Tag: Awful

7 Reasons That This Is The Worst Song Ever

Incredible news, 7 Reasons readers: I’ve discovered the worst song of all time. Surprisingly it’s not Mull of Kintyre, We Didn’t Start The Fire or that turgid Whitney Houston one that I first heard in 1993 and for all I know is still playing in the room I ran screaming from. It’s a song called Don’t Have Any More Mrs Moore that was made famous by Lily Morris in the 1920s. I didn’t mean to discover it. It snuck up and pounced on me while I was watching a documentary about Pathe News. It’s embedded below. I recommend that you don’t listen to it. Here are seven reasons that it’s the worst song ever.

1. It’s…Aarrgghhhh! Okay, you may have ignored my recommendation and if you did, that’s probably something approximating the noise you made on listening to it. I know that my initial reaction to hearing the jaunty and rather creaking string introduction followed by the first few bars of Lily Morris warbling about Mrs Moore was to shriek obstreperously and try to jam a dining table, a map of Scotland and half finished packet of Foxes Glacier Fruits into my ears. Sadly, they did not completely muffle the ear-grating, fingernails-down-a-blackboard, mating-sounds-of-a-half-strangled-cat-in-a-biscuit-tin, out-of-tune-soprano-with-her-on-fire-hair-caught-in-a-blender sheer unremitting screeching bloody cacophony that is this song. Listening to it is the aural equivalent of putting your penis on a desk and having it repeatedly struck with a hammer by an addled and vengeful dandruff-specked minicab driver with halitosis and grey shoes; something that every right-minded person would choose to spend an entire Saturday doing when given the choice between that or hearing a fraction of a nanosecond of a bar of this song again. It may well have been the first recorded instance of a father waking his baby up by screaming in the middle of the night. It is popularly said of ugly celebrities that, “…he/she has a face for radio”. Similarly, Lily Morris has a voice for cinema. Silent cinema. A silent cinema buried deep under the ground. Under Peru. In fact, under a very noisy thing in Peru. Under a man having his penis repeatedly struck with a hammer by an addled and vengeful dandruff-specked minicab driver with halitosis and grey shoes in Peru. Between the airport and the pneumatic drill testing centre.

2. It Fails The Test Of Time. Cole Porter; George and Ira Gershwin; Ivor Novello; Hoagy Carmichael; Kurt Weil; Irving Berlin: Just a few of the talented songwriters working in the 1920s that had absolutely cock-all to do with this song. Sadly, while their work has aged well, this song has not. It is the Mickey Rourke of popular song. It clearly had some sort of popular appeal in its day because Lily Morris sang it many times and I can find no written accounts of pandemonium as masses of horrified music-lovers stampeded from music-halls.   But there’s another possible explanation. Perhaps those that witnessed this horror were simply too traumatised to write about it; I wish I was. Perhaps people back then – who were able to vividly recount the sheer bloody horror of mechanised war and mass genocide – were far too disturbed by the ordeal of hearkening to this interminable and harrowing din to leave their descendants a warning from history. That seems eminently possible.

3. It’s Strange. In the song, Lily Morris is singing as a character, rather than as herself, addressing Mrs Moore. Not content with singing in her own character’s voice (and who would be content with that) for the whole of the song, Lily Morris inexplicably sings a verse of it as a Dutch vicar. From Namibia. I have no idea why she sings it as a Dutch vicar from Namibia, but I suppose if you’re going to pretend to be a vicar, you have to come from somewhere, even if it is Namibia. And you are Dutch.

4. It’s Ironic. The central theme of the song is a woman using drunkenness as a euphemism for wantonness or wantonness as a euphemism for drunkenness (I thought of checking, but I decided I’d rather have rusty razor blades stapled to my forehead instead) and cautioning another woman (Mrs Moore) against one or the other (or both). The irony is, however, that this is a song that positively no one could ever bear sober. This is a song that no sane person could experience (even partially) without having imbibed so much strong alcohol in one sitting that their liver would have a half-life of several millennia and would smell pungently of juniper berries for at least four and a half eternities.* The only way that anyone could possibly listen to this song without alcohol is if they were dead, and even then they would have to have been dead for at least a century and would need to have their wrists bound and the remains of their chest pinned to the floor by an anvil with Eamonn Holmes and the cast of Gandhi seated upon it, to ensure that they did not rise up and scamper from the room squealing in terror and urinating uncontrollably on the carpet.

