7 Reasons

Tag: 7 reasons

  • 7 Reasons The British Obsession With Weather Is A Myth

    7 Reasons The British Obsession With Weather Is A Myth

    This evening sees a new programme come to BBC One. It’s called The Great British Weather and features Alexander Henry Fenwick Armstrong, Chris Hollins and Carol Kirkwood telling us why we are obsessed with weather. Well, let us tell you something right now. We aren’t. And that’s ‘we’ in royal sense too. We really aren’t. It’s a complete myth. Here’s why:

    7 Reasons The British Obsession With Weather Is A Myth
    1.  Greeting. It is often commented upon that talk of the weather is the first topic of conversation one enters when meeting someone else. That is certainly true here at 7 Reasons sofaquarters. When Marc and I park our posteriors on the cushions of destiny our first acknowledgement is that we arrived rather wet. Or, if it’s not Summer, rather dry. This is not because we particularly care about the weather, it’s because this is how the British greet each other. The Americans comment on how many pancakes they had that morning, the Japanese comment on how tall they are feeling and the French snog each other. It’s an ice-breaker.

    2.  Meaning. The word ‘obsession’ means, according to my sources, the domination of one’s thoughts. To dominate your thoughts I reckon the subject must be thought about at least 50% of the time. And if that failed to make sense, read the next sentence – it’s much clearer. For someone to be obsessed with the weather they need to be thinking of the weather more than twelve hours a day. And not even South East Today’s weather girl, Kaddy-Lee Preston, does that. I know this because she likes break dancing, techno music and goats. And as I am sure you’ll know, when you’ve got goats on the brain there is simply not enough time to get obsessed with weather.

    3.  Stats. In a Daily Telegraph article last October, Murray Wardrop (apparently the unthinking man’s Murray Walker) said this, ‘Our obsession with the weather runs so deep that almost 70% of British people check the weather forecast at least once a day’. No Murray dear, this is not because we are obsessed, it is because we don’t want to wear our Bermuda shorts if it’s going to be a monsoon out there. I go to the fridge at least five times a day. Does this make me obsessed with the little light that goes on and off as I open and close the door? I think not.

    4.  Observation. “Good gracious,” I exclaimed, “she’s a big girl!” Those are the very words I used the other day when watching a TV programme. I can’t remember what it was, but I remember the big girl. Now, I didn’t say these words because I am obsessed with big girls. I’m not. Nor am I obsessed with small girls if that’s what you are wondering. In fact I never have been. Except when I was small myself. It seemed acceptable then. Anyway, I seem to be veering from the point. The reason I exclaimed that there was a big girl on the TV is because I was surprised. I genuinely wasn’t expecting someone quite so vuluptuous to appear right there, right then. Which is why I felt the need to announce my observation to anyone who would listen. It is exactly the same situation as if I had looked to my left and noticed whites flakes. “Good gracious,” I would have exclaimed, “it’s snowing in July!”. The line between observation and obsession is so vast I am astounded people can blur it so readily.

    5.  Media. Remember the Big Freeze last year that killed 60,000 people? No, neither do I. Though that is what the Sunday Express sensationally suggested.

    7 Reasons The British Obsession With Weather Is A Myth

    It’s the British tabloid press that are obsessed with the weather and sadly we, the public, are tarred with the same brush. I suppose we should be thankful that the revelations of the last few weeks mean The Sunday Express are very unlikely to continue hacking Michael Fish’s phone.

    6.  Popular Culture. The film The Day After Tomorrow – which was pretty much an entire celebration of extreme weather – brought in just over £25 Million at the UK box office. In the same year Spider-Man 2 brought in nearly £1.5 Million more. Admitedly the film did feature Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head, but if you are suggesting we went to watch it just because of that I won’t believe you. Just to be on the safe side though, Shrek 2 brought is nearly £48 Million in the UK alone. And at no point is the weather mentioned. So I think that proves, in 2004 at least, Brits were more obsessed by Cameron Diaz looking like a green ugly thing than the weather.

    7.  Me. If the British obsession with the weather wasn’t a myth; if it were as true as you and I existing on this very day; if we all loved rain and shine and celebrated each as we celebrate our birthday. Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, and – which is more  – you’ll be a Man, my son! Then I wouldn’t be wasting my morning writing about the blasted thing would I?

    *The Great British Weather starts on BBC One tonight at 7.30pm. Yay!

