Tag: COFFEE

7 Reasons That the new Starbucks Logo is Wrong

Starbucks are changing their logo. They’re removing the roundel containing the words “Starbucks” and “Coffee” from the new one and are, instead, focussing on the mermaid part. This is in the hope that the mermaid, like the golden arches of McDonalds or the shell of Shell will come to be the easily identifiable international signifier of Starbucks, but the new focus on the mermaid is confusing and frustrating. Here are seven reasons why.

The new Starbucks logo.

1. It’s Baffling. A mermaid is a fish-woman from the sea. Coffee is a beverage made by combining beans from the land and water from the sky, occasionally using bovine mammary excretions from the fields, and sugar from the Oompa-Loompas. The intrinsic nature of the coffee experience has nothing whatsoever to do with the sea, so the mermaid is unrepresentative. If I saw a mermaid my first thought wouldn’t be coffee. In fact, the thought coffee wouldn’t come in my top million thoughts on seeing a mermaid. It wouldn’t even come above fish fingers, bubble bath or owls.

2. It’s Misdirected. So who is the target market for mermaids? I have identified two. The first is my writing partner Jon, whose bizarre fixation with The Little Mermaid had been explored more than enough on this website already, and the second market is sailors. Drunken, sex-starved sailors. After all, it was they that would tell tales of strange and beautiful fish-women to while away their long sea voyages. There are two things I know about Starbucks. The first is that you won’t find Jon in them, and the second is that if you want to see a mob of inebriated and libidinous seamen, you’re unlikely to find them in an establishment whose principal attraction is free wi-fi, blueberry muffins and skinny mocha-choca-lattes.

3. Nudity. Mermaids don’t wear clothes, but (I’m presuming this, I live in far too cold a place to want to test this assumption) that if I attempted to drink coffee at Starbucks without any clothes on there would be two reactions. Firstly, awe. Secondly, I would be asked to leave. And the successive changes to the logo have demonstrated that Starbucks are also inconvenienced by this too, as the two most recent logos don’t have nipples. This is because there are parts of the world where an image of a nude fish-woman with nipples would cause offence, whereas removing the nipples of nude-fish women is a perfectly acceptable activity and probably fun for all the family.

4. Scales. A mermaid is a creature with delicate scales, but muffin-gobbling Starbucks customers (who are predominantly American) do not require delicate scales. They require substantial ones that go up to a big number.

5. Music. Starbucks has also branched into music publishing in recent years and the new logo is supposed to reflect that. But they’ve published Paul McCartney and Alanis Morrissette, and these artists (okay, one of them used to have a yellow submarine) have absolutely cock-all to do with mermaids. The sort of music you should be able to expect from an establishment with a mermaid as a logo is sea-shanties, a huge number of which are about mermaids. But I’ve never heard sea-shanties in Starbucks. All I ever hear is Carly Simon, who doesn’t even have an accordion.

6. Mermaids Can’t Drink Coffee. Mermaids live under the sea. The sea is made of liquid. Coffee is also made of liquid. This means that the one group of people that can’t enjoy Starbucks main product are mermaids. Because if you take even the largest cup size (venti) under the sea, it becomes a drop in the ocean. This would be a disappointing experience for any mermaid. And even if they could drink the coffee, they don’t seem to have anywhere to wee from. They would become bloated and crotchety.

7. Spoilsports. By focussing on the mythical fish-woman and removing the words “Starbucks Coffee” from their new logo, Starbucks have ruined all the fun that you can have with a green marker pen. And I suspect that this may have been the motive for change all along.

January 7, 2011
Russian Roulette Sunday: The Stats Don’t Lie

Ever wanted to know who writes what and when here at 7 Reasons? No, neither did I. But I didn’t want to go to school either and I did that. So here are the stats behind 7 Reasons. And they are all accurate, except where I have made them up.

November 21, 2010
7 Reasons You Don’t Feel Like a Real Man

Society has a very rigid idea of what constitutes masculinity. Often, our definitions of what is masculine are rooted in the conventions and gender roles of the past, something which makes them unachievable ideals rather than anything tangible, or real, to aspire too. Despite knowing this though, sometimes you feel that you don’t quite measure up. Here are seven reasons that you don’t feel like a real man.

