Tag: Birth

Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Love The British Monarchy

As the catalyst for much social discussion, the subject of countless headlines and even the inspiration behind many protests, it’s difficult to argue that the Royal Family aren’t a conversation starter. Despite dividing the opinions of the public on occasion, there are seven very special reasons why you can’t help but love the British monarchy.

1. Without the Royals, there would be no Pippa. In April 2011, the world was caught up in a whirlwind of fairy tale romance, bunting and street parties – it was time for the much-anticipated Royal wedding. Whether you loved it or loathed it, the inescapable pomp presented something to the general public other than misty-eyed monarchs; Pippa Middleton’s posterior. The bridesmaid’s bottom quickly gathered a following of over 225,000 fan on Facebook, and suddenly gave the Great British public a renewed interest in the Royals.

2. Banking on a bank holiday. Each time that we are faced with an up and coming event involving the monarchy, almost all of us ask ourselves the same question; will we get an extra bank holiday out of this? Some of us may even and plan our much awaited long weekends around the schedules of the Royal Family. Whether it’s a jubilee or a wedding, you’re likely to find that every Brit can discard their stiff upper lip regarding the Royals in lieu of an extra day away from their desk.

3. Rock star royalty. You might not expect a member of the monarchy to be prancing around a Las Vegas pool table crudely cupping their privates in a farcical attempt at modesty, but luckily for us that’s when it’s Prince Harry’s time to shine. Providing a little comic relief to the stiff regiment that is the Royal Family, Harry’s antics have ranged from poorly advised and politically incorrect fancy dress costumes to reported recreational drug use. Living a lifestyle that even the most well-seasoned rock star would shy away from makes the Royals seem a little more human; after all, wouldn’t we all do the same if we were born into a world of fame and fortune?

4. Bringing Britain the bacon. It’s difficult to walk a few yards in London without being confronted with an array of keyrings, coffee mugs and keepsakes emblazed with the faces of the Royal family. The monarchy attracts attention from people all over the world which in turn increases the amount of revenue generated by tourism each year. The year ending March 2013 saw overseas tourists spend £19 billion in the UK, and the monarchy is a contributing factor to this staggering figure. As one of the few remaining countries to still uphold a monarchy, we have to be grateful. After all, hoards of cash-burning visitors wouldn’t stand in the howling wind and drizzle for just anybody!

5. Prince Phillips’s classic clangers. Long before Prince Harry, Prince Phillip was dropping countless clangers during his duties, some of which were so outrageous they verged on the unbelievable. For example, just earlier this year during a trip to Luton and Dunstable University Hospital, the Prince remarked to a Filipino nurse “the Philippines must be half empty – you’re all here running the NHS”. Other toe-curling off the cuff comments include telling a robed president of Nigeria “you look like you’re ready for bed”. Even at 91, Phillip’s wit shows no sign of waning, so there may still be more mortifying moments to come.

6. Make way for the Magna Carta. If you think that Prince Harry’s partying and collection of pretty young things was going mad with power, you haven’t seen anything yet. King Henry I implemented a levy known as “scutage” that was payable by knights who wished to exempt themselves from their fighting duties during his rule in 1100. However, the King soon saw the potential to make a pretty penny from this tax, and increased the fee by 300%. It is said that this outbreak of craziness later inspired the creation of the Magna Carta to carefully control the powers of the ruling monarch.

7. Britain comes together. We may not know the words to the national anthem or be able to name each and every member, but the Royal Family does bring a certain level of unity to the UK. For example, when it was announced that Kate Middleton had gone into labour to give birth to Prince George Alexander Louis, over 6 million comments mentioning the imminent arrival were posted on Twitter within a 48 hour period. Along with a cup of tea and a buttered crumpet, the monarchy represents something that is quintessentially British that we can all share, whether we’re waving flags or just wishing it would all quieten down.

Author bio: Rosie Percy is a freelance writer who explores a diverse variety of lifestyle and human interest topics. She has previously written for the Guardian and a host of sites across the web, sharing her insights via blogs. Rosie currently lives in Brighton and spends her spare time seeing friends and strolling along the seafront.

July 26, 2013
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 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