot shields out in the snow they’re using them for sledging.

With the thaw, when you bump into your neighbours, they will scowl at you as usual, or worse, they will converse with you. When you encounter police with their riot shields out they will beat you to death as usual, or worse, they will usher you into the Ricoh Arena.

5. Balls. When the snow goes, the local ne’er-do-wells will be unable to pelt cars, buses and cyclists with snowballs containing rocks. They will, instead, pelt cars, buses and cyclists with rocks. Not only will this cause more damage, but it will rob passers-by of the strange spectacle of a bunch of youths with their tracksuit-bottoms tucked into their white socks, apparently floating eight inches above the ground while assaulting the traffic.

6. Sledging. When the snow is gone sledging is difficult, if not impossible.

7. Disruption. Disruption to services is forgivable in the snow as, well, it’s the snow! Everything is good in the snow. Now that the snow is thawing, however, disruption to services is annoying and unforgiveable. Especially these bins that have been blocking this path for a week. Expect to see this picture again in 7 Reasons my Neighbours Should be put to Death. Idiots.

January 15, 2010
7 Reasons To Use A Phone Box

1. You’re A Superhero. This only applies to people called Clark, Peter or Jonathan, but even so. It is fully acceptable to pull red pants over your blue lycra body suit in a phone box, providing you have one of these names and are in some way associated with a newspaper. You could be a journalist, a photographer or pick up a copy of the Evening Standard on the way home each day.

2. You Need Shelter. Rain. Snow. Hail. Nuclear Bomb. Get in a phone box and wait until it has passed. If you are in flip-flops make sure you watch out for the syringes.

3. You’re Foreign. If there is one thing you need to do as a visitor to Great Britain it is to have your photo taken next to or in one of our red phone boxes. I am not sure why you have a such a fascination with them, they pretty much do the same job as a grey phone box, but I am not going to stand in your way. Most of the people in this country have moved onto mobile phones these days so it is nice to see someone using them.

4. You Need To Promote Your Business. Phone boxes are perfect if you want to stick up a flyer or business card. The main advantage of using a phone box is that it’s free, the disadvantage is that you will have a lot of competition. The best way of standing out from the crowd is to reduce your ridiculously high hourly rates.

5. You Don’t Own A Mobile. This may sound obvious, but I have lost count of the number of times someone has walked up to me and said, “Sorry mate, I have forgotten my phone. Can I borrow yours for a minute?” Don’t ask me for my phone. The chances are you are going to run off with it. Go and try and steal a phone box instead. And make sure you bend your knees. They are bloody heavy.

6. You Are Embarrassed To Make That Call At Home. I speak from personal experience here. When I was younger I used to ask girls out with frightening regularity. Not because I was very, very horny, but because the vast majority rejected me so I just had to move on to the next one. The idea of asking a girl out in earshot of my parents terrified me though, so I used to walk down to the local phone box with 10p in my hand (yes, it was that long ago) and then spend twenty minutes building up the courage to call my latest crush. Two minutes later I walked home poorer and heartbroken.

7. You Need To Get Your Hat Back. It’s such a bore when you are walking along the road and suddenly someone flies by, grabs your hat and chucks it atop the nearest phone box. Five minutes later the Police have pulled up and are asking you to get down from its roof. This also applies to bus stops.

January 14, 2010