1. You use moisturiser. Using moisturiser doesn’t feel manly. It’s very good at keeping your skin soft and preventing the premature aging of the skin, but it’s not manly. I once moisturised my face, exited the bathroom (which my wife then entered) and tried to open the bedroom door. I couldn’t, as my hands were slick from the moisturiser and I couldn’t grip the doorknob. I was trapped outside the bedroom for five minutes. “This never happened to the captain of the Titanic”, I remember thinking, as I waited for my wife to rescue me. Real men don’t use moisturiser.

2. Facial hair. Real men – Victorian men – sported impressive and elaborate facial hair. Who, apart from Daniel Day-Lewis and Sebastien Chabal, can even grow such magnificent face furniture today? Certainly no one at this website – the best we can manage are a sparse ginger moustache and a slightly less sparse – but still bloody ginger – beard. Modern men also trim their facial hair too much. Real men have natural and wild facial hair – not prissy, neat goatees (and you should never, ever trust a man with a neat beard. Noel Edmonds has a neat beard). Real men do not have neat beards. Real men have substantial, flowing beards that are the same colour as their head-hair. Real men probably don’t even have scissors. In fact, real men probably eat scissors.

3. Coffee. Coffee is an amazing beverage and real men drink it. What real men don’t do, however, is go into Starbucks and order a venti soy-hazelnut-vanilla-cinnamon-white-mocha-choca-latte with caramel and an extra shot of espresso. Real men drink their coffee black, from tin mugs around a fire – or some sort of black-lead-coal-stove-thing with flames and a chimney – and the stronger and viler tasting the coffee is, the better. Also, real men don’t drink their coffee from cups – even if that is the only receptacle that fits into their espresso maker properly – and they don’t have a muffin with it. Not blueberry; not zucchini-walnut. Real men have no muffin.

4. Pain. Real men shrug off pain. Pain isn’t good – it’s er…well…painful – and it can be undignified. It especially hurts when you’re plucking the middle of your eyebrow to pluralise it. That sort of pain is reasonably manageable though. Real pain, however, can only dealt with by real men. I injured my knee last year (in a very manly way – up a mountain). The next day, when I woke up, it really hurt. As I climbed out of bed and put weight on it I suddenly – and quite unexpectedly – shrieked “I yi yi yi yi”, in the manner of Carmen Miranda. Real men don’t react that way to pain; Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes chopped his own fingers off with a fretsaw in his shed to save himself a six-thousand pound surgeons bill. I bet he didn’t shriek “I yi yi yi yi” like Carmen Miranda – or like anyone else. Never mind exhorting men complaining of pain to “man-up”, they should be told to Fiennes-up (I’m really hoping that will catch on).

5. Décor. You actually care about what the inside of your own home looks like and have an opinion about it too. You have even bought Laura Ashley toile-patterned sheets in both red and blue, because they look nice. Do real men care about soft-furnishings? Did Douglas Bader rearrange the cushions on his sofa and extinguish the scented candles before going off to beat the Germans without his legs? No he bloody didn’t. Real men don’t spend their time cocking about with flock-wallpaper and vases. Nor do they have a set of Le Creuset pans. Real men don’t even need legs.

6. Pets. Real men have real pets – parrots, cats or reasonably-sized dogs. What they don’t have are little dogs that you can put in a bag or rodents, budgies, rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas, snakes or fish. They certainly don’t have fish. You can tell a real man by the way he interacts with his pet. No real man names his pet Fluffykins or Pookles. Real men give their pets sensible names. Real men also address their pets properly, rather than clicking at them or making baby-noises. They address them as if they were a visiting chum:

“So Mr Prendegast, the sun has just passed the yard-arm, what would you say to a spot of brandy? What’s that Mr Prendegast? You’re a cat and you don’t drink brandy? Oh I see. Would you settle for some biscuits and a rub under the chin? I’m glad. There’s a good chap.”

That’s how a real man talks to a pet – like an equal. Real men don’t address pets as if they were idiots, or children. They don’t dress them up in clothes or put them in bags. The only time a real man carries a pet is when he wants to put it outside so that it can chase something. He certainly doesn’t give his pet chocolate-drops or a hug. Or give anyone a hug, for that matter.

7. You are a woman. Women don’t feel like real men. They don’t even feel like pretend men. They feel warm and soft. They sound like this:

March 17, 2010
7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Share a Bed With Me

Hi, I’m Marc. I’m half of the 7 Reasons team – the one with the feet. Some of you probably imagine that after a long day on the 7 Reasons sofa, in the manner of Laurel and Hardy or Morecambe and Wise, Jon and I put on our jim-jams and nightcaps and retire to the 7 Reasons bed for some hard-earned slumber. This is not true, please un-think it. The reality is, in fact, more bizarre than that.

