Tag: 7 reasons

7 Reasons Potatoes Are The Answer To Anger Management Issues

One evening last week I went to bed. This isn’t news, but what happened next is. My fiancée and I started talking about potatoes. Now, I don’t want you thinking this is natural bedroom behaviour for us, in fact, I can assure you we have never spoken of potatoes – or indeed potato based products – in bed before. And we probably never will again. But in that moment it felt right. Having discussed the merits of King Edwards, we promptly moved on to the more pressing matter of potato preparation. It dawned on us – well Claire really, I was checking my email – that potato preparation is the new boxing. Or anger management tool anyway. To paraphrase – without intention of belittling – Winston Churchill’s famous words, “Never in the field of the kitchen is so much owed by so many angry people to so few potatoes”. Here’s why:

1. Skin Them. Does anything beat the satisfaction of skinning a potato? Well, possibly a carrot. And buying a yacht. And eating biscuits. But skinning a potato is still good. How much skin can you peel off in one go? It’s like peeling an orange for real men. (With anger management issues).

2. Chop Them. Maybe it’s a quick release you need. Chopping or dicing will have you feeling relaxed in no time. Unless you lose a finger. In which case you’ll probably ruin your dinner.

3. Stab Them. If you are so angry that you are going to do something stupid, I recommend getting a knife out of the drawer. Now you can stab the little git and microwave it to the point of explosion. And once you’ve done that, you can do the same with your potato.

4. Roast Them. Maybe your anger is so instilled that it’s going to take a long time for you to calm down. Stick a potato in the oven and watching it slowly toast. I find having a window in the oven door helps with this. Otherwise you have to put your head in the oven. Not only is it hot, the potato always gets in the way.

5. Boil Them. More slow death treatment, only this time the pain is much more visible. The bubbling, the steaming, the stabbing with a fork to see if they are done. You’ll be mellowed out in twenty-five minutes with this method.

6. Mash Them. Whatever or whoever has annoyed you, just pretend you are mashing the life out of it/them. I find adding a little milk and butter helps the process of mashing Davina McCall to death much more pleasant.

7. Saute Them. In the words of Claire, “Cook them once, cook them twice. Twice the pain, twice the satisfaction. Mwhahahahaha!” I think I shall don the apron tonight.

March 29, 2011
7 Reasons That There is no Stigma Attached to my Spectacles

Regular readers of 7 Reasons might be not have been aware that half of the team has been expecting a rather special delivery for the last fortnight or so but we have and now, I can proudly announce, that it has arrived. My new spectacles are here. I’ve never had to wear them before and here are seven reasons that there is no stigma attached to wearing them whatsoever. None. At all. Got that?

Spectacle-ur*

1. Because I Got To Go To The Optician. And while I couldn’t write about my experiences there – because it’s been done far better already – I was able to enjoy a unique facility that is provided by my local Specsavers: Their waiting area overlooks the front door, just inside of which is a loose doormat. I have never been so royally entertained by slapstick in my entire life. The sight of almost all of the hapless and unsuspecting customers stumbling through the door was one of the most entertaining things I have seen in a long while. And they would have been able to enjoy the sight of me stumbling out onto the busy street half an hour later if this were not an optician. There is no stigma attached to physical comedy and even Norman Wisdom is cool. In Albania.

2. Because I Am Long-Sighted. I’m not near-sighted, short-sighted, ordinarily-sighted, conventionally-sighted or even averagely-sighted; I’m long-sighted. This is optician-speak for awesome. I can see a long way. I have super-sight. There is no stigma attached to being awesome. Superman is only unofficially awesome and he can get away with wearing his underpants on the outside of his trousers. I am officially awesome, therefore can easily get away with spectacles. And perhaps even the checked-shirt.

3. Wearing Spectacles Is A Necessary Public Service. Because I’m long-sighted, there’s almost nothing that I wouldn’t be able to see if I weren’t wearing them. The spectacles are actually needed to tame my sight. If it weren’t for them, the Hubble space telescope would probably be redundant and people as far away as Addis-Ababa would need curtains (if they don’t already). I’m wearing them for the greater good and there should be no social stigma attached to philanthropy.

4. I Need Them To Look At A Screen For A Long Time. I’m not going to guilt-trip the readers of 7 Reasons by suggesting that I would go blind writing my half of it if it weren’t for the glasses, but I would. Because I have to stare at a screen for a long time and I occasionally have to look at this image. Which always makes me try to stab myself in the eyes with a pencil. The glasses are necessary protection against this. If only they made spectacles for the mind.

