7 Reasons

Tag: aesop

  • 7 Reasons To Go Out Into The Wind

    7 Reasons To Go Out Into The Wind

    If you’re in Britain at all which, in 7 Reasons terms, is statistically likely, you can’t have failed to notice that it’s extraordinarily, astonishingly, epically windy outside at the moment.  But the wind isn’t a bad thing.  In fact, going out into the wind could well be the best thing for you.  Here are seven reasons why.

    a cartoon drawing of wind
    I shall probably have nightmares featuring this image.

    1.  You’ll Have More Time.  Have you any idea how much of your life is spent drying your hair?  Absolutely loads.  You’d probably find it amounts to years, if you were to spend even more time adding it all up.  But you can save all that time.  If you go outside into the wind, you’ll have drier hair.  You hair will not only dry quickly, but it’s so windy out there that it will possibly remain dry forever.  It’ll be drier than a salty desert; drier than a dry martini that has evaporated in the sun; drier than a Mormon in a towel; drier than fire (though hopefully not the same colour).  If you go outside right now, you’ll never, ever need to dry your hair again.  That’s like being given the gift of time.

    2.  You’ll Be More Beautiful.  Competing cosmetics brands spend billions of pounds, dollars, euros, ringgits, zlotys and yen trying to convince us their product is the best for us.  One of the things that they all agree on though, is that exfoliating is the key to naturally beautiful skin.  If you go out into the wind right now, you’ll find that exfoliation is free.  You’ll find that the wind is so strong that layers of dead skin are blown clean away from your face, leaving you both ruddy and beautiful.  You’ll be ruddy beautiful.  You might find that so many layers of skin are blown away that you’re left with your original baby-skin which, as we all know, is the softest, most lovely thing in the world outside of a gin distillery.  And it’s free.

    3.  You’ll Be Sexier.  What’s the universally acknowledged sexiest moment in film?  No, it’s not the scene where Meg Ryan gets excited about sandwiches (unless you’re a weirdo, a pervert or are very hungry), it’s the scene from the  The Seven Year Itch where, gently wafted by a breeze emanating from a subway grate, Marilyn Monroe’s dress billows upward revealing something hitherto unimagined by unsuspecting filmgoers.  Women have legs!  This is the universally acknowledged most sensual moment in the history of cinema.  Similarly, if you go out into the wind in a dress you’ll find that it will billow, ripple and balloon too.  The wind’s so strong at the moment that it’ll probably blow clean over your head.  Just by doing the maths you can tell that an incident that reveals that much more flesh and structural garments will make you many times sexier than Marilyn Monroe in the sexiest cinema moment ever.  You’ll be the sexiest woman in the world, even if you’re a man.  If you want to be sexy, you need the wind.

    4.  You’ll Be Healthier.  What’s the key to health?  Exercise.  Want exercise?  Go outside right now.  I went out into the garden earlier and soon found myself vaulting over a wall and giving chase to a garden ornament belonging to my son that had been suddenly taken by the wind and was skittering down the street.  After a sprinting for many, many yards past several startled neighbours and a wild-eyed dog I caught up with it and trapped it with my foot.  As I returned to my garden with the turquoise windmill spinning wildly in my hand I knew I was fitter for the unexpected exercise.  I looked like an idiot, but you can’t have everything.

    5.  You’ll Be Wealthier.  There are untold riches just waiting for you out there in the wind.  Want to profit from this literal windfall?  Here’s how:  Firstly, go out into your garden and make sure that everything you own outside in the wind is secure.  Secondly, go inside and wait.  When the wind stops blowing, you’ll find that you have all sorts of new treasure.  You’ll have bags, you’ll have paper stuff, you’ll have new plants, you’ll probably have a dress and a turquoise windmill.  You’ll have booty!  Absolutely anything could turn up.  It’s like a free lucky dip or a meteorological tombola.  A windswept sweepstake.  A gale lottery.  Weather bingo!

