In a world where everyone is so image conscious, too many people keep going on about fruits, vegetables and balanced diets! How boring is that! There are so many reasons to relax every now and then and have the occasional piece of cake in your life. Here are just seven of them!
1. Scholars say that learning about history is good for you. Apparently, it helps to provide a sense of identity and improves your judgement and decision making. Did you know that the word cake comes from the Viking word Kaka? This means that cake has a long history! History is good for you, therefore you need cake!
2. Endorphins are hormones released by your brain which cause you to have happy feelings. Feelings of pleasure. Endorphins are also natural pain relievers. It has been scientifically proven that desserts like cake cause your brain to release endorphins! Endorphins make you feel happy and ease pain, so this is a very good reason to have more cake in your life.
3. Eating cake makes people feel happy. Happy people smile a lot. Smiling is good for you. It has been scientifically proven that a smile can help lower your blood pressure, relieve stress, boost your immune system, make you look younger, make you more attractive and can change your mood by releasing those happy chemicals called endorphins, which make you even more happy! And another thing, smiling is contagious! By having cake in your life, you will not only be helping yourself to be more happy, you will also be passing on your happiness to other people, by causing them to smile back at you! What better reason is there to have more cake in your life than that?
4. Cake makes people feel special! Everyone likes to feel special. You can even get personalised cakes made for your friends and family. You can put little messages on cakes. You can get a mini cake or a big cake personalised and sent as a gift to someone special. What better reason can you have for needing cake than to make someone else feel special?
5. Did you know that there are 490 calories in a Big Mac and 180 calories in the same amount of cake? You see, cake is better for you than a Big Mac!
6. All of the best nutritionists say that it is important to have balance in the diet. They say you should eat five fruits and vegetables a day because they help to keep your weight stable, they are high in fibre and they provide lots of vitamins and minerals which are good for you. Having cake adds the balance! Having some carrot cake or upside down pineapple cake adds to your five a day!
7. We have to celebrate the special events in life to give it meaning and to add joy. Birthdays, weddings, christenings, Christmas, Halloween, a promotion, a new job, all of these events and many others require celebration. You can not have a celebration without cake because that would just be boring.
So the moral to the story is that you need cake in your life!.
Whether you’re a busy business bod jet-setting your way around the most important cities in the world or a chilled explorer of the globe’s supreme sights and sounds, you’ll want somewhere to rest your worn-out brain cells or blistered feet at the end of the day. Crowne Plaza Meetings are the way to go, regardless of your destination and travel reason, ensuring you can work or play in suitable and comfortable surrounds.
1. Business Matters. You can be more in the zone than a neighbour at a neighbourhood watch meeting and more impressive than a chocolate teapot juggler, with Crowne Plaza meetings. Smart premises, professional service and modern equipment all ensure your meeting or conference is a success, allowing you to make an excellent impression on clients and colleagues – and not simply your chair. The room can be decked accordingly, guest speakers can be made to materialise, workshops can be run, and even an entire course can be conducted on the premises, with your own website at your disposal for many of the business matters.
2. Fun Times. Maybe you’re sick of meetings and the thought of arranging a business function at a Crowne Plaza Hotel makes you feel unsteady – instead, why not throw a party? As always, any excuse will do, be it your dog’s birthday, 17 days since your last party, or a friend’s twenty-third twenty-first.
3. Venues For Hire. If you want a venue for your wedding that will reduce the stress and strain of the big day thanks to the excellent facilities and friendly, capable staff, Crowne Plaza is a good choice. Able to cater for up to 1000 people for a banquet-style occasion, you’ll be able to find the venue you’re looking for.
4. Good Food. Whether you want a working lunch, food full of nutrients to fuel you throughout the long meeting and help to keep you conscious, or a delicious dinner consumed at a leisurely pace, Crowne Plaza meetings provide food for the occasion. Fresh, healthy and, most importantly, tasty, meals can be served during your business meeting, conference, birthday party or indeed visit to the restaurant.
5. No Hassle. You’re a busy individual – we all are these days. If you’re not dashing from one serious meeting to the next, you’re probably quickly checking Facebook on your smartphone or playing a rushed game of Angry Birds as you walk down the street. So the last thing you have time for is a long booking system when you want to arrange venues for hire or meeting space – instead, simply search on Crowne Plaza’s website to find exactly what you’re looking for in an instant. Plus, the moment you pick up the phone or drop an email to start your enquiry, you’ll be assigned your own Director. Oh yes, direct away my friend and your meeting, conference, wedding, guest speaker event, quad biking activity, workshop or otherwise will be arranged.