  • 7 Reasons That Seven Is Called Seven (probably)

    7 Reasons That Seven Is Called Seven (probably)

    Okay, people.  You can’t have failed to have noticed that David and Victoria Beckham have had a daughter and that they’ve named her Harper Seven Beckham (unless you get your news from the News of the World, in which case time stopped yesterday).  Now, we all understand why the Beckhams have named their daughter Harper; it’s because they’re aficionados that have been inspired by the American literary canon (and who amongst us wouldn’t rate Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird as a seminal work), but most people have been a bit nonplussed by their selection of the second-name Seven.  As of yet, there’s been no official word on what the fuck they were thinking how they selected their newborn’s middle moniker so, in the best traditions of 7 Reasons (.org), we’re going to flail around and speculate wildly.  Here are seven reasons that Seven is called Seven (probably).

    1.  They’re Big Fans!  Well, we had no idea and frankly we’re a little overwhelmed and very flattered.  You see, we have a number of American readers, though we know very little about them, we just know that we are read regularly in America.  So, it’s possible that David and Victoria love our website and have named their daughter after us.  After all, it’s easily possible that homesick Brits abroad would love to keep up with what’s going on at home and why wouldn’t the Beckhams want to know when one of the team gets stuck in a revolving door or the other one buys a new laundry bin?  There’s no reason that they wouldn’t want to know that.  None at all.  Of course they’ve named their daughter after us.

    2.  Conception.  The Beckhams are noted for naming their children for the place where they were conceived: Brooklyn was conceived in Brooklyn; Romeo was conceived in the back of an Alfa Romeo; Cruz was conceived on a cruise (spelling apparently isn’t their strong suit) and it’s easily possible that their latest child was conceived in hotel room number 7 somewhere, or (in a variation on the theme) at seven o’clock, or while watching Channel 7 (Australia).  Or perhaps she was conceived near the River Severn.  Whatever it is, it could be about the conception.

    3.  Dwarves.  I know a bit about newborn babies – being the curator of one myself – and one of the most striking things about them is that they are tiny.  Really, really little.  Perhaps, as the Beckhams held their wee bundle in their arms, they looked at her and thought isn’t she small?   Let’s call her Small.  No, we can’t call her small, that would be silly.  People will make fun.  We’re going to have to take a more sophisticated approach than that.  Let’s be clever.  Let’s take the concept of small and be a little more oblique.  What else is small?  Dwarves!  Let’s call her Sleepy!  Or Dopey!  No, we can’t call her that; it spoils a potential nickname.  Let’s be a tad circumlocutory when we reference the dwarves.  Got it!   We’ll call her Seven.

    4.  Keeping Track.  In the manner of farmers painting numbers on the sides of their cows (which is essentially a rural version of tagging perpetrated by ruddy-faced tweed-wearers in fields), it’s quite important to keep track of your herd.  With the addition of Harper Seven Beckham, there will now be six members of the Beckham household.  But thumbs are complex things, and when you’re counting to seven, it’s easy to make a mistake, right?  After all, thumbs are only half the size of your fingers.  Who wouldn’t find that confusing?  Oh yes.  Them.

    5.  Seinfeld.  Okay, so maybe the Beckhams aren’t fans of our site:  That would explain why the limited edition diamond encrusted version of our Blowers t-shirt remains unsold.  But perhaps they are fans of Seinfeld.  After all, George Costanza’s ideal name for a boy (or a girl) was Seven.  Obviously, Jerry objected, but as he was the least funny thing in his own sitcom so it’s possible that the Beckhams ignored him.  We have too.  George is right.

    6.  Numerology.  In 2011, the number seven is tremendously significant.  We’ve done actual research and have discovered that, for numerologists, the number seven represents all manner of important stuff that we sort of skim-read.  To our untrained eyes, it might appear somewhat similar to every other number and year, but to experts (and who’s to say that the latest celebrity craze isn’t Scientology or Kabbalah and that Posh and Becks aren’t, in fact, Grand High Poobahs of Numerology or Akelas or something ), it’s probably quite meaningful and important.  And interesting.  And had we looked at it closely, it might have seemed profound.

    7.  It’s Not The Worst Name They Could Think Of.  I learned today of a worse baby name than Seven: also worse than Superman; and worse than Adolf.  I discovered that a baby at my son’s baby group is called…Ian.  That’s right, a baby called Ian.  The boy Ian.  Ian the baby.  A name that’s only appropriate for a man in his 50s (or Ian Bell) has been given to tiny child.  What sort of monster would name their child Ian?  Never mind speculating about the name Seven, that’s a question we all need an answer to.

    *The 7 Reasons team would like to congratulate the Beckhams on the occasion of the birth of their daughter, Harper Seven Beckham.  Though we may have derived some humour from their choice of name (we are humourists, after all), we have nothing but admiration for their conduct as parents which, in an age where parenting skills often seem to be lacking amongst such a large section of the population, are an exemplary example to us all.  Congratulations!  But Seven?  Really?