I would just like to make it clear that today’s 7 Reasons post is not 7 reasons that you shouldn’t share a bed with our website, and it isn’t 7 reasons that you shouldn’t share a bed with Jon (you’ll probably have your own reasons for that), it’s 7 Reasons that you shouldn’t share a bed with me – sorry if that upsets any plans.

1. Reading. I read in bed. My bedtime reading matter of choice is often a large, heavy, hardback biography or a similarly weighty historical tome. Consequently, holding a book tires my arms – especially when I’m fidgeting (I do a lot of fidgeting) between positions. At some point I will use the nearest person as a book-rest – their head is the most practical place to rest my book as it is at my eye-level. I’m told that this is annoying.

2. Decapitation. I like to have two pillows to myself – one placed on top of the other. In my struggle to get comfortable/block out sound/block out light/keep my head warm/move into the night’s eighty-third position, I often place my head between the pillows. I find this position comfortable. If you wake up sharing a bed with me, you will briefly believe that you are sharing the bed with a headless man. This will startle you. Every time.

3. Radio. I listen to the radio in bed – BBC Radio 5Live’s Up All Night programme – it keeps me informed, educated and entertained while I am failing to sleep. This is fine until 2:40am on Wednesdays. That’s when Cash Peters is on. That’s when the sound of my (poorly) stifled laughter will wake you up. You will probably wonder why tears are streaming down my face; you’re likely to wonder why I’m biting the duvet (this is for your benefit, you’re welcome); you may wonder if I’m having a funny turn; you will definitely wonder if the spare bed is unoccupied.

4. Soft toys. If I should find a cuddly-toy in, or even near, the bed, I feel compelled to tuck it in. If you are not expecting to wake up flanked by a slumbering bear, a recumbent penguin, a sleepy elephant or a dozing handbag (I get confused in the dark), it can be quite disconcerting.

5. Curling. Not everything I do in bed is annoying. I often curl up into a tiny ball under the covers. This hampers my breathing somewhat, so I fashion myself a small air-hole in the side of the duvet and poke my nose out through it. This, I am told, is one of the cutest things in the world. And it probably is, right up until you try to move my painstakingly-positioned sheets. Then you’ll find yourself involved in a life-and-death tussle for control of the duvet. And I always win.

6. Experimentation. During the night many important questions will pop into my head, prompting me to experiment on the nearest sleeping person. What if I poke my finger in her ear? What if I blow in her eye? What if I drip water on her forehead? What if I tie her hair to the headboard and shout “Boo!?” What if I loudly mimic her breathing pattern for several minutes then stop abruptly? What if I coo like a pigeon and flap the top of the duvet around? The possibilities are limitless.

7. Sleep. Eventually, I will wear myself out and fall asleep. Don’t think that’s where the fun ends though. It’s then that I think up entire 7 Reasons posts that make no sense at all and get chased around the house by a horse. As I flee the dream-horse my legs will flail and I may emit noises – I might even say, “Crikey, a horse!” again. I have also been observed barking like a dog and trying to dig a hole in the mattress with my front paws…er…hands. I meant hands. By this stage, you may not know what time it is, but you’ll probably decide that it’s time to get up, which is great as I’d love a coffee.

March 4, 2010
7 Reasons That Coffee is Better Than Tea

1. Coffee doesn’t taste of tea.

2. Tea doesn’t come with nearly enough paraphernalia. A pot and a little sieve thing? Bags? Coffee comes with roasters, grinders, steamers, frothers, espresso makers and brewers; They’re all enormously expensive and very, very shiny. Brilliant!

3. You don’t have to stick your little finger out when drinking coffee which, on the evidence of this picture, is a very good thing indeed.

4. Italian is the language of coffee: Espresso, cappuccino, machiato, latte, americano; how great do they sound? English is the language of tea: with milk, without milk, with sugar, without sugar, teabag; not so impressive.

5. Gareth Hunt.

6. The Boston Tea Party. A whole nation rose up and rejected tea. Who are we to argue with that? Obviously they let themselves down by rejecting association football and the word “trousers” but they were right about the tea.

7. Coffee Rage is a known and accepted phenomenon. Does tea have a rage? No.

Do you have additional reasons? Share them with us in the comments section. And if you enjoyed reading this tell your friends, they’ll probably enjoy it too.

November 7, 2009