Tag: brown

Guest Post: 7 Reasons Freckles Are Genius

It’s Saturday. And you know what that means. Marc and I are allowed up from the sofa to stretch our legs. In our place this week is Claire Quinn. (You can follow her extraordinary life on twitter here). And, in something of an historic moment, she actually is sitting on the 7 Reasons sofa. Well the London half of it anyway. The other half is in York. It could be said that she has freckles. But she doesn’t care. And this is why.

This Isn't Me. Or Claire.

1. Practical Games For The Children. Anything from connect the dots – or join the freckles as it would be in this case – to learning to count can be done with freckles. Assuming they are using your freckles, well, you can have some fun too. Frowning is really going to muck-up their sums.

2. Suncream Saver. The more freckles you have, the less suncream you need to use; you only need to apply the lotion in-between said freckles. All the money that you save could be spent on something else. Like gin! :O)

3. Spot Cover Up. No one really likes spots – I guess there is a sadistic pleasure in squeezing them – but no one wants them on show. Which is why people cover them up, but with freckles you don’t have to! Ooo so you save money again – make-up purchases are fewer than the average non freckly personage.

4. It’s All In The Name. Freckles aren’t just called freckles. They also go by the name of fern tickles. This makes them special. Birth marks don’t have another name. Moles don’t have another name. Spots could be called ‘blemishes’ I suppose, but that’s in no way the same.

5. Look Browner. So it might just be from a distance – up close you just look like you’re covered in freckles – but from a distance you do look completely tanned. There is bound to be someone out there who likes the ol’ ‘tanned at a distance, freckle-ly up close’ appearance and if there isn’t please don’t tell me.. because I’m counting on that!

6. The Lovers. If you have a lover you can get them to kiss all your freckles. If you have a lot of freckles like me it will mean you will get a lot of attention. If you don’t, ask the cat*.

7. A Feature. Most people have something about them they would rather change. Maybe it’s a big nose or big ears or just one big ear or maybe a small ear or maybe nothing ear related at all. Maybe it’s a birthmark right in the middle of their forehead. Or maybe they have ginger hair. If these people were asked what they would swap them for, they would say freckles. No one would swap freckles for one big ear and one small ear would they?

*Or kitty.

May 1, 2010
Russian Roulette Sunday: Promoting Brown

The 1960s: clothes, interiors, fabrics, art – just about everything – were a riot of colour. This wasn’t much help to the (predominantly British) manufacturers of brown dyes and paints though, which was problematic, as during that decade their production continued apace. The result was, that by the 1970s, Britain had a huge surplus of brown colourants and needed to find a market for them to help with the balance of payments. This led to the formation – in 1971 – of the Brown Marketing Board, a government funded organisation devoted to the task of promoting the use of the colour brown by manufacturers and consumers alike.

While researching 1970s advertising, we came across many fine pieces of work by the Brown Marketing Board and today, we thought we’d share a few of them with you.

1. Swatch. A very simple poster, placed on the London Underground, on bus shelters and other street-level sites where people congregated. It was purely placed there as a brown colour swatch, the idea being that anyone standing near it would appear uncoordinated if they weren’t dressed in brown. Sales of brown coats to London commuters soared, thus proving that the simplest ideas are often the best.

2. Germans Eat White Chocolate. By the 1970s, Britons had still not gotten over the war, as this poster designed to promote the consumption of brown chocolate demonstrates.

3. If Only The Carpets And Curtains Matched. A poster used to encourage the use of brown in all areas of interior design. Looking back at pictures from the 70s, it seems that this campaign must have been a success.

4. Brown Bears Don’t Kill Seals. We’re fairly certain that they weren’t encouraging people to divest themselves of their pet polar bears in favour of brown bears. We think that this was probably just an attempt to promote brown as having generally “good” qualities. Sales of Fox’s Glacier Mints plummeted as a result of this controversial image though, and it was soon withdrawn.

5. Arrive In Style. What can we say? It’s a brown Austin Allegro. Perhaps this image contains a powerful subliminal message, because British Leyland sold loads of them. No one knows how. Maybe it was this advert.

6. Also Available In Brown. A very clever poster designed to increase the consumption of domestic produce in two ways. Firstly, using brown sauce instead of ketchup would help the sales of brown food dye. Secondly, it reminds us that brown sauce is a British tradition – after all, the H.P. in H.P. Sauce stands for Houses of Parliament – so the increased use of brown sauce would directly benefit British manufacturing interests.