  • 7 Reasons Not To Get Stuck In A Revolving Door

    7 Reasons Not To Get Stuck In A Revolving Door

    We’re in a revolving door. Mid-revolution. But we’re not going anywhere. We are, as the saying goes, stuck. There are eight of us in total. Myself, another man and a woman in our half and a family of five in the other. We’re all looking at each other. And I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.

    7 Reasons Not To Get Stuck In A Revolving Door
    1.  Suspicion. Everyone is looking at me. I am the prime suspect here. Just because I am very close to the glass in front of me. Everyone thinks I touched it. Everyone thinks I stopped the revolving doors. I didn’t. I promise you I didn’t. I’ve had years of practice in these things. I know how to use them. I did not touch the glass. I did not. I try and make every sinew in my face as innocent as possible. But it doesn’t work. Everyone still thinks it was me.

    2.  Blush. And because everyone thinks it was me and because everyone is staring at me, the colour races to my cheeks. I go a little red. Well, probably quite a lot red. Every sinew now suggests I am guilty. A bead of sweat trickles down my arm.

    3.  Backwards Step. I want to hold my ground. I want to prove that it is not my proximity to the glass that has made the doors stop. But we’re not going anywhere. And every split-second that passes feels like a minute. There’s also another problem. I’m in a rush here. I really need to get to the gents. Suddenly my nerve is entangled in a battle of wills with my bladder.

    4.  Realisation. This is pain. This is physical and mental torture. And the only outcome is that I lose. Either I move, which just gives my revolving door companions even more reason to suspect I am the culprit, or I just stand there. And wet myself.

    5.  Decision. It’s not a hard one.* I move. It’s only a small step, but the significance of it is staggering. If I can paraphrase Neil Armstrong here, ‘It was one small step for Jon, a giant leap for the revolving door’s inhabitants.’. To everyone else this appeared as an admission of guilt. But deep down I don’t really care. Not now. I’ve come too far. And, like I say, I really, really need to get to the gents.

    6.  Handbags. No sooner have I stepped back though, that I encounter another problem. A lady’s foot. Just the toes, but enough to make her exasperate. I’m not doing very well here. I turn my head and apologise. She smiles wryly though I suspect it belies a wish for vengeance. For a second I am pleased I am stuck in a revolving door. There isn’t enough room to swing a cat in here, let alone her handbag.

    7.  Release. After what seems like hours – but in reality is probably less than five seconds – we are finally free. I make a sharp left for the toilets. I don’t look back. I just want to forget the whole sordid affair. I make it to the urinals without further alarm. But then someone stands next to me. And out of the corner of my eye I can tell who it is. It’s the man who was holding the hand of the woman who now has a bruised toe. Has he followed me in? I lose my nerve. I can’t bring myself to go. So I pretend to go. I count to ten before heading for the sink. And then I head out, to tackle the revolving doors once more. Only I use the normal door instead. Because the revolving doors are stuck.

    *Which only goes to prove even more that I wasn’t touching the glass in front.

  • Win A Prize!

    Win A Prize!

    Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed 7 Reasons readers, people of the internet, lovers of SPAM; we have an exciting prize to offer one lucky person.

    You may remember a reference from a 7 Reasons post earlier in the week to the giving of the gift of a tin of SPAM.  Well, that didn’t go too well.  Consequently, we’re now in the position to offer you, the reader, that very self-same tin of SPAM, though now with a slight dent on it.

    SPAM i
    The Prize (pen, notebook and table not included)

    Sadly though, we haven’t had much time to devise a competition – and one of the team also has something of a headache – but we’ve realised something: That 7 Reasons readers are probably creative and resourceful people too.  Accordingly, we’re setting you a challenge.

    To win this tin of SPAM, which will be dispatched direct from Yorkshire, simply come up with a competition to win a tin of SPAM and send your entry to [email protected].  We’ll judge the entries and the winner will be the person that that has devised – in our opinion – the best competition.  You’ve got full licence to be as innovative and creative as you like (in fact, we positively encourage it).  Feel free to send illustrations too, if you feel they will enhance your presentation.  We’ll announce the lucky winner next Sunday.  We might even use the winning competition in the future.

    So get your thinking caps on as fame, fortune and a tin of SPAM await you.  Oh, and enjoy the rest of your weekend.  See you tomorrow.