5. It’s Historic. The discovery of this song has created a wholly astonishing and unforeseen development of historical proportions. A transpiration so unexpected that no one will ever have conceived of reading the words I’m about to write together in the same sentence. So momentous is this situation that, if I were to tell Nostradamus, Zephania, Philip the Evangelist and Derren Brown what I’m about to tell you, their reaction would be “Blimey! I didn’t see that one coming”. This song would be improved if covered by Jedward.

6. It’s Immortal. Once heard, this song cannot be killed. It’s an ear-worm that refuses to leave. Once it gets into your head (even if you only hear it once) this song becomes that bloody glittery vampire – the one that all sane people wish would just go away and die – that never goes away and dies. Of all the songs that you could ever get stuck in your head, this is the stickiest and most recalcitrant. It literally seems to bond itself to the inside of your brain somewhere between thoughts about tiramisu and thoughts about ducks. It is said that men think about sex every seven seconds. That is not true of men that have heard this song. Men that have heard this song think of this song every seven seconds (even when they’re asleep or flying an aeroplane). This song is no mere musical entertainment, it is a frightening disease of the mind.

7. It’s…Aaaaaarrrrrgghhh!!! Don’t Read This Reason!   If you think about this song long enough – every seven seconds since last Friday night, for example – it spawns the song of Satan. Because sooner or later (in a variant of infinite monkey theorem known as infinite poor suffering bastard that heard Don’t Have Any More Mrs Moore once and is now hearing it internally and infinitely for infinity theorem) the song will mutate. As you think of – or hear – another song this song will begin to segue into it. And then, with a creeping sense of trepidation and mounting dread, you will one day hear something so abominable and ghastly that it might well prove to be one of the signs of the apocalypse. You will hear the chorus of this song segue into that of another. You will hear:

Don’t have any more Mrs Moore

When there’s room on my horse for two

And with that perfectly seamless transition you’ll discover that you have, in your head, a mutant Lily Morris/Rolf Harris hybrid creature (Rily Marris?) singing a mash-up of Don’t Have Any Moore Mrs Moore and Two Little Boys at you every seven seconds for the rest of time. See, I told you not to read it.

*And why the hell does the word eternity have a plural?!

September 6, 2011
7 Reasons That Men Shouldn’t Wrap Birthday Presents

Did I give this the title 7 Reasons That Men Shouldn’t Wrap Birthday Presents? I didn’t really mean that. I meant 7 Reasons That Me Shouldn’t Wrap Birthday Presents. Or I, to be correct about it. Because I’m sure that there are some men out there that are good at wrapping presents. Neat, methodical men that actually welcome the task; men that positively enjoy it, in fact. The thing is though, that I’m definitely not one of them. And I’m sure that somewhere there must be other people (most likely men) who are as ill-suited to wrapping gifts as I am. Possibly. Here are seven reasons I shouldn’t be allowed to wrap stuff.

Finished! At last!

1. Loathing. I fundamentally dislike wrapping gifts. I’m not good at it and I don’t enjoy it; much like dancing a ballet or sketching a bowl of fruit, I’m temperamentally unsuited to it and it’s much better when done by others. This affects my whole approach to the burden of having to wrap presents. I will procrastinate; I will obfuscate; I will participate in the most mundane or bizarre displacement activities to avoid it. I would literally rather do anything (photograph my belly-button fluff; listen to Jedward; fellate a baboon) than wrap a present. This leads to problems.

2. Delay. It means that I will leave performing the odious task until the last possible moment. And then, when that arrives, I’ll leave it for an hour or two more. Then I’ll have a beer or two, which I may follow with some gin or – as preceded one spectacularly disastrous present-wrapping session – absinthe. I will not wrap a single birthday present until I am so tired that I absolutely have to go to bed on the eve of the birthday. Only then is it time to start wrapping.

3. Practice Makes Perfect. It’s then of course, that I am reminded of how epically, stupendously, mind-bogglingly bad I am at wrapping presents. It’s something I get to do so rarely (thankfully) that I believe I may be getting worse at it with every passing year. I only do it rarely, not because I am ungenerous, but because I am forbidden to do so. My wife – having seen many examples of my wrapping – would rather allow Prince Phillip and Pete Doherty to mind our baby for a weekend than let me wrap a gift that anyone will see (feel, or even be within the same postcode as). This division of labour suits me fine as it leaves me in charge of hammering stuff and assembling things, but it leaves me ill-equipped for the four occasions per year on which I am called to wrap presents.