6. Fitness. Corporate wellbeing is all the rage nowadays, but your wellbeing has always been all the rage – which is why so many of the hotels feature a fitness centre. Run on the treadmill or, if you feel you do enough of that at work anyway you could spend some time in the sauna.
7. Choice. The reassuring thing is that you can travel to an array of cities around the world and chances are you’ll be able to find a Crowne Plaza Hotel just round the corner. With 92 hotels scattered across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, you’re bound to find the smart business premises you need as well as the snazzy resort you’re longing for.
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.
It turns out that today is the perfect day to have your second birthday. Here are seven reasons that you should.
1. Because You Can. You might not think you can have a second birthday on June 10th, but you can. You probably think that only the Queen can have two birthdays, but you’re wrong. The Queen doesn’t have two birthdays, she has three. She has her birthday, her official birthday and today, in the Solomon Islands – but nowhere else – it’s the Queen’s official birthday there. Is it really fair that the Queen should have three times as many birthdays as the rest of us? Of course not. No one would mind if you had a second birthday on June 10th, least of all the Queen who’d still be one better than the rest of us.
2. Because The Weather’s Right For It. The date of June 10th falls during the month of June, you may not be surprised to learn. This means that the weather is guaranteed. Because on any birthday in June, it will rain. This will make the weather on your actual birthday – unless that too, falls in June – seem positively glorious in comparison.
3. Because It Can Only Improve Your Day. Today, I was woken at 5:30am by my wife announcing that our son had wet the bed. “Never mind”, I said, “you can put him in our bed for a couple of hours”. “I can’t”, she replied, “it’s our bed that he’s wet”. You need a second birthday to get over that sort of news. I’m sure that many of you have also woken up to similarly bad news or had unfortunate experiences today (possibly involving rain). It’s not too late to have a second birthday. Have it now, you deserve it.
4. Because Tomorrow Is World Gin Day. Tomorrow, in its infinite wisdom, the world – or gin – has decided that it’s World Gin Day. If you have your second birthday today and request gin, tonic, limes, Angostora bitters, ice and glasses (because receptacles are important), you’ll be perfectly equipped for tomorrow’s festivities. And you’ll have got the cake-eating out of the way, because if there’s one thing that gin doesn’t go with it’s cake*. Have your cake today. And eat it.
5. Because Something Good Needs To Happen On June 10th. Sometimes, when writing about a particular day we do actual research via the medium of Google. Having researched June 10th, I can confirm that it’s one of the dullest days in history and can disclose that the two events with the most humour potential from this date are that the first public zoo was opened in France in 1794 and Elizabeth Hurley was born in 1965. It’s not just that you need June 10th for your second birthday. June 10th needs you.
6. Because It’s The Right Time Of Year. If you have a birthday in February or November, you probably lose out presents-wise because of your special day’s proximity to Christmas. That’s right, Jesus was born too and he’s far more important than you. June 10th is almost in the middle of the year and is as far away from Christmas as you can hope to get**. So, with your second birthday on June 10th, you’ll get better presents and you’ll foil Jesus. It’s all win.
7. Because It’s Jon’s Birthday. Today, June 10th, is my writing partner Jonathan Lee’s birthday. If everyone else had a second birthday today then he would age at half the speed of the rest of us (though anyone that saw yesterday’s post might say he’s making rather a good fist of that already***). We’d all become world-weary and cynical and while, in the Autumn of our lives, our minds had closed to fun, tomfoolery and japery, Jon would still be merrily frolicking away, committing acts of piracy in his garden. The world’s a much better place for that. Happy birthday Jon.
*If there are two things that gin doesn’t go with they’re cake and cycling.
It’s nearly time for the members of the 7 Reasons team to celebrate their birthdays again. Jon reaches the grand old age of 28 tomorrow, while Marc will fall just shy of his half-century on the 18th. As a result there have been a lot of cardboard tubes lying around the 7 Reasons sofa this week. No doubt they were once wound in birthday related wrapping paper. While the forthcoming presents certainly entertain the mind, it is the sight of the cardboard tubes that have excited us thus far. Well, excited Jon anyway. You see, there is so much that a cardboard tube can be used for. Let’s have a look.
