7 Reasons

Tag: Crows

  • 7 Reasons The Flying Car Has Issues

    7 Reasons The Flying Car Has Issues

    Well, we might not be getting our hoverboards anytime soon, but it looks as if the flying car could be on our driveway as soon as next year. This is the Terrafugia Transition®:

    7 Reasons The Flying Car Has Issues
    Hunktastic, huh? And this is what it looks like when it’s taking you to work:

    7 Reasons The Flying Car Has Issues
    That’s a slice of heaven right there. The concept is undoubtedly genius. We have all been sat in traffic wishing we could take-off then and there. In reality though, the Terrafugia Transition® poses a number of problems. Seven of them.

    1.  Branding. We have already had a look at some of the worst product names out there and while the Terrafugia brand probably wouldn’t quite make that list, the name still worries me. ‘Terra’ obviously means ‘ground’, but I think of it just as it sounds. ‘Terror’. Would I get in a Virgin Nightmare? Or a Qantas Shock? Or a British Airways Screamer? Not a bloody chance. So would I get in a Terrafugia? Not a bloody chance. And sadly I am probably not alone. Why didn’t they call themselves Smoothflight or something equally camp, cliched and assuring?

    2.  Take-off. The take-off speed of this thing is apparently over 100mph. Its max speed on the ground is 62mph. I used to think I was good at maths.

    3.  Enough Room To Swing A 6-Iron. On the Transition® page of the Terrafugia website it gives you a list of conveniences. There are six and mostly things you’d want to hear. Rear-wheel drive and automated electromechanical folding wing being two. And then we get to the end of the list. And you start reading. And then you read it again. And again. And then you realise you are reading it correctly. You realise it does say, ‘Cargo area holds golf clubs’. Not ‘cargo area holds 50kg’ or ‘cargo area holds eight thousand pairs of pants’, but ‘cargo area holds golf clubs’! Why? Why would you do that? You have just alienated everyone who needs somewhere to put their cricket bat. Or a suitcase.

    4.  Landing. Maybe, just maybe, there is a reason this aircar has been designed with the discerning golfer in mind. Once you’ve taken off, you need to have somewhere to land. In fairness you could probably have worked that out for yourself, but there’s probably no harm in me helping you out. Where the hell do you land this thing though? You need a fair bit of room. You might get squashed by a 747 at Gatwick and fields might be a bit bumpy. The last thing you need is a scarecrow entering your cockpit. So the obvious alternative therefore are the lush, smooth fairways of a nearby golf-course.

    5.  Dizzy. There are naughty people around. Naughty people who steal wing mirrors. I don’t think they would need too much convincing to nick a non-mirrored wing. The problem is though, just as you might not notice a missing wing-mirror when you get in the car, you might not notice a missing wing. You’d end up flying around in circles.

    6.  Time. This is a bit like the Aesop fable, The Tortoise and The Hare. Just a modern version for modern times. The Hare is the plane. It’s clearly quicker. As the crow flies, it would get from A to B in twice or thrice the speed of the car. But only if it was a crow. The problem is that the plane needs to use an airfield to take-off and land (they’re not really allowed to land on Royal St. George’s). Which means first the plane has to be a car to drive from A to an airfield. Then it can do its funky flying bit. Only its funky flying bit will take it to an airfield miles away from B. Then the plane needs to be a car again. Meanwhile the car can be a car and get stuck on the M40, M25 and M23 and still beat the plane (which is now a car) back to B. It kind of defeats the object of having a propeller.

    7.  Always Take The Weather With You. The manufacturers advise you not to fly if the weather is inclement. I can go down to Poundland (and ask someone to go inside for me) and get a kite for £1. A kite flies beautifully in inclement weather. I would therefore expect a £180,000 aircar to fly 180,000 times more beautifully in inclement weather, not crash to the earth because it got whacked by a hailstone. Unbelievable.

  • 7 Reasons To Stone The Crows

    7 Reasons To Stone The Crows

    Crows sitting on a telephone line in the rain

    1. Farmers. I have never been a farmer, lacking as I do the necessary sheepdog and accompanying whistle. I imagine, though, it must be tough work. Tiring work. Frustrating work. Especially if you have ploughed your field and sowed the seed only to see a flock of crows engulf the scene. It’s at this point when you have a choice. Allow them to eat your livelihood or revert to the stones. Whichever you choose, you also need to invest in a better scarecrow. *

    2. Rivalry. If you live in the city of Adelaide, Australia, you may well support Port Adelaide Football Club in the AFL. In doing so you immediately have a rival. They are across town and are called the Adelaide Crows. You may take exception to defeat at the hands of your nemesis and wish to take matters into your own hands. To, you know, bring some pride back to your end of town.*

    3. Attack. Picture the scene. You are walking along the street, minding your own business, when an armoured vehicle rocks up next to you with crows on its roof. And when I say crows, I mean a Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station. You know, one of those things that you can mount a machine gun on and then operate from the comfort and security of the driver’s seat. If this happens you need to get prepared. If he starts firing you need to use whatever means you can to fight back. And chucking stones at the crows might be your only hope. Good luck.*

    4.  Words. The collective noun for crows is a murder and, if we take that as some sort of corrupted historical instruction, we should be killing them.  Now, shooting them would probably be the best way to do this but, as most of the 7 Reasons readership is based in the UK, there probably aren’t that many gun-owners among us.  This would leave us furiously hurling bullets at them (which would be expensive) or desperately searching for alternate methods of killing them.  Though they live in trees and rope is in plentiful supply from chandlers all around our island nation, hanging them isn’t practical as crows can defy gravity.  Basically they’d just flutter about for a bit then fly back to the branch we’d hanged them from so, in essence, we’d just be tying crows to trees.  Where they live anyway.  This really leaves stoning as the only viable option.

    5.  Australia. In Australia, where the phrase stone the crows is said to have originated – or should that be aboriginated – the crows eat lambs.  That’s right, lambs.  Now I haven’t been too close to Australian lambs, but they seem like quite sizeable creatures to me.  And frankly, if I lived in an upside-down land where large black birds were capable of swooping up from the sky below me and killing animals that are the size of human babies (which apparently have enough to fear from dingoes over there as it is), I’d be ready to stone them too.  Or I’d go even further and rock them.  What’s more, being English, my throws would have a better chance of hitting them than the natives’ efforts.***

    6.  Do The Right Thing. Crows are the proper animal to stone.  I – before I corrected a spelling mistake – spent an earlier paragraph exhorting you, the reader, to stone the cows.  But cows are definitely not an animal that you should be stoning.   They’re large – surprisingly fast – and would probably become quite cross if you were to hurl stones at them.  Not to mention the possibility of being shot by a furious and ruddy-faced farmer.  Stoning cows is wrong.  Stoning crows is right.

    7.  Kia-Ora. Remember the Kia-Ora advert where crows impersonate a hobo-child’s dog to relieve him of his Kia-Ora, despite his protestations that it’s too orangey for them?  You’ll know if you’ve seen it, the music will still be reverberating round your head over twenty-five years later ready to surface when you least expect it to.  Or want it to.  Which is never.

    Enjoy!

    And now we all probably want to stone the crows.

    *7 Reasons would like to point out that we do not condone the stoning of crows whether they be real crows, the Adelaide Crows or the Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station.**

    **No, on second thoughts, fuck them.  Stone away.

    ***We can probably keep this up until the next Ashes series in 2013.