4. Wrapping Is Dull. There are few tasks duller than wrapping presents. Probably. I’ve been trying to think about something duller than wrapping a present for several minutes now and have so far failed to come up with anything that tops the unremitting tediousness that is covering things for other people in paper. So I would be better off if I had a distraction from the wrapping. But I can’t watch television or listen to music while I’m wrapping because of the hour and because rustling wrapping paper is the loudest sound known to humankind outside of Muse and Vanessa Feltz being sucked into a jet engine. When you are wrapping presents, you are wrapping presents. There. Are. No. Distractions.

5. Sellotape. But there is Sellotape. There’s a fundamental flaw with Sellotape; one that renders it almost all but unusable to me. It has two sides; one of which is smooth and presents me with no problem, and then there’s the other side, which is sticky. The sticky side adheres to everything: It sticks to me, it sticks to itself, it sticks to the table, it sticks to the floor, it sticks to anything that has fallen from the table to floor and retains it in the form of a visible mass of crumbs, dust, fluff and (always) a single pubic hair stuck between the Sellotape and the wrapping paper. The only thing that Sellotape does not do – in my hands – is affix neatly and evenly to the edges of wrapping paper. One birthday, I got this reaction: “Thank you for the present, Darling. Why is there a tortilla chip stuck to it?”

6. Paper. Because I am emphatically not in charge of wrapping anything ever, I am often presented with a problem when it comes to paper. I buy wrapping paper all the time. Lots of paper. Because of this, I always expect to find an abundance of wrapping paper when I – with heavy heart – am obliged to wrap a present. But because my wife spends her entire year wrapping presents in my absence, by the time I need wrapping paper, there’s none left. Things I have been forced to resort to using in the past include: tissue paper, newspaper, plain brown paper, white A4 paper and lined A4 paper. I have also given the gift of a small and delicate bracelet presented in a large metallic red bottle bag. Last night I had to resort to using Christmas wrapping paper to wrap my wife’s birthday presents. Fortunately I was able to talk my way out of the situation this morning: “Those? Those are birthday trees, Darling…Merry Birthday!”

7. Apology. There are also many apologies involved in wrapping presents: Apologies for waking the household up by bellowing obscenities at an odd-shaped overnight bag (or Sellotape, we can’t be certain) at 0330 in the morning; apologies for affixing a dead woodlouse to the wrapping of a tub of handcream that bore the words “Be My Valentine”; apologies for the (unaccountably) ginger pubic hair that was stuck to the tube of Pringles; apologies for the “Birthday” trees line that seemed certain to work and apologies for arriving in bed with a ball of Sellotape stuck to my arm which eventually transferred to my wife’s back when she rolled over. It turns out that wrapping birthday presents is a sorry affair, as well as a messy one.

*I would, of course, like to wish my wife a very happy birthday (if not a well wrapped one). Happy Birthday, Darling.

August 1, 2011
7 Reasons That We Shouldn’t See The Photograph

Breaking news: The world is debating whether or not to look at a photograph, and here at 7 Reasons we have an exclusive. We have got hold of the picture that you should never, ever see, and we’re going to let you, our thoroughly grown-up readers, decide whether you want to look at it. The 7 Reasons team have viewed this graphic image and it’s fair to say that we were somewhat taken aback. In fact there was gasping and a bit of vomiting. We’re going to post a link to the picture at the bottom of this post but before you go there, let us explain why you shouldn’t look at it.

1. You Don’t Need To See It. Would your life be improved immeasurably by viewing it? No. Quite the opposite, in fact. If you want to look at it, it’s only because of morbid curiosity. You don’t need to see it, and your life will not be enriched by viewing it. Trust us on this, we’ve seen it, and once you see the picture, you cannot un-see the picture. It’s like Pandora’s box except it’s not Pandora’s box, it’s a box belonging to someone else. Don’t look into the box and certainly don’t zoom in on it with your mouse. The RSPCA don’t take that sort of thing lightly. Don’t look into the box!

2. It’s Gruesome. The image is bloody horrible. It’s truly sickening to behold and it will haunt you until your dying day. If you don’t want to see something so abhorrent that you might try to poke your own eyes out with a spoon* don’t look at it.

3. There’s A ‘Hole. A big ‘hole. Where once there was life, now there’s a big gaping ‘hole in the foreground; something vacant. You really don’t need to see the ‘hole. Viewing the ‘hole is a truly hideous and traumatic experience that you can well do without. I would have been better off without ever having seen the ‘hole. You will be too. Don’t look at the ‘hole.