1. Sport. If the sport features a bat, you can play it with a cardboard tube. With the amount of cricket related posts on this site, these seemed like an opportune moment to feature another sport. So this is how you would face down Roger Clemens with a cardboard tube.
2. Music. Immediate thoughts of turning a cardboard tube into an instrument will surely give you a vision of a didgeridoo. Fair enough. But a cardboard tube is so much more. It’s also a flute.
3. Wooden Leg. Sadly, accidents will happen. Which is why you need to be ready for any eventuality. What you can’t see in the above photo is that the dog from across the road was gnawing at my right leg. So bad was it that I lost it from the knee down. Luckily I had my cardboard tube with me. It formed an immediate replacement. It’s a not a pre-requisite to look camp, it’s just very hard not to.
4. Pointer. When you want to get you message across, sometimes holding a pointing device will help. Here I show how you would use a cardboard tube to point at a shed. I don’t think there is any doubt that I mean business.
5. On Guard. Unlike scissors, the cardboard tube also works for left-handers. Although I am right-handed, I am comfortable using this sword with my left-hand.
6. Invaders. If the French were to invade the UK – which obviously is a laughable proposition – a cardboard tube would act as a very viable telescope. If would almost certainly give the invading army flashbacks to the sight of Nelson.
7. Fitness. Joining the local gym is expensive. And joining the gym 300 miles away even more so. As a result keeping fit at home is the ultimate alternative. As is aptly displayed here, weightlifting with a cardboard tube is both easy and fun. Again you will look camp, but that seems a small price to pay given the guns you will eventually develop.*
Today it is my lady’s birthday. ‘My’ being me, Jon, and ‘lady’ being Claire. In the midst of discussing what she would like to do for her big day, I discovered that she’d really like to go to Bath Spar. My initial reaction was one of questioning. ‘Really?’ I thought, ‘You want to go to a Spar for your birthday?’ And then it dawned on me. She didn’t mean a Spar, she meant a spa. I thought about it. I did some research. I tried my swimming trunks on. And in the end I came to the conclusion that taking your lady to a Spar is so much better than taking her to a spa. Here’s why.
1. Types Of Water. Bath Spa offers warm water. Spar offers natural still water, spring water, purified water, mineral water, sparkling water, elderflower water, tonic water, isotonic water and loads of other waters that I really can’t be bothered to look up. That doesn’t matter though, I have offered enough. For variety take your lady to Spar. For tepid results take her to a spa.
2. Products. In a Spar you can purchase a vast range of suncreams, fake tans, cosmetics and plasters. All are new and nicely packaged. In a spa, while they may be free, these products are certainly not new. They are all mixed together along with hairs and dead skin cells and happily float about on top of the water. Who in their right mind would wish to expose their loved one to such an environment on their birthday?
3. Dressing Gowns. A spa is a fantastic place hiding place for people who have escaped from hospital. They’ll blend in seamlessly. You’ll have absolutely no idea which dressing gown adorned visitor is healthy, ill or dangerous. At least if you see someone in a Spar attired in just their dressing gown you know they’ll be recaptured very soon. Or they’ll head back to their halls of residence.
4. Sights. Let’s be honest, there are some people who perhaps don’t look after themselves as well as they should. As a result they are fatties. Fatties with clothes on the majority of us can just about bear, but fatties with no clothes on are a sight we wish we never have to witness. Spar, being a decent public service provider, have a rule. ‘Shoppers must wear clothes’. A spa of course just lets anyone and anything in.
5. Boredom. I have never been to a spa before but from what I hear there is a lot of sitting around in water doing not very much. A bit like when you fall asleep after Sunday lunch. I have, however, been to many a Spar. And many a Spar sells magazines and newspapers and even the occasional DVD. So the choice is simple. Take my lady to a spa so she’ll be bored for two hours or take her to a Spar where she can relax with a film, magazine and six hundred bottles of wine? I’m not an idiot.