5. Because Science Is Cool. Science is currently seen as hip and interesting, and glasses are a universally acknowledged signifier of scientific knowledge and capability. Watch any Hollywood movie – or Thunderbirds – and you know that the one in the glasses is the scientist; usually it’s Jeff Goldblum. Does Professor Brian Cox wear glasses? No. Do I (very occasionally) wear glasses? Yes. So to those unfamiliar with him, this makes me the better scientist. Right until I start to talk about quarks and molecular something-or-other and get distracted and end up talking about Ray-Bans.

6. Because They’re Ray-Bans. I love Ray-Bans. I’ve always worn them as sunglasses and I once got called a Ray-Ban geek by an assistant in a Ray-Ban shop, just because I knew the model numbers off by heart. And what the little codes on the arms mean. And I foolishly mentioned it out loud. Once. And my spectacles are Ray-Bans that I can wear at night and indoors without looking like a complete cock**. This is progress. Now the only place I can’t wear Ray-Bans legitimately is in bed when I’m asleep. And perhaps even then I could put opaque lenses in and use them as the world’s coolest eye-mask. Wearing spectacles is another step on my journey toward having Ray-Bans permanently affixed to my face. And Ray-Bans are cool: In my head, if not outside it.

7. Parenthood. I’m now a parent and, in years to come, when Byron Sebastian Fearns is making the long and daunting walk to his father’s desk to receive some sort of stern admonishment, I will need to move the glasses to the end of my nose so that I can look over the top of them while rebuking him. Because I know – from experience – that no telling-off is complete without that. And that putting clingfilm over the toilet bowl is frowned upon by people in glasses. Bugger. I used to love that.

*Yes, I did type this entire piece using only one hand.

**Sadly, they won’t prevent me from being one.

March 28, 2011
Russian Roulette Sunday: The Return Of The 7 Reasons Origami Team

After the success of last weeks poll in which a massive 79% of you said you would prefer to borrow Marc over me, I have decided to accept my place as the lesser member of the 7 Reasons team. I have also decided not to dwell on my humiliating defeat. Though it did hurt. A lot. But like I say, I am not going to dwell. Instead I am going to hand you ungrateful lot over to the 7 Reasons origami team.

March 27, 2011
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Boys Are Better Than Girls

Just over a year ago you may remember Natalie Clifford gave us 7 Reasons Why Women Are Better Than Men. And, for a year, we have let the fairer sex have their moment. Mainly because no one dared argue differently. That is until one man decided to step forward. That man is brave. That man is the writer of The Memory Blog. That man is Richard O’Hagan. Today Richard sits on the edge of the 7 Reasons sofa – in an undisclosed location – ready to readdress the balance. Here, in his words, are seven reasons boys are better than girls.

The idea for this post came to me one Sunday evening. I was stood there doing the ironing and utterly failing to come up with any ideas for my own website when the sight of my wife preparing my dinner* made me think, “Being a boy is so much better than being a girl.”**

And then I thought, “I wonder if those nice chaps at 7 Reasons would be interested in a guest post which might actually increase their site traffic, even if all of the new hits are from angry feminazis?”

So here you have it – 7 Reasons Why Boys Are Better Than Girls, and one which hopefully avoids all the tired old suggestions such as ‘being able to pee standing up’*** and ‘not leaking like a BP oil well once a month’.

1. Self-Awareness. Boys are simply more self aware than girls are. Boys know that once they have got out of bed in the morning, that is pretty much as good as they are going to look for the rest of the day. A quick wash and brush up, maybe a shave (according to personal and religious preferences) and that is it. We don’t spend time applying many different layers of make-up, or agonising over what to wear that day, because we know we’d only be trying to fool ourselves. And this then leads to…

2. Lower Expectations. Everyone knows I am going to show up to any given event looking like I have been dragged through a hedge backwards. I’ve been perfecting the look for years and I know that there is as much point trying to get me to look smart as there is in giving Pompeii a quick dusting. If you don’t spend your life trying to look as if you have just strolled in off the pages of a fashion magazine then no-one expects you to look like that.

3. Less Gullible. Let us not beat around the bush here. Boys are less gullible than girls. No-one has ever convinced us that nylon – a material which unravels as soon as you look at it – is a suitable covering for our legs. No-one has ever convinced us that we need to chuck out a quarter of our clothing every three months because “that’s so last spring/summer/autum/winter”. And no-one has ever convinced us to wear beige simply by renaming it ‘taupe’****.

4. Cats. The phrase is ‘Crazy Cat Lady’. No-one ever said ‘Crazy Cat Man’ (well, not without being so stoned that they think it is still the 1960s) and no man has ever been found dead and alone in a feline infested flat, with the moggies feasting upon his decaying flesh. Being a girl means developing a strange attracting to furry four-legged gits.

