7 Reasons

Tag: 20

  • 7 Reasons Not To Buy The Canadian Mint’s Royal Wedding Coins

    7 Reasons Not To Buy The Canadian Mint’s Royal Wedding Coins

    7 Reasons readers, news has reached us – a mere week after it reached the rest of the world – that Canada has decided to commemorate the wedding of Kate and William by minting (never let it be said that we don’t know technical terms here at 7 Reasons) some commemorative coins.  Here they are below these words (or above them if your internet is on the blink), and here are seven reasons not to buy them.

    Commemorative coins celebrating William and Kate's royal marriage, 2011

    1.  Because You Have Eyes.  Right about now, you’re probably going through the same thought process that I went through earlier.  Oh.  My.  God.  How have I never noticed this before?  My monitor has a sapphire stuck to it.  But I bought it from a respectable electrical retailer, not from the JJB Poundworld House of Crap.  It wasn’t there yesterday.  Has Kerry Katona snuck in and accessorised my screen in the night?  My God, what if the neighbours see it?  Or my in-laws?  They’d point at me in the street! I must get it off before people in shell-suits start complimenting me on the bloody thing…but wait…it’s not stuck to the screen at all.  It’s on the coin!  They’ve stuck it to the groom! The Canadian Mint have pimped Prince William and Pimp-Daddy Wills, he ballin’; he cash-money baby fo’ sho’. Move over, Fiddy Cent, His Royal Highness Twenny Dollars is in da house and all you bitches can suck his bad royal ass.

    2.  Because It’s Weird.  I have been unable to find a satisfactory explanation as to why Canada have taken it upon themselves to pimp Prince William.  According to the BBC, the sapphire is there to “symbolise the bride’s engagement ring”.  Now, I’m a married man, and my wife has a sapphire engagement ring, but we’re not royal, and, while I appreciate that they do things a little differently to the rest of us, at no point during our engagement did I have to wear a giant version of my wife’s (then fiancé’s) engagement ring affixed to my tie.  This is just as well, as women should never marry men who dress like Liberace’s gaudier cousin.  Nor should men.  Nor should anyone.

    3.  Because (if you haven’t poked them out while looking at the $20 coin) You Still Have Eyes. The bejewelled coin is gaudy, but the twenty-five cent coin seems to have come straight from the section of the Canadian Mint marked Argos.  It’s got a photo of the happy couple on it.  A coin.  With a photo stuck to it.  Because engraving a second coin would apparently be too much trouble for an organisation that works in the field of coin manufacture.  I don’t know what things are like in Canada, but where I live, if you find a picture stuck to your coin it’s an advert for a minicab firm, or for a bar with a drinks promotion involving WKD or Carling.  Canada: Coins are not photograph albums, and nor are they pieces of jewellery.  Coins are coins*.

    4.  The Free Market.  Don’t just take my judgement on these coins.  Well, you can, it will save you time if you just choose to agree with me as you won’t have to read the rest of this reason (the more sceptical amongst you will still have to) but the market has spoken.  According to the BBC, the twenty dollar coin – the one on the right – will cost you a hundred and five dollars.  But its value is still only twenty dollars.  So it costs eighty-five dollars more than it’s worth.  Or a hundred and five dollars more than it’s worth if you buy it with the lights on.  The market has spoken.

    5.  Because You Can’t Dry Your Royal Wedding Mug With Them.  In order to have longevity, a royal souvenir has to have a practical application.  In that way, the event is kept in the popular consciousness for a very long time.  I’m sure we all have great aunts and grandparents who still regularly dry their coronation mugs with royal wedding tea-towels and many of us learned about modern royal history by seeing those items as children.  The only practical application these coins have is that we will learn never to go to Canada (in case they pimp us too) and we’ll probably be able to purchase spinning wheel trims for a Vauxhall Cavalier with them, or one of those singing fish picture things.

    6.  Because I Beseech You.  Don’t buy these coins because – despite the random stones and pictures stuck to them – they’re still coins.  And where do all coins end up?  Yes, in my house down the back of the sofa.  Absolutely all coins end up in that sofa, and we don’t want them.  We have an innocent child in the house that we’re trying to protect from seeing such things.  Please, please don’t buy them!