6. Entry Fee. For a two-hour session at the Bath Spa it costs £25 per person. For a two-hour session at a Spar (not necessarily in Bath) it is free. This should be enough to persuade you, but should you need further evidence keep reading. If you don’t like the Spar, you can leave. You need not feel guilty about doing so and no one will ask you why. If you don’t like the spa however, what do you do? Well you’ll probably pretend that you do like it for a start. And then you’ll stay for the whole two hours so you get your money’s worth. There’s a complete logic fail in there somewhere. A massive one.
7. Associated Costs. So you’ve been in the spa. Now you’ve got to dry yourself and re-apply any make-up, hair wax or fake nails you may have lost. Then, when you get home, you have to use electricity to wash and dry your swimsuit and towel. This is all costing you money. When was the last time you went to a Spar and had to wash your towel because of it? Exactly, never. I’m not making my lady do unnecessary washing on her birthday. And neither should you.
Last year we provided you with seven of the finest World War propaganda posters that the world had never seen. They now exist in a very pleasant postcard collection. Today we thought we’d do the same with birthday cards. It’s a fascinating collection displaying the very finest in 7 Reasons style, humour and photoshop. Well, mostly.
1. Eyechart. Remember the good old days when your Dad could read? Yes, so do I. This card humorously reminds them that they are aging very quickly. Don’t worry, they wont find it insulting. By the time they have found their glasses they’ll have forgotten what they needed them for.
2. I Like This. Are you on facebook? Yes, of course you are. The only person who isn’t is my Mum. And good for her. It means she has more time to bake cakes and stuff. It also means she has real friends. That’s in stark contrast to the rest of us who have never actually met at least 20% of our ‘friends’. This card is ideal therefore for the social media nut in your life. It would also help if they have watched Notting Hill. And they’re a boy. You need to be a girl too. Or a male lesbian.
3. Copper Letters. This is our minimalist card. It wasn’t intentional, it’s just that these were all the letters we found down the side of the 7 Reasons sofa. Luckily for those among us who have birthdays, all the letters required to spell ‘Happy Birthday’ were present. Unfortunately we could only find a number zero and a number six. Which means this card is only really suitable for the six or sixty year-old in your life. At least you can reuse it though. Just hang on to it for fifty-four years.
4. White. Then we realised that our minimalist card wasn’t minimal enough. So this is our ist card (it’s so minimal that we could only make it more minimal by dispensing with the word minimal). Have we said “minimal” enough now? Good, we’ll stop then. This card recognises that the best cards in the shop are always the ones in which the interior is “left blank for your message” and contains the message “exterior left blank for your image” within. Printed in white. Which makes it appear even more…er…even less maximal.
5. Chess With Death. This birthday card designed specifically for the film buff references the Ingmar Bergman classic The Seventh Seal, in which an ailing knight plays a chess match against Death to prolong his life. It’s a card which accurately represents how most people over the age of thirty view birthday cards anyway, except that most people don’t even get the fun of a chess match on their “special” day. This is not a card for birthday fans.
6. Happy___Birthday. This is the only card you’ll ever need (which is something of a shame, as there’s one more to go). If you keep a stock of these at home you’re all set for every eventuality. Can’t find a card with the right age on it? No problem, there’s space for you to fill it in (to the day). Forgot the birthday and you’re sending it late? No problem, you can just tell them you meant to send it as a happy-sixty-fourth-plus-two-days card. Know someone who hates birthdays and want to stick the knife in? No problem, just send it with their age plus a hundred and eighty days, half a year after their birthday. They won’t be expecting that!
7. Deforestation. We’ve just designed a lot of cards. Well six. That’s a lot if you’ve only got five fingers. It’s also a lot of paper and, as we should all know by now, paper comes from trees. Our seventh card therefore highlights the plight of our rainforests. A greeting card that urges people to save the trees is a brilliant contradiction and one we hope will appeal to the hypocrites among you.
As I am sure all you bear aficionados are aware, today marks Rupert Bear’s 90th Birthday. Even if you don’t regularly read his adventures in the Daily Express – and let’s be honest, that’s all of us – you should raise a glass in his name. Or, at the very least, don’t go on about how much you love Paddington Bear. It’s called respect.
1. Loyalty. In case you are wondering why I mentioned the Daily Express above, it’s because Rupert was created for the paper in 1920. The aim? To increase sales. Did it work? Wikipedia doesn’t say. And I can’t be bothered to do that much research. What I did research though is that Rupert has outlasted nineteen Daily Express editors. Nineteen! That’s quite a lot. On any other day it I’d have rounded it up to 20. But that’s nineteen different people who have given up on the paper. Rupert hasn’t given up once. He’s there, everyday, trying to increase sales. And that has to be applauded. Even if it is the Daily Express.