5. Shoes. Boys wear sensible shoes. Shoes you can run in (see reason 7). Shoes you can walk in. Shoes which are comfortable. Girls, on the other hand, think that shoes mean some towering edifice which makes perambulation almost impossible and painful toes a part of daily life. Moreover, being a girl means that you feel the need to spend roughly the Gross National Product of Namibia on acquiring more uncomfortable shoes than you could ever need even if you lived for six lifetimes. Boys have one pair of shoes, wear them until they wear out, then buy another pair; Girls have eleventy million pairs of shoes, wear some of them, then chuck them out and start all over again twelve months later (see reason three)*****.

6. Driving. Cars were simply not designed for girls. This is no slight upon the perceived lack of driving ability among females, it is a fact. The basic design of the car began with the male physique in mind and hasn’t altered. Girls have proportionately longer legs and shorter bodies than boys. If cars were designed for them they would have deeper footwells, lower dashboards and no doubt many other female-friendly alterations (a lipstick holder or something). No car has yet been made like this, not even the Mazda MX-5, a car no male with a molecule of testosterone in his body would be seen dead driving.

7. Running. Running makes boys look manly, as if they are hunting down prey or chasing a foe. When girls run they always look like they are attempting to do a very fast Charleston whilst simultaneously going in the opposite direction. Something which I shall now demonstrate by running away from this angry horde of feminazis******.

*She was not cooking because I am some kind of raving sexist monster, she was cooking because the local crematorium cannot keep pace with the after-effects if I cook.

**This was after the umpteenth interruption to reach down something from the middle shelf of our kitchen cupboards, a task I perform willingly but whilst wondering what the use of a kitchen cupboard is if 50% of the users cannot reach beyond the salt and pepper storage level*******

***I once heard the occasionally-funny Sandi Toksvig claim that women didn’t regard this as an essential skill. Try telling that to the female attendees at any large outdoor event.

****Moreover, the invention of ‘taupe’ had a detrimental effect upon the men of the world, as by the million they were denied Bouncy Bedroom Fun by their female partners after exclaiming “Taupe? Looks like beige to me, love”

*****For the avoidance of doubt, my wife is not a typical girl. At least in this respect.

******There is no reason for this set of asterisks. In addition to alienating 51% of the world’s population, I wanted to break the ‘most asterisks in a post’ record

*******There are other things as well as salt and pepper on that level, obviously. Or will be, right up to the point where my wife reads this and throws them at me

March 26, 2011
7 Reasons Not To Panic About Losing An Hour From Our Lives

Yay! It’s Friday. In the words of Rebecca Black, “fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, back seat, woohoo!, are you old enough to drive? Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun!” There is even more reason to celebrate today because this weekend the clocks go forward. Lighter evenings here we come. Hang on! If the clocks go forward, doesn’t that mean we lose an hour from our lives? Well, yes it does. But don’t worry, here at 7 Reasons we have invested countless minutes researching and analysing this issue. And the good news is there is no need to panic. Here’s why:

1. Sleep. It’s only sleep we’re losing, and sleep is awful. When I’m asleep nothing of interest happens to me (unless I’m having the dream when I’m being chased around the dining room by a horse named Keith again), and I’d wager that nothing interesting happens to you either (possibly not even the Keith dream). Sleep just isn’t a desirable state for people. After all, narcolepsy is considered an illness, not a talent, and no one (except Audley Harrison) ever celebrates being knocked unconscious in a fight. That’s because sleep is rubbish. We’re all better off with less of it.

2. Sleep Walking. If you are having the dream in which you are being chased around the dining room by a horse called Keith, it might not be a dream at all. You wouldn’t know, you’re asleep. There is a possibility that it’s actually happening. Maybe, in your dream state, you got up, left the house and went to a local field. Here you crept up on a horse and shouted ‘Keith!’ in his ear. Keith stirred, got annoyed and then chased you back to your house. You didn’t shut the door in time so you spent the rest of the night being chased around the dining room table. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that this whole episode will last for one hour less on Sunday morning. And one hour less being chased by a horse called Keith means one hour less in which carnage can be created.

3. Awake. If you are not asleep, then the chances are you will be awake. Given that it will be 2am though, you won’t be sober. So from the flowerbed in the park you won’t even notice the disappearance of an hour. You’ll be too busy talking to a tulip.

4. Refund. If losing an hour from your life really hurts, don’t worry, you will automatically get it back in October. All you have to do is stay alive. Good luck!

5. Wood Pigeons. We can stand to lose an extra hour from our lives; I know this because of the wood pigeons. My wife and I were recently cooped up in a small room without the internet for several hours and we were forced to look out of the window for entertainment. The only things of note that we could see were a branch railway line and some trees. The trees contained wood pigeons. Here is a sample of the conversation:

“Ooh look, darling. A wood pigeon.”