7. Score In Style. Well, you wouldn’t want to win ugly, would you?

April 11, 2010
7 Reasons To Love The Letter B

1. B is for Brilliance. Don’t take this website as evidence. Take a look here and here. It is all around us. Brilliance is good. Without it we’d be distinctly average. And no one wants that.

2. B is for Britain. Yes, I am biased (and not just because I feel the need to be given the subject of this post), but Britain is the best country in the world. It has history. Spectacular geography. Culture. Art. Morris dancing. Cheese rolling. Test Match Special. Marks & Spencer. Gardens. The Archers. Castles. Cornish Pasties. Colin Firth. Allotments. And me.

3. B is for Brown. No, not Gordon. Sauce. Brown Sauce is great. Brown Sauce doesn’t need Piers Morgan to make it look good.

4. B is for Beauty. Life is beautiful. People like looking at beautiful things. People are beautiful. People like looking at beautiful people. I like looking at pictures of Sandra Bullock.

5. B is for Baths. At the 7 Reasons HQ, the bath is rarely sans person. (Though unlike the 7 Reasons sofa it is never occupied by more than one person at a time). A bath is relaxing. A bath is stimulating. A bath is a place of discovery. Just ask Archimedes. If he hadn’t jumped into the bath on that glorious day in 240BC, we wouldn’t have submarines.

6. B is for the Beach Boys. Just to show that while I am biased towards my country I am not xenophobic, I am going to ignore The Beatles – a pretty good band – and head stateside to find the best. Not only were The Beach Boys brilliant exponents when it came to creating the 2:30 pop song, they also created the masterpiece that is Pet Sounds. One of – if not the – greatest albums ever made.

7. B is for Buses. Without buses we wouldn’t have seen Holiday on the Buses. Or Summer Holiday. We would also have forgotten about Darren Day five years before we eventually did.

*See here for 7 Reasons To Love The Letter A.

February 18, 2010
7 Reasons to Hate the Thaw

1. Brown. The thaw is brown. Everything is muddy, slushy and brown. The grit that was scattered onto the snowy roads and pavements and is now visible, is brown. The river is brown. The bare trees are brown, the uncovered grass is brown, Gordon is Brown. Nothing good is brown (except beverages and beverage based desserts, obviously).

2. Slush. When the snow is on the ground it’s a pure, blank canvas which will be affected in an obvious way by whatever is on top of it. When it melts, however, it’s just a brown, wet slushy mass. We all know what’s in yellow snow, but we’re not sure what’s in all those brown slushy puddles. What is it? It could be anything. It’s slush, but it’s not blue and doesn’t taste of cherry, which is a big disappointment.

3. Snowmen. The streets are full of dying snowmen. Is there anything sadder than that? They are like urban, wintery versions of Ozymandias, whose power and grandeur and gilded age has passed into ruination and decay. Soon they will be a distant memory as they assume the form of an old, discarded hat and some twigs scattered on the ground. My neighbour’s snow-penis is also looking distinctly unimpressive at the moment. Perhaps I should forward to him some of the many emails I receive offering me Viagra.

4. Nice. The snow is a special time. With the passing of the snow the nicety will go. When you encounter a neighbour walking down your snow-covered street in a blizzard you generally smile at each other, glance skyward and tut. When you encounter police with their riot shields out in the snow they’re using them for sledging.

With the thaw, when you bump into your neighbours, they will scowl at you as usual, or worse, they will converse with you. When you encounter police with their riot shields out they will beat you to death as usual, or worse, they will usher you into the Ricoh Arena.

5. Balls. When the snow goes, the local ne’er-do-wells will be unable to pelt cars, buses and cyclists with snowballs containing rocks. They will, instead, pelt cars, buses and cyclists with rocks. Not only will this cause more damage, but it will rob passers-by of the strange spectacle of a bunch of youths with their tracksuit-bottoms tucked into their white socks, apparently floating eight inches above the ground while assaulting the traffic.

6. Sledging. When the snow is gone sledging is difficult, if not impossible.

7. Disruption. Disruption to services is forgivable in the snow as, well, it’s the snow! Everything is good in the snow. Now that the snow is thawing, however, disruption to services is annoying and unforgiveable. Especially these bins that have been blocking this path for a week. Expect to see this picture again in 7 Reasons my Neighbours Should be put to Death. Idiots.

January 15, 2010