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why Garden Sheds Are Actually Pretty Cool

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why Garden Sheds Are Actually Pretty Cool

    Welcome to another Saturday and another in our long line of world class guest posts. This week it’s Chris Johnson’s turn on the 7 Reasons sofa. A sofa that has been treated like royalty in the last two years. And deservedly so. It’s been to Paris and Sydney and Chicago and Birmingham to name a few. So which luxury destination is it off to this week? Yes, that’s right, Chris’ shed. But it’s not just any shed. It’s a cool garden shed. Obviously. What other type of shed is there? All garden sheds are cool. As Chris will now explain.

    7 Reasons Why Sheds Are Actually Pretty Cool

    I feel pretty bad for sheds. They just sort of sit at the back of the garden with no love or attention given to their woody selves. It is therefore my aim to provide you with 7 pretty believable reasons why sheds actually are pretty cool!

    1.  You Can Make A Horror Film In Them. Sheds can be pretty creepy in the dark. More often than not, they’re rotting messes with all kinds of creepy crawlies in them. Take a video camera and rope in your mates. Have someone wield an axe while someone cowers in the corner amongst the lawnmower and shovel. You instantly have the perfect setup for the next blockbuster slasher film. It will be better than Saw 7 anyway.

    2.  You Can Make A Den In Them. Transport yourself back to your childhood. Clear out all that junk and fill it with pillows, blankets and large quantities of Haribo. Chill out with your mates amongst the soft furnishings and tell each other ghost stories as it gets dark. If you’re really daring, you could even introduce a couple of beers into the equation and see what happens!

    3.  You Actually Have Two Houses. Nobody ever really considers that a shed could be considered a second house. If it was painted up all pretty with a sofa and a bed, you instantly have a second home right in your back garden. It’s unfortunate that they are left in a dirty, uninhabitable state. Many people on the streets would love to live in your shed. Stop taking it for granted and turn it into something to keep your mother-in-law in!

    4.  You Could Have A Secret Life In Them. Playing on the idea that it’s your second home, you could have an entirely separate life in your shed. Transform into the opposite sex as you step into your second life if that floats your boat, or become an owl in the middle of the night. Your family has no idea where you are because, well, you wouldn’t be in the shed would you? That would be ludicrous! That’s what you want them to think!

    5.  You Can Pretend It’s A TARDIS. Why should the Doctor be the only person with a TARDIS? Tell your mates that you too are a Time Lord. Paint your shed in brilliant blue, and dazzle your friends by showing them that your shed is actually bigger on the inside. Of course, if it isn’t actually bigger on the inside, just tell them that your TARDIS is feeling slightly unwell. Of course, there is one downside this amazing plan: you could be carted off to the crazy person place. But there’s no harm in trying!

    6.  They Are Something Top Gear Would Blow Up. Now, I’m not suggesting you should blow your shed up. That would be a bit dangerous, and frankly I don’t want to be liable for whatever would happen to you should you take dynamite to your poor garden shed. But you have to admit, those crazy old guys on Top Gear would love to blow up a shed. For absolutely no reason at all. And Top Gear is a cool programme, right? We’ve all seen the infamous caravan explosion. What would be even better is if Top Gear turned a shed into a car. It would be like a caravan, but made of wood. Interesting,

    7.  They Are Cool, Because They Are Cool By Nature. Well, yes, this one is pretty obvious, I admit. Sheds are just so damn cool because it’s unlikely you’ve installed central heating in there, right? I bet sheds get pretty cold at night, just imagine how cool they are in the winter. If this reason isn’t enough to convince you that sheds are cool, then I am afraid you have wasted your time in reading this. Ah well.

  • 7 Reasons To Wear A Top Hat

    7 Reasons To Wear A Top Hat

     

    Hello 7 Reasons readers.  I’m almost breathless with excitement as I’ve just worked out what we should all be wearing and it’s…a top hat.  Here’s why.

    1.  You Can Cause A Stir.  The sight of the top hat was initially shocking; according to an officer of the Crown the wearer of the first one, James Hetherington “…appeared on the public highway wearing upon his head what he called a silk hat (which was shiny luster and calculated to frighten timid people)”, he also stated that “…several women fainted at the unusual sight, while children screamed, dogs yelped and a younger son of Cordwainer Thomas was thrown down by the crowd which collected and had his right arm broken”.  Now, top hats are less shocking these days than they were in the eighteenth century, but you’ll still cut a dash.

    2.  It Will Make Us Better At Sport.  Now it might not be immediately obvious why this is so and you’re probably thinking that surely a top hat would be a little cumbersome to wear during sport, and you’d be right too.  But let’s look at what happened the last time top hats were popular; one of the most popular pastimes for urchins (after picking pockets, bursting into song, pilfering roasted chestnuts and suffering from rickets) was knocking the top hats off gentlemen by hurling things at them.  Surely this would be just as much fun for modern children (and me, come to think of it).  In fact, knocking people’s top hats off would be all the motivation that our young people would need to spend their time diligently honing their throwing actions, and pursuing them after they’d done so would improve their running skills too.  If we wore top hats, we’d surely see an improvement in cricketing standards some way down the line.