“Yes dear.”

“Ooh look, darling, there’s another wood pigeon. Look! Look! In the next tree.”

“Yes dear.”

“Which wood pigeon do you prefer?

That is an hour we could happily have lost from our lives.

6. We’re Only Losing The Dark. It’s spring! It’s just going to get lighter. The hour we’re losing is an hour of darkness and who needs that anyway? Birds turn themselves off at night, so we’re getting an extra hour of birds, with all of the beaks, eyes and feathers that entails. Obviously that means there’ll be an extra hour of bird poo, but that means I get to see my apoplectic next door neighbour shake his fist at the sky and furiously wash his car more often. This is a bonus. More birds, people. More birds!*

7. Cure. Let’s be honest, if you are panicking about the clocks going forward, you are screwed. There is no cure for this ailment. So you have a choice, panic every year or stop being a tit and get on with it. 7 Reasons recommends the latter.

*Except owls. Bugger.

March 25, 2011
7 Reasons To Name Your Son Byron

Yes, it’s me. I’m back. Despite quitting on Tuesday, I find myself back in front of the 7 Reasons CMS typing away. Apparently I need to give two years notice if I want to leave. Roll on March 2013 then! So that’s the future sorted, now let’s concentrate on today. You probably remember with great fondness that day I gave you seven reasons to name your son Troy. Since then there has been a 0.004% rise in the number of Troys in the world showing that with great reasoning comes great Christenings. It did dawn on me though that, given its current upward curve of popularity, come the year 5000, one in every 18,000 people would be called Troy. That’s too many Troys floating around. As a result I need to increase the popularity of another name to decrease the popularity of Troy. And the name I have chosen is Byron. Here are seven reasons to name your son Byron:

1. Unique. If you get in now, your son will have a very unique name. According to wikipedia only 24 people in the entire world have the first name Byron. Personally I think it’s closer to 25. They are probably just slow at updating their records. That’s still not many though.

2. Achiever. On that wikipedia list of 24, there are professional sportsmen, US senators and a Greek cellist. In fact the worst profession of any of the Byrons is ‘Welsh football player’. You name your son Byron and you watch him go.

3. Strength. I suspect the above has something to do with the following. The name Byron is a motivator. On the one hand constantly saying ‘Bye Ron’ to your son will have a slightly negative effect. For one, he’ll think he’s called Ron and secondly, he’ll feel neglected. On the positive side though, it will make Ron a tough character. He’ll start looking after himself from a very young age. Your Byron will probably start cleaning cars for money. Then he’ll sell cars for money. Then he’ll sell money for more money. Eventually he’ll be hosting series 63 of The Apprentice. It’ll be amazing to watch him say, ‘You’re fired!’ and the firee reply with a cheery, ‘Bye Ron’.

4. Awkwardness. Quite why anyone would want to know where young Byron was conceived is beyond my capabilities of understanding. Just in case you are friends with one (or more) of the Loose Women though, the name automatically answers their question. Yep, Byron Bay. It would be helpful if you had an amazing holiday in Australia nine months before the birth too. Just so the story has gravitas.

5. Twins. If you would like more than one child at the time of birth, deciding on naming your son Byron is a sure fire way of ending up with twins. Byron, get one free.*

6. Shortening. The great thing about the name Byron is that he can shorten it to match his occupation or hobbies. If he invents a new pen, it’s Byro. If he likes dabbling in the stock-market, it’s Byr. If he likes women and men, it’s By. And if he enjoys pollinating flowers, making honey, stinging people and dying, it’s B.

7. Meaning. The name Byron means ‘barn for cows’ or ‘at the cattle sheds’. You know where you stand with that. I suspect one of the reasons for my self-loving is because Jonathan means ‘gift of God’.

PS: Many congratulations to anyone who has had a baby recently. Particularly if you’ve called him (or her) Byron.

*I’m sorry. This is probably the worst reason I have ever written. I just couldn’t help myself.

March 24, 2011
7 Reasons That Women Shouldn’t Listen to Chaka Khan

Yesterday my writing partner Jon wrote about a man in Folkestone who has had his stereo and CD collection confiscated for playing Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman at “ear-splitting” volume through the night. Jon wrote brilliantly. Jon, however, did not have an explanation as to why anyone would play I’m Every Woman at an abnormally high volume and put it down to “… feminist undertones that are far too subtle for my man-sized brain to detect”. He was wrong though. Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman is not a feminist anthem in the least. It’s a hateful piece of misogyny. Women: Here are seven reasons that you should not listen to Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman.