2. Fashion. Sadly for the world, I wasn’t around in 1920, but I would be very surprised if Rupert’s choice of attire matched the fashion of the day. A red jumper, white shoes and matching yellow-checked trousers and scarf? It’s unlikely, isn’t it? But that’s just one reason why Rupert should be celebrated. He was a bit of a maverick. He was a trend-setter. Whether the trend comes to fruition in my lifetime, who knows, but one day, everyone will be dressing like Rupert.
3. Respect. Rupert has and continues to spend many-a-day in the presence of his friends. The trusty and originally named Bill Badger. The stodgy Podgy Pig. The delectable Edward Trunk*. And my personal favourites, Ming The Dragon and Pong-Ping The Pekingese. And yet, despite chewing the fat with them for the best part of century, not once has Rupert ever uttered the immortal line, ‘Have you ever heard of deed-poll?’
4. Role Model. While Rupert’s main rivals for our affections have tragic and cliched characteristics, Rupert was the real deal. Take Winnie The Pooh for instance. Ignoring the fact that he looks cuddly, what have you got? A honey-monster who has a habit of forgetting to wear trousers. Hardly inspiring. And then we have Paddington Bear. An immigrant from Peru whose idea of helping the economy is to create a marmalade deficit. Not the role models our children need. Rupert on the other hand is everything a bear should be. Clever, loyal, adventurous and trousered.
6. He Defied Hitler. Not even a war could stop Rupert. And I am not talking about a silly, little war. I am talking about World War II. Despite the fact that there was a severe paper shortage – we needed it for planes – Rupert still got an annual out and onto the shelves every year throughout the conflict. Along with Churchill sticking two fingers up, Rupert getting his annual out epitomised Britain’s approach to the war. We were never going to be beaten. And we were going to read tales of a bear going on an underwater mission in the process.
7. Alternatives. Look, it’s only right that you should celebrate one 90th Anniversary in 2010 and if you’re not going to choose Rupert to congratulate then it’s going to have to be the Bangor Operatic Society. Make the right decision.
*Edward Trunk was an elephant. Clever.
**This might cause nightmares. Or daymares. Just don’t smash your computer. You’ll regret it tomorrow.
Exactly a year ago today, 7 Reasons was born in York and Fulham. If you weren’t there – and it’s highly likely you weren’t – you will have missed our very first post, 7 Reasons This Blog Was Created. I don’t think we have ever met the high standards that piece of literary genius set, but we have certainly given it our best shot. Except on Thursdays. That day just never really happened for us. As we have somehow made it a year I think it would be useful* to look back and see if we have stuck to the principles we outlined 365 days ago.
1. “People like lists. This is a well known fact. Shopping lists, to-do lists, Wedding lists, the list is endless. It adds structure to people’s lives. Structure is good. It makes people feel in control. We like control.” – We have certainly controlled a part of your life. A small part maybe, but a part none the less. For three of you, 7 Reasons has become a staple part of your daily diet. You can not remember life when you didn’t know 7 Reasons Why Lemons Would Make You Sick. And more is the point, you don’t want to. And as for the rest of you, well you may read 7 Reasons on an ad hoc basis. Even so, we have still have a presence in your mind. We are still controlling you. Just not as well as we’d wish.
2. “Seven is one of our favourite numbers. The number seven is the only number less than fifteen which cannot be represented as the sum of the squares of three integers. We like that (probably).” – Seven remains one of our favourite numbers. That is all that needs saying on this one. If I start talking about integers I’ll confuse my keyboard.
3. “It gives us something to think about on the train or the bus or while walking to the post box. Instead of thinking, ‘Isn’t that woman’s blouse so last season?’ it gives us the chance to think of seven reasons why she is wearing that blouse. This tests our imagination. We like creativity.” – It could never be argued that we don’t think about 7 Reasons on the train or the bus. Indeed, such environments have inspired some of our finest pieces. And some of our worst. But that’s the beauty of 7 Reasons. The brilliant pieces only exist because there are substandard efforts mixed in. Without these everything would appear mediocre. And we already have Switzerland for that. And as for thinking about 7 Reasons whilst walking to the post box, well we’ve done that once too. A cat followed one of us back. Fifty lemons followed the other.