    3.  It’s An Act Of Benevolence.  When was the last time that you saw someone with a tall cylindrical head?  That’s right, you probably haven’t, and do you know why?  That’s because unfortunates with heads shaped like the funnels of steamships probably feel too self-conscious to leave the house.  So what better way of restoring to them a normal, dignified life would there be than for us all to wear top hats?  Then having a tall cylindrical head would cease to be a stigma for sufferers who could disguise it with a top hat themselves.

    4.  It’s An Egalitarian Act.  At the moment, the foremost wearers of top hats in the UK are Eton schoolboys, but should Etonians get all the fun?  After all, they get to spend years wearing a top hat and, eventually, they get to run the country too.  If we want a more equitable society then we need to reclaim the top hat from the privileged few and wear it ourselves.  We may not get to be in charge, but we’ll look bloody marvellous while we’re going about our business of not running things while in a really good hat.  We’ll be recovering a grand traditional item of apparel that is as quintessentially British as cheese and chutney sandwiches or being attacked by a wasp in a beer garden. What’s more, we’ll be reclaiming it for the masses.  That’s us!

    5.  It’s A Practical Hat.  Nowadays almost everyone has at least one digital camera with them when they go out, but people rarely carry tripods.  A top hat though, with its horizontal surface is an ideal camera platform.  You can also keep your camera in your top hat as there’s a fair bit of storage space there.  You can use it to store other things too; biscuits, a small owl, a good book, a book by Dan Brown, a series of smaller top hats ever diminishing in size:  The list of things you can carry in there is boundless.  In fact, ironically, the list of things you can store in your top hat is so large that it’s one of the few things that you won’t be able to store in your top hat.  You’d need a cavernous hat to store the list in; a veritable behemoth of a hat; a hat the size of a house; a hat that you could get lost in.  Where was I?

    6.  It Aids Peer Recognition.  Most social groups have shared readily identifiable features that their members can use to spot one another.  Hipsters can tell other hipsters by their shirts and glasses; MCC members can recognise other MCC members by their egg and bacon ties; gits can spot gits by looking into a mirror and seeing Piers Morgan, and 7 Reasons readers can distinguish other 7 Reasons readers because they are carrying their laundry basket around with them.  If you wear a top hat, you’ll be able to spot your peers – other top hat wearers – in a crowd, from the other side of moderately high walls and in cars with sunroofs.  You can’t put a price on the camaraderie of the hat.

    7.  It Helps Others.  Want to help a humourist who’s just decided to spend his birthday money on a top hat?  Of course you do.  You can do that just by wearing a top hat, thus making him feel slightly less self-conscious about wearing one himself.  Because I’d like to don a top hat and amble around the streets of my city without people pointing and mocking; without being shrieked at by hideous hen parties and being taunted by even more hideous groups of stags; without children guffawing at my distinctive and wondrous headpiece while shouting, “hat!”.   I’d consider it a personal favour if everyone that has read this were to go out and buy a top hat today.  We could start a revolution, or at least make me look a little less ridiculous, which would be no mean feat.  Go now.  Go buy a hat!

  • 7 Reasons You Should Not Try And Escape From Prison In A Suitcase

    7 Reasons You Should Not Try And Escape From Prison In A Suitcase

    This is the second 7 Reasons post I have written today. The first, entitled ‘7 Reasons Harry Potter Was Plagiarised*’, will sadly never see the light of day. I lost my nerve when I discovered JK Rowling has a habit of suing people for defamation. It’s a shame really because I had some wonderful insights for you. Harry Potter stealing John Lennon’s glasses for example. And JK Rowling herself stealing the name of Jamiroquai’s lead vocalist. It’s also a shame because I’ve written about hiding in suitcases. And, I’ll be honest with you, it’s not very good. You can stop here if you want? Up to you.

    Oh, hi. Thanks for sticking with me. Don’t say I didn’t warn you though. So, yes, today’s piece is about a suitcase. You may have seen the story this week about a Mexican woman trying to smuggle her husband out of prison in a suitcase. They nearly made it too. They got as far as the main door. In laymans terms that’s about as far as Big X got in The Great Escape. It was a foolhardy attempt. Here’s why.