1. “I’m every woman”. Women are subjected to many idealised and unrealistic representations in the modern media: They’re shown waiflike airbrushed models in every magazine and told they should look like them; they’re shown domestic goddesses in ideal kitchens and told they should cook like them. They’re shown Kirsty Alsop and told to do whatever the hell she says. In short, women are burdened with unattainable and unrealistic expectations. It is oft said that a woman should be “a whore in the bedroom and a chef in the kitchen”, but for many women, this is an unattainable goal. Not for Chaka Khan though, she’s every woman: She’s a whore in the bedroom, a chef in the kitchen, an iron lady in parliament, a ballerina in the dance hall, a rocket-scientist in the rocket and Mother bloody Theresa of Calcutta in Calcutta all rolled into one. How is any mere mortal woman supposed to compete with Chaka Khan? They can’t. She’s every woman. Any woman hearing this will feel inadequate.

2. “It’s all in me”. Chaka is also a massive slut. It’s all in her. Whatever it is, she has all of it. In her. That leaves none for the rest of you. Not a drop. Not an inch. Not a sausage. And how does Chaka Khan spend her remaining leisure hours?

3. “I can…mix a Special Brew”. That’s right, she spends them making cocktails for tramps. Do you do anything as virtuous and worthy as that? No, of course you don’t. None of the rest of you have even considered donating your free time to servicing the beverage needs of vagabonds, have you? No. Only Chaka Khan is this benevolent.

4. “I can read your thoughts right now”. She knows what you’re thinking too. She knows that you’re thinking, “What a smug bloody bitch, how am I supposed to compete with her?” Or, if you live in Folkestone, “Aaaarrrggghhh!!!! Turn it down you bastard!!!!”. Whatever bad thought you are thinking about Chaka Khan, she knows about it. And this doesn’t bode well for you because…

5. “I can…put fire inside of you”. Yes, Chaka Khan can make you spontaneously combust! As if it weren’t bad enough that she’s making you ordinary non-super-awesome-Chaka-Khan-women feel like wretched and inadequate harridans, she’s threatening you too. She can summon the power of fire! The message is clear: Don’t anger Chaka Khan ladies; she can set your innards alight; she can singe your ovaries and toast other bits that I don’t know the names of. Chaka Khan can kill you with her disco inferno. And she probably will because…

6. “Danger or fear, instantly I will appear…” You’re aware that Chaka Khan knows when you think bad things about her and you know that she can make you burst into flame. So you are in danger, and you’re probably afraid. And you should be very, very afraid because that’s the very point when Chaka Khan will appear! Instantly! And she’s likely to be furious. But you shouldn’t just be afraid of spontaneous combustion, you should be afraid of being in the same room with her full stop. Because – even if she’s in a benevolent mood and you find that you aren’t on fire – you’ll look like a feckless inadequate in comparison. Because she can do even more than you previously supposed…

7. “Anything you want done baby, I’ll do it naturally”. It’s not enough that she’s bloody every woman that can have any man (and has) and that she can read your thoughts and make you burst into flame at will, Chaka goes on to tell us that she can do anything. Naturally. This means that she can change your mood with crystals, she can heal your ailments with reiki, she can beat you in a gardening contest without using fertilizer, she can probably put up bookshelves using whale-song. She’s not merely omnipotent, she’s environmentally sustainable, GM free, solar-powered, dolphin-friendly and her farts probably smell of unpasteurised organic monofloral honey (or at least they would if she farted but she never, ever does). The only thing that Chaka Khan apparently can’t do is nothing. Artificially. Which isn’t really much of a flaw as far as I can see.

So there you have it. Playing Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman at an ear-splitting volume is a crass act of misogyny that is calculated to make any woman listening feel inadequate, envious, unworthy, paranoid, afraid, very afraid and when – with tear-streaked make up – she’s sobbing in terror and doesn’t think she can sink any lower it makes her feel just that little bit more inadequate. And fat. Chaka Khan is a heinous oppressor of women and I say we should burn the witch.

March 23, 2011
7 Reasons Playing Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” Abnormally Loud Is Inexplicable

Anyone who witnessed the draft version of this post will have seen that it was originally entitled, 7 Reasons Having A Penchant For Chaka Khan’s ‘I’m Every Woman’ Is Perfectly Natural. And there were seven reasons. Loose reasons, but seven reasons non-the-less. It was ready to be published. Only, I couldn’t do it. For the first time in my life I had written something I couldn’t even pretend to believe. Having a penchant for Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman is not perfectly natural. In fact, it’s wrong. Very wrong. So wrong that it’s actually inexplicable.

Before we get to the reasons for this, let me first set the scene. Last night I choked on a peanut. Or at least I would had I been eating peanuts. I was quite happily half ignoring the BBC regional news – that’s South East Today for me – when a story shocked me to my very core. A man, a man from Folkestone, has had his stereo seized after he continuously played Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman at an abnormally high volume.