4. It’s Puzzling. It really is. Imagine you’re a Viking and a blue cat wearing jeggings is explaining string theory to you. It’s more confusing than that. And you don’t get to wear a beard or one of those horny hats either.** There is nothing in the world that makes less sense than this image***

5. It’s Graphic. We don’t really know the circumstances under which the photograph was taken; perhaps it was hurried, we don’t know, and frankly we don’t want to think about it any further. But there’s still a fire visible in the background and there’s flesh. Much flesh. It’s apparent that the scent of burning flesh would have been strong when this picture was taken. You don’t need to see that or even think about it. In fact, stop thinking altogether. It only leads to trouble. Don’t think and don’t look at the picture.

6. Side-Effects. We’re reasonably young and healthy here at 7 Reasons**** and we felt unwell when we saw it. So we wondered what this image could do to readers with any underlying health problems and, even though we’re not real doctors, we’ve come to a conclusion via a process of wild speculation and abject conjecture: This image could kill. And dying would be inconvenient as you’ve probably got things to do this afternoon or dinner plans. Don’t look at the picture. And don’t die.

7. Trust. Now we’ve put the link to the picture just below this paragraph and we’re going to let you decide whether to look at it or not. But, before you make that important decision, consider this. If you look at the image, you’ll be doing it for the wrong reasons as – and we’ve made this quite clear – it’s bloody horrible and you don’t need to see it. We hope you’ll trust that the judgement of the 7 Reasons team in this matter is sound and that we have your best interests at heart. So when deciding whether to view it, remember that if you choose to look, you’ll be letting us down and you’ll be letting yourselves down too. Oh, and you should probably lock away your spoons.

Here is the link to the image, don’t click on it.

*Or whatever else you have handy, I don’t know why I assume that all 7 Reasons readers are equipped with a spoon.

**If we do have a Viking reader, imagine you’re a Norman. Or a Gerald.

***Except for the labels in baby clothes that say “Keep away from fire”. Where do clothes manufacturers imagine that people store babies?

****When the health and age of the team is taken as a mean average.

May 5, 2011
7 Reasons Picking Up The “For My Horny Boyfriend” Christmas Card Was A Mistake

There are moments in our lives when we question our actions. For me, such a moment took place a few days ago. I was in a branch of a well-known national card selling establishment perusing the shelves for a suitable Christmas card to buy for my girlfriend. Being ‘in the zone’ I was unaware of my surroundings. And – in particular – the location of the boyfriend section. Being of the heterosexual kind, I prefer my woman to be a woman. And, in something of a triumph, my girlfriend is both. As a result I was not on the look out for a card addressed to a boyfriend. So when I inadvertently picked one up the other day, it was a mistake. A terrible mistake.

This is not the actual card. I was hardly going to take a photo of the actual card was I?

1. Realisation. At first I felt a bit silly, but that feeling subsided very quickly once I realised exactly where I was. In a well known national card selling establishment. I froze. Were people around me? Was I being watched? Had this been captured on CCTV? What if it had? What if people had seen me browsing the girlfriend cards only to then move onto the horny boyfriend section? They’d think I was a slut!

2. Hesitation. Having stood, motionless, for what seemed like an eternity but in reality was probably only a few seconds, I had a another problem. Anyone who had done the same would have realised their mistake and immediately put the card back. But I had paused. A pause that could easily be mistaken for contemplation. A fatal pause. Those people who thought I was a slut, now thought I was a serial adulterer!

3. Frustration. So now what do I do? Do I put the card back quietly and pretend* it was not what I was looking for or do I make a bit of a song and dance about it? Do I say, rather loudly, “Oops! I didn’t want that!”? You know, just so every knows exactly where I stand on the whole horny boyfriend thing. It certainly has it’s merits, but what if I overact it? What if I sound really, really camp? What if I am not believable. Those who thought I was a slut and then changed their minds to a serial adulterer will now think I’m in denial!

4. Contemplation. It must have been a minute now and I am still holding the card. What am I doing? And, hang on a second, why am I reading it? Why am I reading the words, ‘A naughty Christmas poem for my horny boyfriend‘? Why? Why am I doing this? And why am I not stopping? This is a poem for my boyfriend, who is always so horny and whose body… Argh! I must stop! Those who thought I was a slut come serial adulterer come man in denial now must think I am a pervert.

5. Determination. I know now that there are other people around me. I have men to the left of me looking at cards for their girlfriends and I have women to the right of me looking at cards for their boyfriends. I hold my ground on the join. I can’t buckle. I can’t throw my bags on the floor and begin sobbing. Mainly because I don’t have any bags, but also because it’s so bloody cold outside that all the moisture in my eyes has frozen. I’m going to get through this though. I pull the card closer to my chest so no one can see what I have picked up. I am just going to stand here until everyone has gone. Though those that originally thought I was a slut, a serial adulterer, a denialist and a pervert, now just think I am an idiot standing in their way.