    7 Reasons You Should Not Try And Escape From Prison In A Suitcase

    1. Suffocation. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell you there isn’t much oxygen in a suitcase, but I asked one anyway. And this is what he said. “There isn’t much oxygen in a suitcase.” So there you have it. From a rocket scientist himself. If you get in a suitcase, you might die. And escaping from prison in a coffin is not quite the same thing.

    2. Pain. Only four kinds of people can get into a suitcase. Babies. And not many babies go to prison. Dead people. And not many dead people go to prison. Contortionists. And not many contortionists stay in prison – they usually escape through the bars. And finally, idiots. Only an idiot would get into a suitcase. And a desperate idiot at that. Get into a suitcase like this guy above and you will not walk again. You will have to roll. Which means you can only go down. To get home each day you will have to wait 24 hours for the earth to spin on its axis.

    3. Reliance. Once you get in a suitcase you are very much reliant on other people. Now I have never got into a suitcase, but if it’s the same as a post bag I know you can’t open them from the inside. Especially if someone has attached a padlock. As popular culture has shown, things go wrong in prison breakouts. Either your accomplice is killed or they turn out to be working for the police. Or both. If you’re going to get into a suitcase, you must, must, must do your background checks first. And even then I would advise just walking out of the gates as most in the UK seem to.

    4. Left Luggage. If you do make it out of the prison, you can’t just get out of the suitcase in the car park. That would be silly. Instead, you have to wait until you reach home. Which means you’ve got to get home. Now, if your accomplice is your wife – as it was in suitcasegate – or your husband, or another family member, or a friend, this is dangerous. Except on prison visits they probably won’t have seen you for a while. You’re not a big part of their life anymore. I am sorry to say this, but they have probably started to forget about you. Which is why they may well forget they’ve got you with them. It’s only after they watch the bus drive off that they realise they’ve left you on board. Who knows where you’ll end up? Probably Wandsworth. That’s where most buses end up.

    5. Expense. Perhaps, though, home is further away than a bus journey. Perhaps you need to get on a plane. Not a problem if you’re going with British Airways. A major problem however if you’re going with Ryan Air. The £1 seat may have looked bargain when you booked it, but now it’s going to cost you £2,000 in excess baggage.

    6. Solo. So far we have assumed – fairly it has to be said – that you have an accomplice. But what if you don’t? What happens if you just climb in a suitcase and hope? Exactly, you’ll be a person in a suitcase. Hoping. And prison breakouts don’t come to those who get in suitcases and hope.

    7. Storyline. There are many great films and many great books about escaping from prison. Some based on real events – Escape From Alcatraz, Colditz, Le Trou – and some not – The Shawshank Redemption, Cool Hand Luke. In none of these did anyone try to escape in a suitcase. Why? Because you can’t film inside a suitcase. It’ll just be dark. And it you want 90 minutes of staring at darkness you may as well just switch the TV off. Or go to Great Yarmouth. If you are going to escape from prison, dig a tunnel. Or build a rocket. At least that way there is a chance someone will turn your exploits into a major motion picture. Otherwise it’s just a waste of time isn’t it?

    *It clearly wasn’t. Calm down.

  • 7 Reasons I Have A Le Tour De France Heart Shaped Problem

    7 Reasons I Have A Le Tour De France Heart Shaped Problem

    I have a problem. Le Tour de France is French. I know. Shocking isn’t it? But that’s not really my biggest problem. The biggest problem is that I like Le Tour de France. A lot. I always have. Ever since Gary Imlach was born. This all means that I like something French. Bad times. Here’s why:

    7 Reasons I Have A Le Tour De France Heart Shaped Problem1.  Time. This isn’t just a case of me liking France for eighty-minutes (I have been known to support them over Wales, Scotland & Ireland in the past – purely for England’s gain you understand). This is a case of liking France for three whole weeks. Three! Weeks! That’s nearly a month! It’s 5.7% of the year! That must be against the law.

    2.  The Countryside. I hate the way TV directors cut to aerial shots of the French countryside. The sprawling fields. The streams. The chateaux. Even the vineyards – and I’m not a wine fan – look appealing. And the sun’s always shining. The sun always shines in France. And in that minute I forget myself. And I fall in love. I fall in love with France.

    3.  Village. On ITV’s coverage they send Ned Boulting off up the road to a small remote village that last saw  pair of shorts in 1972. In a matter of hours 180 cyclists are going to zoom through the place, so Ned enquires with the locals as to how the preparations are going. Are they excited? Do they know what a bike is? Usually they seem somewhat bewildered. Which is understandable. Given Boulting’s passing resemblance to Matt Allwright, through the haze of Gauloises one could be forgiven for thinking they are about to star in a poor man’s Rogue Traders. It never happens though. Boulting just talks about bikes. And the old man continues smoking. And I fall in love with this place. And I want to go there. Right that instant. I want to go to France.