Here’s why that’s an inexplicable thing to do:

Chaka (or Khan)

1. Logic. Right from the outset this song makes little sense. ‘I’m Every Woman’? How is that even possible? Rosanne Barr was a big girl, but not even she could be classed as ‘every woman’. Rather surprisingly she has only ever been classed as one. From this I come to the conclusion that I’m Every Woman has feminist undertones that are far too subtle for my man-sized brain to detect. So while I can understand the need for Germaine Greer to dance around the kitchen with her rolling pin, for this man I can not.

2. Choice. While there is nothing wrong with this man pitching his tent in the camptastic field, one does have to question his choice of song. I mean, anyone with half an ear drum can confirm that I Feel For You is a much finer work than I’m Every Woman. It starts with a guy who has a stammer trying to say, “Chaka Khan” for goodness sake. Genius.

3. Realisation. I’m a fairly impassive person. What other people think of me doesn’t bother me in the slightest – which is probably just as well really given the current standings in Sunday’s 7 Reasons poll. I have never had a problem admitting that my music collection includes some inexplicable titles. Billie Piper’s Honey To The B for example. This doesn’t mean however that I actually enjoy listening to the album. No, honestly, I don’t. In fact I think it has been hidden in the loft by my girlfriend. As I have got older, my musical tastes have evolved. To such an extent that if I even so much as see my copy of Louise’s Woman In Me I break out in a cold sweat. I know not to touch it.* It’s a self-preservation thing I think. I don’t believe that Folkestone man doesn’t feel the same way when he approaches his CD rack. Which makes his decision to go through and actually play his music even more baffling.

4. Guilty Pleasures. Obviously, when I say my musical taste has evolved, that doesn’t mean I don’t get a twitch on when certain songs I probably shouldn’t like float out of the speakers. Boy Meets Girl’s Waiting For A Star To Fall is probably the most guilty of these pleasures. What I wouldn’t do though, is play it so loud that the entire neighbourhood has a party in the street and I appear in The Daily Express. The Daily Telegraph maybe, but not the Express.

5. More Logic. I think I do understand a little of what Folkestone man must have been going through. I can relate to his predicament slightly. If I am watching cricket and my girlfriend is vacuuming I have to turn the volume up to hear what the commentators are saying. That is the natural thing to do. I presume from my experience that Folkestone man had little choice but to drown out the sound of his neighbours banging on the wall by turning up the volume. What I don’t understand is why he didn’t pause his music until the banging had stopped? Obviously that’s not something I can do if I am watching live sport. The knowledge that I am watching something five minutes after it has happened makes me feel violently ill.

6. Jobsworths. I guess the thing that really baffles me about Folkestone man is that he clearly likes keeping ‘Noise Officers’ in jobs. Noise Officers! Do we really need people whose full time role it is to identify what is too loud or not? No we don’t. It’s bloody obvious. If can hear it and I can’t control it, then it’s too loud. Maybe if Folkestone man and his ilk turned down their music, these noise officers could go and do something useful. Like chase burglars.**

7. The 7 Reasons Test. It has taken me far too long to come up with six reasons, let alone seven and quite frankly I need to get on with my life. But this only goes to show how inexplicable playing Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman abnormally loud is. If it was explicable I would have probably been able to reason it in thirty minutes. As it is, it has taken me a good three hours to get this far. I’ll be honest, this has been my worst 7 Reasons experience since 7 Reasons It Sometimes Takes 7 Hours To Write 7 Reasons and at the moment I have very little interest in returning to this site ever again. I’m turning to drink. And for once I don’t mean tea.

*Rather interestingly this CD isn’t in the loft. I am looking at it right now. Sweaty, but tempted.

**Whoever came up with the idea of Noise Officers needs to get in touch with me today to prevent a 7 Reasons rant on Thursday.***

***Not that I’m coming back. I quit.

March 22, 2011
7 Reasons That I Hate the M&S Dine in for £10 Deal

Marks and Spencer have a Dine in for £10 meal deal in which you select a main course, a side-dish, a dessert course and a bottle of wine and pay only ten pounds for them. Other supermarkets have similar deals but I don’t shop at them, so I’m only qualified to write about my abject hatred of the M&S meal deal, which seems to be aimed solely at people who dine together in even numbers. Anyway, here are 7 Reasons that I loathe it. With every fibre of my being.

Grrr.