    7.  What! Why are you still here?  Do you really need a seventh reason?  Fine, in that case, go back to the top of the page and look at them again then!  O Canada, what have you done?

     

    *To coin a phrase.

     

  • 7 Reasons Saint Peter Won’t Call Your Name, Chris.

    7 Reasons Saint Peter Won’t Call Your Name, Chris.

    Today I am not writing about marmite, but I am writing about Coldplay. I imagine you have a similar reaction to each. For those of you who now feel nauseous, let me put you at ease. When I say I am writing about Coldplay, I am actually addressing Chris Martin. Yes, I thought that might make you feel better. In what is arguably Coldplay’s finest effort, Viva La Vida, Christopher sings the lyric, ‘For Some Reason I Can’t Explain, I Know Saint Peter Won’t Call My Name’. For ‘some’ reason? No, no, no, Christopher! For ‘7′ Reasons. And they are as follows. (Includes explanations). Oh, and if you are one of the three people who have never heard the song, you can watch the Coldplay – Viva La Vida video. Here. Come back though, won’t you? You have things to read.

    7 Reasons Saint Peter Won't Call Your Name, Chris

    1.  Crimes Against Music. I’m not talking about Coldplay (I actually enjoy your stuff), I am referring to your decision to take part in Band Aid 20. Your bit was alright, but couldn’t you have taken Dizzee Rascal out for a pint and locked him in a cupboard? Just for the afternoon. Perhaps you could have also taken Bono with you.

    2.  Distance. I suspect if Saint Peter does decide to call your name, he won’t actually ‘call your name’. I am assuming you believe that Saint Peter is in Heaven and thus he will be calling from there? Now, despite hoping – and indeed believing (no matter how irrational that belief is) – that such a place does exist, I have absolutely no idea where it is. Though logic dictates that it is a fair old distance from here. And hopefully even further from Slough. As a result, Saint Peter is far more likely to send you a letter. Probably same-day delivery.

    3.  House! Christopher, you seem to have the idea that Saint Peter calls out names as if he is hosting a night at Gala Bingo. While I am sure this would greatly amuse the other saints, I doubt very much it happens in such a way. I suspect he just waits until someone gracefully falls asleep and then whispers his name. Otherwise you’d get loads of people saying, ‘I thought I was going to die, then some git shouted my name and I woke up!’

    4.  Chris Martin! You seem to be suggesting that Saint Peter decides when it’s time you kick the bucket. And once he has decided he shouts out your name. I can’t believe this to be the case. I can’t believe Saint Peter is that selective. If he has any savvy – and as he is a Saint he no doubt has bountiful – he probably looks down on us and watches us do the deed for him. ‘There goes another one. He kicked the bucket, tripped over and fell off the cliff’. And Chris, I don’t think you’re going to fall off a cliff.

    5.  Lots Of People. I am not sure what powers Saint Peter has, but he’s going to have to be Paul Daniels, Derren Brown and Professor Charles Francis Xavier all rolled into one to remember every single one of the earth’s inhabitant’s names. I venture that what he actually does is have a sneaky look at your passport as you enter Heaven immigration control.

    6.  Rota Systems. It is generally accepted that 156,000 people die everyday. That’s about one every 1.8 seconds. I don’t believe that Saint Peter has the stamina to sit there all day everyday shouting out names. When does he sleep? He must have other saints who help him out. Probably two others so that they do eight hour shifts. And that is not to mention the 28 days of annual leave Saint Peter gets. So really there is something like a 1 in 5 chance that it will be Saint Peter who will call your name. It could well be Saint Paul, Saint Bert, Saint Bob or Paris Saint Germain.

    7.  Sore Throat. I am not sure if illness effects saints, but for purposes of me finding a seventh reason to write, we shall say they do. And rather annoyingly for them, they suffer from horrendously bad sore throats. So bad in fact that they can’t speak. Or sing. Or call. I don’t need to finish this reason off. You get the idea.