    4.  Art. If I went outside with my chalks and started wrote ‘Allez Claire!’ on the hill, I would get some funny looks. I’d probably also get a visit from the Police. During Le Tour however, anyone can write anything on the roads apparently. Particularly in the mountains. I can only assume this is because the Gendarmes can’t be bothered to go all the way up Alpe D’heuz to slap a €100 fine on someone who will have long gone. The art itself is brilliant. It’s like wordle. On a road. genius. I want to be a French graffiti artist.

    7 Reasons I Have A Le Tour De France Heart Shaped Problem

    5.  Supporters. I have seen Le Tour de France live twice. Once in 1994 when they went through Sussex – and I lived twenty minutes away – and once in 2007 when they rode around Buckingham Palace and I lived a ten minute walk away. In terms of effort, it didn’t take much on my part. The French though, they head up mountains in their caravans and then wait for days until the peloton (plus the stragglers) pass them. It’s a whole lot of effort for a few minutes of live action. And I love them for it. Because they’re stupid. I love the French public.

    6.  Laurent. You might be startled to hear this, but my favourite rider is the late Laurent Fignon. A Frenchman. And it has absolutely nothing to do with his ability as a rider. It’s because he wore glasses. It’s because, due to his glasses, he was nicknamed ‘The Professor’. It’s because he looked a bit like Christopher Walken. Without his glasses.* So what? Well, in the days before I wore contact lenses, I wore glasses. And let me tell you, riding your bike, in the rain, with glasses on, is terrifying. It’s also thrilling. Which is why, whenever I went out cycling in the rain, I would pretend I was Laurent Fignon.** And every year, when Le Tour is on, I am reminded of this. I am reminded of the time I loved pretending I was a Frenchman.

    7 Reasons I Have A Le Tour De France Heart Shaped Problem
    Laurent Fignon (Not former 7 Reasons guest writer, Dr Simon Percy Jennifer Best)

    7.  The Run In. The final stage of Le Tour sees those who have managed to stay on their bikes for the duration cycle towards the finish on the Champs-Elysees. The best thing about this is that it is tradition for all the riders to drink Champagne on route. Then, when they’ve knocked backed the bottles, they put their heads down prepared for one last race around downtown Paris. An eight-lap course which features a significant section of cobblestones. This is French ingenuity at its best. Not only have you pushed your body to its absolute limit with little more than bum blisters and crack rash to show for it, now you’ve been intoxicated with alcohol ahead of one of the most dangerous surfaces on which one could possibly ride. Well done France. You’re funny.

    *At this time A View To A Kill was my favourite Bond film. The first half of it anyway.

    **Wondering who I pretended to be when I played cricket in the garden? Listen to the all-new 7 Reasons podcast this forthcoming Russian Roulette Sunday. ***

    ***This may or may not happen.

  • 7 Reasons Not To Have Sex With A Penguin

    7 Reasons Not To Have Sex With A Penguin

    Yesterday, we showed you some of the search terms that people have used to find our website but, as is often the case, no sooner had we posted that piece, someone discovered our website in a new, and not entirely unalarming way.  Someone in the Netherlands (thus confirming at least one national stereotype about the Dutch) found our website by entering the search term “what to do if I had sex with a penguin”; a search for which we rank number one on Google.  Now, we have no idea why we rank so high for this search term, it’s not as if the team spend their days thinking about – or writing about – having sex with penguins (until today) but, seeing as we rank so highly, we feel it is our duty to tell people not to have sex with penguins and to point out that it is wrong.  Here are seven reasons why.

    A road sign prohibiting sex with a penguin

    1.  They’re Hard To Get Hold Of.  I’m not thinking of the technical difficulties of having a dalliance with a penguin, you’ll be pleased to note – though they do look slippery – but more about their scarcity.  In the UK, they are rarely seen in our waters which means that, for the casual penguin-fucker, the most likely place to find a partner is a zoo.  Because of this, if you wanted to have sex with a penguin, you’d have to break into a zoo at night.  If successful, you’d run the risk of being eaten by a lion and if unsuccessful, you’d face a very interesting conversation with the police, a series of eye-grabbing headlines in the local paper and a rather high level of public opprobrium.

     

    This would be bad.

    2.  They’re Hard To Get Hold Of II. Or, you might decide to save yourself a breaking and entering charge by committing the act at a time when the zoo is open.  Now, as a new father, I’ve recently begun to develop a fear of answering difficult questions from a growing son with an enquiring mind but, I have to admit that nothing I have thought of so far fills me with as much dread as the question, “Daddy, what’s that man doing to that penguin?”  That’s the sort of question I definitely intend passing on to my wife.  And I’d also prefer to be addressed as Father, but most of all, I’d prefer not to be put through it in the first place.