1. They’ve Got It Surrounded. It’s the weekend and there they all are. The throng. A grey horde of people aged over fifty-five standing four-deep, apparently transfixed, around the Dine in for £10 (But Only If There Are Precisely 2.0 Of You And Absolutely No Singletons Or Children Welcome) display. Some of them are actually viewing the food, picking it up and inspecting it, but many are not. A lot of these people seem not to have any involvement in the decision over what to eat at all, but there they stand, in the way of anyone else who might conceivably want to see the food. My wife, for example, will want to see the food. As will other customers so, if you’re not actively looking at the food, why not step away from the food? Hello! Hello! We want to see the food! Actually, I can already see the food – as all people over the age of fifty-five are tiny – but I can never get within nine feet of it for fear of damaging the doddering Lilliputians as I lumber through the waist-high mass of grey to get to the growers choice salad bag. Get out of the way! Other people want to see the food!

2. It’s A Compromise. Putting together a meal from the Dine in for £10 menu is a study in the art of compromise. And compromise is an abomination. Did Churchill compromise? Rarely. Did Neville Chamberlain compromise? Yes. Ergo, compromise is abominable and speaks with a Birmingham accent. So when my wife and I put together a meal from the Dine in for £10 menu it becomes a power-struggle that even the UN would back away interceding in (we don’t have any oil, for one thing). I approach the menu searching for the most interesting and tasty thing there, and my wife approaches it searching for the most insipidly dull and bland thing that they have which, in turn, causes me to become angry and refuse to compromise further on any of the other courses or the wine (just imagine Hitler food-shopping or, if you shop at the same branch of M&S as me, look for the angry giant bellowing “Who the hell has fish and chips with a side dish of rosemary new potatoes?!”). So in the end, neither of us get the meal we want. I can’t really blame M&S for this, it’s my own fault. If I wanted to eat nice, tasty, well balanced meals I should have followed Simon Cowell’s example and married myself.

3. It’s Discriminatory. I’m not a single person but, between bouts of not being single, I have been. I remember it well; a time when I would always find things exactly where I left them and had much more space in bed. But single people today need that extra space in bed because they are required to eat twice as much as people in couples to take advantage of the Dine in for £10 offer which will, ironically, increase their chances of remaining single. Or perhaps I’m being fanciful there. No one (in Europe) is actually going to eat twice as much to take advantage of a special offer, so the offer discriminates against single people. But M&S don’t care. They seem perfectly happy to condemn the single to evenings of dining – on full price non-special food – alone while viewing whatever television programme they fancy without interruption and in their pants. But surely being single is tough enough without being excluded from special offers? What if you were unfortunate enough to be a widower? What if, after the two of you have enjoyed a Saturday night ritual of dining in for £10 for a few years, your tiny grey husband dies (possibly crushed to death by a giant food-Nazi next to the ultimate potato mash)? There’d be no more Dine in for £10 menu for you. How iniquitous.

4. It Forces Extreme Measures. Many of the best ideas are borne out of adversity and, much in the noble tradition of Barnes Wallis inventing the bouncing bomb or Soviet cosmonauts using pencils in space, I have formulated a plan; a method by which single people might take full advantage of the Dine in for £10 offer and stick it to the man by enjoying a spinach and beef roulade followed by a raspberry panna cotta at the cheaper price. Single people need to find a food-buddy. They can do it by placing a personal ad like this:

Fiscally frugal food-lover (Male, early thirties, GSOH, NS, NK) with a penchant for rosemary and lemon crusted seabass and the green pea, bean and vegetable layer seeks similar to take advantage of the M&S Dine in for £10 offer. Must be willing to consume a lesser share of the profiteroles. All applications welcome but please, no time-wasters or merlot-drinkers.

By getting organised, single people can take advantage of the Dine in for £10 offer. But should single people have to resort to their guile, cunning and organisational adroitness to take advantage of the same offers that are unconditionally granted to couples?*

5. It’s Being Discriminatory Again. My wife and I qualify for the meal deal now, but what if we were to have a child one day? It’s not inconceivable (and nor are children, hopefully). Or three children? We’d be disqualified from the offer. Cruelly cast asunder by Marks and Spencer. Because you can’t feed three or five (or any other odd number, I won’t list them all) people from the M&S Dine in for £10 menu. In fact, only one person has ever successfully accomplished a similar feat: His name was Jesus and what he did with the wrong quantity of food for a gathering of people is spoken of as a miracle (which is a biblical word meaning fiction). So – miracles aside – families that contain an odd number of members are excluded from the deal too. The father, the son and the holy ghost can’t take advantage of the Dine in for £10 deal but Hitler and Eva Braun can.