6. Innovation. These people aren’t leaving! They just keep looking at other cards. It’s midday now. It’ll be dark soon. I’m going to have to be clever. I am going to have to put the card back without anyone noticing. So I pick up another card – one that is addressed ‘to my girlfriend’ before you ask – and I pretend to be interested in it. It’s bloody hideous so that doesn’t take long. Then, rather cleverly, I put it back with the horny boyfriend card underneath. And no one notices. Until the guy next to me picks the girlfriend card up which of course leaves the horny boyfriend card on display. He looks at me and I look at him. He doesn’t think I’m a slut, an adulterer, a denialist, a pervert or an idiot. He thinks my girlfriend is a boy!

7. Affirmation. This is the point at which I realise I am in an awkward situation so I may as well make the best of it. Half the battle of a 7 Reasons writer, is to find the inspiration. Well here I was. With inspiration staring directly at me. No, not the man. He has moved on. I am staring at the card again. I am living a 7 Reasons post. All I had to do was remember exactly how I felt when I picked the card up in the first place. So I pick it up again and repeat the whole process. Now I don’t care who thinks I’m a slut, an adulterer, a denialist, a pervert, an idiot or a ladyboy fetishist, because I know I am a genius. A rosey-red cheeked genius.

*This is what a Horny Boyfriend card can do to you. You start pretending you don’t want the card that you didn’t want in the first place.

December 16, 2010
7 Reasons Sir Elton Might Like To Take A Look At His Own Songs

Hello, I’m back. I guess, in the grand scheme of things, that is not enough to make your Tuesday. As a result I shall also furnish your day with a 7 Reasons post. You may have heard that Sir Elton John has been having a pop at the songwriters of today. According to the BBC, he thinks they’re awful. ‘Fair enough’, I thought, ‘but let’s just have a listen to some of Elton’s stuff to find out how much better he was’. The results are staggering. Here are 7 Reasons Elton should probably listen to his Greatest Hits again.*

1. Song – Your Song. Lyric – “I don’t have much money but boy if I did, I’d buy a big house where we both could live.” It’s hardly the stuff of Chaucer, Hardy or Dickens is it?

2. Song – Crocodile Rock. Lyric – “But the biggest kick I ever got, was doing a thing called the Crocodile Rock, while the other kids were rocking round the clock, we were hopping and bopping to the Crocodile Rock.” I know this song is self-referential, but even so, it’s still a load of nonsense. I wouldn’t have thought the hallmark of a great songwriter was to make up some stupid dance name. I suspect Elton would laugh in Marc’s face if Mr Fearns approached him with the 7 Reasons Shuffle. Especially if he was wearing my mask.

3. Song – Daniel. Lyric – “Daniel is traveling tonight on a plane, I can see the red tail lights heading for Spain.” How convenient Daniel was going to Spain. Mind you, I suppose if he had been going to Derry he could have caught the ferry. Just a shame they don’t do a tram to Iran really.

4. Song – Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting. Lyric – “It’s getting late have you seen my mates, Ma tell me when the boys get here, it’s seven o’clock and I want to rock, want to get a belly full of beer.” Hardly the sort of message one wants to be sending out. Elton John and Grand Theft Auto have a lot to answer for.

5. Song – Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me. Lyric – All of them. This song is a cliche. From start to finish. In that respect, the songwriting is awful. It also doesn’t address the solution to the sun going down, which, in most parts of the world, is to switch on the light. Or light a candle. Actually, I’m glad Elton never lit a candle, he’d have probably written a song about it.

6. Song – Honky Cat. Lyric – “When I look back, boy I must have been green, bopping in the country, fishing in a stream.” I’m not a cynic, but I find it very hard to believe that anyone who is green and bops in the country also goes down to fish in the stream. I think it has more to do with the fact that it rhymes. Personally, for all the sense this song makes, I would have preferred it to have been, ‘When I look back, yowzer I must have been blond, chugging in the hamlet, pissing in a pond’. But I guess the tempo is not quite the same with that is it?

7. Song – Rocket Man. Lyric – “Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids.” No, neither is Preston. Talk about stating the bloody obvious. And whose idea was it to write a song about a fictional astronaut going on a fictional journey to Mars anyway?

*Edit: In response to all of you who told me Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics and not Elton, yes, I do know this. Elton still saw the lyrics fit enough to sing though. As a result, this post passes muster.

October 19, 2010