    3.  It Would Be A Backward Move.  Penguins – though they might be confused with fish by the unaware and…well…me*  – to the rest of humanity, are birds.  But surely (and I’m sure we’re all grateful for this) no one in this country has had sex with a bird since the heyday of On The Buses in the mid-1970s.  There’s no way we should start doing that again, that would be a backward step.  Nor we should we address anyone as “Love”, though that’s a different post.

    4.  You Are A Man.  Men shouldn’t have sex with penguins because if, as a result of your inappropriate interspetial intercourse, you should sire any progeny, you are in for a big shock: While fathers of human babies can usually get away with changing about one in three nappies and don’t have the equipment to feed a human baby (so can be pretty hands-off) as the father of a penguin you’ll be expected to go to the South Pole and balance your offspring on your feet for months.  That looks tedious and you’ll miss a lot of cricket as you stand there with all the other penguins hoping not to get eaten by a polar bear and looking at the snow.

    5.  You Are A Woman.  As a woman, should you end up bearing the child of a penguin you’ll…actually, I don’t believe that any woman has, at any point, ever considered having sex with a penguin.  I just refuse to believe that women are that weird.  Obviously I’m still open minded though so, if you are a woman that has considered having sex with a penguin, please let us know via the comments section.  We want to hear from you.

    6.  Black And White.  Penguins are in black and white and – for the most part – no one has sex in black and white, that’s just not the British way of doing things.  Look at Brief Encounter: a mannered depiction of repression, subsumed emotion, inhibition and tea at railway stations.  That’s in black and white, is there any sex in it?  Hell, no.  Want to take a penguin for tea at a railway station?  Fine, that’s your business.  Want to have sex with a penguin?  Well you can’t.  It’s not how we do things.

    7.  There’s No Future In It.  When seeking prospective long-term partners, not smelling of fish is high up the list of things that people look for in a mate.  There are other things that are up there on the list of desirable attributes too: Not having a beak; not having flippers; not having webbed feet (except in Dorset); not walking like a penguin in fact, not being a penguin are all right up there.  In a game of Ideal Mates For Humans Top Trumps, the penguin card would be the one no one wanted to be saddled with.  And if you were dealt a hand that contained both the penguin and the Ryan Giggs cards, you could pretty much abandon all hope of victory.

    We don’t do eighth reasons around here but if we did, we would offer you this piece of information that comes to us courtesy of writer, solicitor, giant and friend of 7 Reasons, Richard O’Hagan.  He tells us that under (the rather brilliantly numbered) section 69 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, having sex with a penguin is against the law.  I briefly thought I’d found a loophole, but it seems that even though penguins can blow, that’s precluded in section 78.  So it’s not just logic that says you shouldn’t have sex with a penguin, it’s the law too.

     

    *They can’t fly, yet they do swim and they’re often chased by killer whales, how is that not a fish?

     

  • Russian Roulette Sunday: How You Found Us Part 4

    Russian Roulette Sunday: How You Found Us Part 4

    Russian Roulette Sunday: How You Found Us Part 4It’s been almost five months since we last took a look at the phrases you used to find our website, which means it must be time to do it again. And once they are some of the strangest, weirdest and disturbing phrases as you are likely to find anywhere on the inter-web.

    1. Phrases you used to find us that we found flattering:

    British

    Boys are better than girls

    Funny Asterix comments

    2. Phrases you used to find us that we found less flattering:

    Syphilis designers

    Fernando is faster than you

    Talked nonsense

    Cheryl Cole

    3. Phrases you used to find us that we’re sorry we couldn’t help with:

    Bear roulette

    Bikini clad women with hose pipes

    Relieve air travel butt pain

    4. Phrases you used to find us that we don’t know anything about and nor do we want to:

    Ten reasons

    Where is CCTV

    jewel house guarded 24 hours

    5. Phrases you used to find us that are just plain wrong:

    Naked chef calendar

    Sweater kittens

    Noki c2-03

    Why did the French not invade England

    Piers Morgan hair

    Moobs

    6. Phrases you used to find us that there is no earthly explanation for and that we can’t help with:

    Minefields on the way to Seven Sisters

    Carbonated water burps

    When I look at things I go cross-eyed

    Yupik kiss

    Martin Sheen can’t swim

    7. Phrases you used to find us that there is no earthly explanation for but that we were able to help with:

    Baby name bayron (It’s spelt Byron)

    Should I go to Frence on holiday? (No)