6. Paying For The Thing. Okay, so – after about an hour of pushing tiny grey people around and bickering with your partner about broccoli – you’ve carefully assembled all of the components of the meal and you take them to the checkout. But when you get there they don’t ask you for ten pounds. They ask you for seventeen. “I thought that it was all a part of the Dine in for £10 offer”, you will state. And then they’ll press the Total button and say, “Oh yes, I hadn’t pressed the Total button”. This happens every time. Just press the Total button! We know we’re saving money, we don’t need you to remind us of that every time we buy the meal deal – that’s why we’re buying the bloody meal deal in the first place. All you’re accomplishing by reminding us of the money we’ve saved is to make the widow in the queue behind us cry.

7. The Third Pie. Marks and Spencer does something further to confound us all. As a part of their 2 for £10 menu Marks and Spencer offer a key lime pie. Which comes in three portions. Why three? We’ve already established that there’s only room for two people in this meal, what do they want us to do, fight over it? Go outside and scour the streets for a total stranger to hand it to as a random act of kindness? Perhaps they think we’re so abominably cruel that we’ll invite a dinner-guest – a single dinner-guest – round to watch us consume the rest of the menu before we reward them with a tiny dessert? I know this for certain; cats will not eat key lime pie, no matter how much cat food you mix in with it, so what’s with the third pie, Marks and Spencer? The third pie is sinister, frustrating and baffling. As is the rest of the Dine in for £10 deal.

*No. (But your conscience will surely have told you that already).

March 21, 2011
Russian Roulette Sunday: 7 Reasons To Borrow One Of The 7 Reasons Team

Good morning Sunday. Usually on Sunday we rid ourselves of the strict seven reasons framework and let it all hang out. Today is slightly different. Without request, bargaining or bribery, former (and future) guest writer Richard O’Hagan decided to be nice to us. Now, 50% of the 7 Reasons team don’t go in for all this self-loving egotistical narcissism that is so prevalent on the internet. The other 50% can’t get enough. And because he is in charge this Sunday he has decided to share the nice things Richard said about us with you. For reasons best known to himself – though he did cite our week of cat flap/flat cap/flat cat borrowing – Richard has thoughtfully provided the world with seven reasons as to why one of you should borrow one of us. And here they are:

1. Technical Skills (IT). It must be obvious to anyone that the 7 Reasons team are technical geniuses when it comes to computer related stuff. Every now and then a post appears which is so laden with computer-speak that it is the written equivalent of being audible only to dogs, ergo they must know a lot more about this stuff than you or I. So the next time that your office computers crash, don’t wait for some numpty in Prague or Mumbai to diagnose your problem, simply borrow a 7 Reasons member to sort it out for you

2. Technical Skills (DIY). Look at that sofa! Isn’t it a work of genius? How much talent must be bottled up in these two guys, that they can produce something so seamless that you can hardly see the join (apart from the change in colour and style, obviously). Here are men so talented with a saw, screwdriver and hammer that the likes of Tommy Walsh weep in their presence (presumably). There is simply no reason to employ someone else to put up your shelves or build your decking when you can go to the very best and borrow Marc or Jon

3. Geographical Convenience. Better still, with one of them (Marc) being Oop North, and the other (Jon, by a process of elimination) Dahn Sarf, you can guarantee that a 7 Reasons expert is only minutes away (as even hours can be measured in minutes, too), thereby making them far more likely to show up and fix your problem than any other so-called expert

4. Lemons. One of my wife’s frequent complaints is that whenever I buy fish, I forget to buy a lemon for her to squeeze over it. 7 Reasons practically runs on the things, so why not borrow a 7 Reasons-er to do your shopping for you and avoid citrus-related domestic grief forever (unless your wife wanted limes. Or oranges)

5. Cats. Have you ever tried getting a cat sitter? It is almost impossible to find one for less than the cost of the holiday you were going on in the first place. And catterys cost even more. So why not borrow Marc, a self confessed tolerator of felines, to look after your cats whilst you are gone. There’s at least a 50% chance that he won’t try and feed them on lemons.

6. Empathy. At least one of the 7 Reasons boys is colour blind. At least one is married. If, like me, you are both colour blind and married you can really do with having someone to empathise with as your wife yet again complains that your shirt and trousers clash with one another. Borrow the 7 Reasons team and you have an instant set of shoulders (four, in fact) to cry on.

7. 7 Bespoke Reasons. You just know that the 7 Reasons team spend all day, every day, wandering around in a highly-developed comedic haze, every fibre twitching to find the source of the next 7 Reasons post. If you borrow one of them, you will find that it is your life that 7 Reasons becomes based upon. Which, frankly, is even better than writing 7 of them for yourself.

So there you have it. Well, almost. Due to the success of Thursday’s poll – which was won handsomely by “Fnuduhuh!” – we thought we’d give your fingers another chance to click on something. In line with today’s revelations, we are asking …

[poll id=”3″]

March 20, 2011