4. “On average we waste seven minutes a day thinking, ‘what shall I do next’. That’s the equivalent of 42 hours a year. In 42 hours you could comfortably travel around the world or hold your breath for 2520 consecutive minutes. Both of these are highly dangerous and more often that not result in Deep Vein Thrombosis or death. This blog is an antidote to both. We like saving lives.” – As far as we are aware, in the last year no one has died because they tried to hold their breath for 2520 consecutive minutes. It would be too easy to say, ‘Well, it probably wouldn’t have happened anyway.’ Have a bit of humility and accept that 7 Reasons has saved lives. Except Paul the Octopus’. But he tried to hold his breath for his entire lifespan. We can’t help muppets.
5. “Sometimes people take things far too seriously. Life should not be about taking things seriously. It should be about frivolity and nonsense. Seriousness gives us sensible shoes and Jeremy Paxman. They are bad. It’s time to be far more light-hearted. We like joy.” – Without 7 Reasons the world would no doubt have imploded on worry by now. Yes, so a couple of bad things have happened in the last year. ‘So what?’ That’s the 7 Reasons attitude. ‘Let’s look on the bright side’. And that’s just what we did. When we didn’t vote in a coalition Government but got one anyway, it was 7 Reasons – and 7 Reasons alone – who hailed it the greatest thing that could have happened. It was 7 Reasons – and 7 Reasons alone – who finally made it acceptable to cycle in the nude. It was 7 Reasons – and 7 Reasons alone – who encouraged the invasion of France. 7 Reasons gave joy.
6. “Sometimes people don’t take things at all seriously. They should. Life is a serious business. Without seriousness we get Balloon Boy and Ken Dodd. They are bad. It’s time to look at things with far more thoughtfulness. We like serious.” – It’s a good job that 7 Reasons has existed in the past twelve months because without it the world would have turned into a laughing stock. It was 7 Reasons – and 7 Reasons alone – who pointed out the glaring flaws in naming Ryan Giggs as 2009 Sports Personality of the Year. It was 7 Reasons – and 7 Reasons alone – who advised against driving golf buggies up the M4. It was 7 Reasons – and 7 Reasons alone – who finally gave those who look like a horse the confidence to go out and not let it be a barrier to achieving success.** 7 Reasons gave seriousness another go.
7. “It’s the 21st Century and in the 21st Century you have to be able to back up what you say or do. It’s no good saying, ‘I just bought a new drill’ and then shrugging when your loved one asks why. You must have a reason. Other than, ‘because it had 25% off’. So there needs to be a database to help you answer that question. This is what we will provide. We like drills.” – Ironically, or stupidly, we have never provided you with 7 Reasons I Bought A New Drill, however, we do have the biggest database of reasons anywhere in the world.*** And we only have to read the ‘keyword analysis’ of this website to see that everyone is using this site from students, to the BBC, to pregnant women looking for a place to urinate to men who are wondering if it is acceptable to shake hands after touching their penis. No one can argue that 7 Reasons isn’t the ultimate self-help website.
*Useful in the fact that it means I don’t have to think too much about today’s post.
**We take no responsibility for Sarah Jessica Parker making Sex and the City 2.
***Logic dictates this. Who else would spend a year thinking up over 2000 reasons for random things?
Wednesday 27th October 2010 marks the first birthday of 7 Reasons. In the past year we have written approximately 2,000 reasons. Which, thinking about it, is 1,993 more than we should have done. We have also had countless guest writers and hundreds upon hundreds of comments. Some good, mostly anti-Jon. All in all, it’s been pretty good. Hopefully year two will be even better. Maybe a book? Maybe a panel show? Maybe we’ll finally appear in Esquire? Who knows. But that’s the future. Today, I want to concentrate on what we’ve achieved.
Right, now that’s done, we can move on. Oh, but before we do, can we just say thank you to everyone who has read 7 Reasons over the last year. And give an even bigger thank you to those who have commented on and/or shared 7 Reasons posts. And then there needs to be an even bigger thank you to all those who have written for us. Saturdays wouldn’t be the same without you. Now let’s hug. Okay, that’s long enough. Someone’s lemon is pressing into my thigh.