    6.  You’ll Be Wiser.  Remember the Aesop fable about the sun and the wind having a bet to see if they could make a man remove his cloak and the wind failing abjectly at this task?  No?  Go outside with a cloak on then and see if you want to take it off.  That’s practical learning.  Plus you might be able to use it to fly.

    7.  You’ll Feel Better.  What do Scandinavian types do to cheer themselves up when their favourite elk dies or they find that their new wardrobe has one bolt missing and the instructions have apparently been translated into gibberish?  They get into the sauna and beat themselves with twigs and leaves.  No one knows why they do this*, but they claim that it makes them feel good.  So imagine how great you’ll feel when you go outside and stand next to a tree.  At the moment, you’ll be beaten black and blue by all manner of twigs and leaves swirling round in the air at improbable speeds.  You’ll be battered into happiness, buffeted into joy, knocked about into light-heartedness and marmalised into merriment.  You’ll feel better than you ever have in your life.  Go outside right now, it’ll be the best thing you’ve ever done!  Oh, and can you pick up something for my dinner while you’re out there?  I’m staying in.

    *Okay, someone probably does.

     

     

     

     

  • 7 Reasons to Run Away and Change Your Name

    7 Reasons to Run Away and Change Your Name

    1.  The CIA. You are the co-author of a British-based humour website which gets an alarming number of page hits from readers in Arlington, Virginia (the home of the CIA).  This scares you.

    2.  A Fable. Your name is Alan Lupus.  You live in a small, unremarkable seaside town in a semi-detached house on the cliff-top.  You have formerly had many close friends and been on good terms with your neighbours.  For the last three weeks, however, you have been plagued by a recurring vision that seems to you to be completely real.  You have seen it several times, all at different times of day.  You look out from your living room window and see that a large, heavy buoy has broken free from its chains near the harbour entrance and, floating around unsecured, is causing a danger to shipping.  Every time this apparition has appeared, you have frantically roused your friends and neighbours who have rushed down to the harbour to secure the buoy and prevent catastrophe.  On all of these occasions they arrive to find that the buoy is safely moored outside the harbour entrance and everything is normal.  Your behaviour has caused such a stir that the story has been printed in the local paper and the townsfolk have now begun to point at you in the street.  You are being persecuted by your neighbours and former friends.  You have brought shame on your family and, thanks to the story in the local paper going viral on the internet, you are notorious.  You realise that your only hope of leading a normal life again is to run away and change your name.  You are the Wolf who cried “buoy”.

    3.  Superb Pseudonym. You have devised the alias Fernando Manchega.  Pleased as punch with your own cleverness at having devised a non-de-guerre that contains elements of your own name and one of your favourite cheeses, you run away to start a new life in Belize taking your wife, Mrs Manchega, and your cat, Ignatio Peregrine Constantine Manchega, for company.  You are confident that no one will be able to track you down.

    4.  Jordan. Having been introduced to Katie Price you have unaccountably made a good impression.  She is now pursuing you with amorous intent.  Run man, run!

    5.  You Have A Dream. Your name is The Great Alfonso.  Your father is a circus strongman and your mother is a bearded lady.  You have been born into the circus business and your parents are adamant that it is your calling.  Since childhood, however, you have harboured a secret ambition and, in the twenty years that you have been a circus performer, this dream has begun to haunt you more and more.  You have now reached the stage that you find circus life unbearable.  You realise that, for the sake of your sanity, you must act to fulfil your desire.  You run away to join the accountancy firm of Baker, Foot and Slee.

    6.  You are rightly reviled. You are Jan Moir.

    7.  Sex. You are a trusted and long established Member of Parliament.  The publication in the News of the World of your sexual peccadilloes (which make the previous week’s headline that involved a rocking chair, a gymnast and a spotted-winged fruit bat seem tame,) have caused a hubbub in The House, a furore in Fleet Street and a hullabaloo in your home.  Your constituents are appalled, your colleagues are outraged and your wife is murderous.  You may have earned the admiration of contortionists and broccoli farmers everywhere but this is not enough to save your career or your reputation.  It is time to run away and change your name.