Tag: Day

7 Reasons T’ Talk Like A Pirate

Avast, me hearties! ‘Tis Long Jon Gold. T’day, as if you needed remindin’, be International Talk Like A Pirate Day. And here be seven o’ t’ finest reasons why you should be channelin’ Johnny Depp at this very moment. And while you be readin’ this I be off t’ make Marc ‘Fish Fin’ers’ Fearns walk t’ plank. Yarrr!

1. Bury Bad News. T’day be t’ perfect day t’ tell people that thar be goin’ t’ have t’ be redundancies. Or tell your beauty that you no longer want t’ be with them. Or announce that Nick ‘Smell-O-Panties’ Griffin has moved in next door. No one will ever be able t’ understand you, but your aft be covered.

2. Abuse. It’s a brilliant excuse t’ abuse people you don’t like under t’ pretext that it be just how pirates talk t’ each other. You may have long thought that your colleague be an ol’ scurvy dog, but only now can you actually tell her. You may think you’re best-bucko’s beauty be a complete twazzock, now be t’ time t’ tell him. And her. Just get it off your treaaye*.

3. Innuendo. Of course t’ alternative be that you fancy t’ pants off your colleague and you need an excuse t’ flirt. Talkin’ like a pirate offers you t’ perfect opportunity. What lass wouldn’t be won over upon hearin’, “Ahoy, me beauty! I’d love t’ drop anchor in your lagoon” or, “Ahoy, me lovely, would you let me come aboard?”? And obviously, if you be lass after a bloke, send them an email sayin’ this, “Me porthole, your six pounder, one jolly rogerin’? Meet me in t’ toilets in five.” I promise you it will work.

4. Dress Up. While talkin’ like a pirate be good fun, why not go one step further and dress like one too? T’ be honest, you’d just appear weird if you sat in t’ meetin’, in your tailored suit, talkin’ pirate. It would be much better t’ be dressed as one too. Take George ‘Skull & Cross-Fingers’ Osbourne as an example. At t’ moment he be borderin’ that fine line between bein’ a genius and a fool. Were he t’ be filmed in a cabinet meetin’ just talkin’ like a pirate, those who think he be a fool would have more evidence to support that claim. On t’ other hand, were t’ to be dressed like Hook and accompany his curls with t’ spiel, not only would his credibility shoot through t’ roof, he’d probably also get himself doin’ pantomime in Weston-Super-Mare. And that’s go t’ be a good thin’ for everybody..

5. The Future. If you’ve been wonderin’ whether you be in t’ starboard career, spendin’ a day talkin’ as a pirate will tell you once and for all what your next move should be. If your pirate burr slips in t’ West-country farmer more often than not, it’s definitely time t’ up sticks, invest in a combine ‘arvester and join T’ Wurzels. You’re a natural.

6. Sick Days. After a day o’ talkin’ like a pirate t’ chances be your throat will be so sore you won’t be able t’ talk at all. So, take t’ day off. Make aye you phone your boss up and breath heavily done t’ phone t’ him/her first, that way they can’t complain that you didn’t try and report in.

7. T’ Alternative. T’ alternative be t’ write like a pirate. That, I asaye you, takes time. I started this post in August. I finished it about ten minutes ago. So based on me experiences, if you were t’ write like a pirate for t’ day you would end up bein’ three weeks behind. And that’s not a good place t’ be. I should be writin’ a mid-October post today. Instead, I’m still writin’ this. One can only assume I will be celebratin’ Christmas, by meself, on 15th January. So, unless you want t’ join me, ignore t’ email for t’ day and get on t’ dog and bone instead. Yarrr!

*’Treaaye’ is pirate slang for ‘chest’. Who knew? Apart from pirates obviously.

September 19, 2011
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 It Was Inconvenient That The World Didn’t End On Saturday

Hello 7 Reasons readers! It’s Monday 23^rd of May, which can only mean one thing. That the world didn’t end at 6pm on Saturday. Obviously this has affected our plans somewhat as we didn’t prepare a piece for today just on the off-chance that we would be wasting our time. This, it turns out, was an error. Anyway, somewhat belatedly, it’s time to begin the 7 Reasons working week.

Now, it would be easy to mock the poor, deluded fools who told us that the world was going to end on Saturday, so let’s do that. Here are seven reasons that it was inconvenient that the world didn’t end at six pm on Saturday.

1. Marc Fearns. “It’s Monday morning and I’m in my dining room writing. I hadn’t planned to be doing this at all. I was expecting to be hanging out by Piers Morgan’s fiery lake watching Glee while French people force-fed me raw sprouts and read the Daily Mail to me. I was expecting to be wearing Crocs and an I’m With Stupid t-shirt. I was expecting to be spending time with my brother. The rest of time. This is a right inconvenience.”

2. Robert Fitzpatrick. Robert Fitzpatrick was also inconvenienced. He’s currently a little bewildered. Asked how he felt about events (or the lack thereof) he said, “Obviously, I haven’t understood it correctly because we’re still here”.

3. Keith Bauer. Mr Bauer travelled from Maryland to California for the rapture. As a demonstration of total conviction in Mr Camping’s prediction, he took a week off work for the end of the world. Not just a few days, but a whole week, mark you. After all, it was for the end of the world. You can’t pack that into a couple of days or a long weekend. That’s a week he’ll never get back.

4. Gary Vollmer. “Judgment day has come and passed, but it was a spiritual judgment on the world”. Ah, a spiritual judgement. So it did happen then, just not in the way that it was predicted to. Not in a way that was in any sense tangible or demonstrable. Not in a way that anyone could remotely tell whether it had happened or not, except for Gary. There has been a judgement but only Gary knows about it. This is not Gary refusing to admit that he was wrong at all. No one called Gary is ever wrong and especially not this Gary who is especially not wrong about the end of the world. NOT WRONG. No.

5. Harold Camping. Harold Camping, the man that made the prediction in the first place, has not been seen since the end of the world and has “no intention to speak or issue any statement” according to a spokesman. How he communicated this to the spokesman is unclear. I prefer to imagine that it was via the medium of mime or that it took the form of an interpretative dance. Perhaps he iced it on a cake or banged it in Morse code on the desk with his forehead. We may never know. According to his wife he is “mystified” and “somewhat bewildered” at the world’s failure to end.

6. Harold Camping. And this isn’t the first time that this has happened to poor Harold. The blasted world failed to end in 1994 for him too. That’s an easy mistake to make once, but when the world doesn’t end and 97% of its occupants aren’t eternally damned for a second time, you might start to feel a tiny bit foolish. Oh well, cheer up Harold, third time lucky.

7. Everyone Else. So the world hasn’t ended and another working week has begun. There’s no chance of getting out of painting that spare bedroom, your next dental appointment or paying the gas bill. We’re also going to have to carry on with all the joy, love, bliss, wonder, gratification and whatnot that characterises our human existence on this beautiful earth. What an infernal nuisance.

May 23, 2011
7 Reasons It Is Inappropriate For The World To End At 6pm Tomorrow

Disaster. The world ends tomorrow. So, in our penultimate 7 Reasons post – we’ll still publish a guest piece tomorrow morning – we take a look at the reasons why 6pm is a ridiculous time for it all to come to an end.

1. Waste Of A Day. At the moment, as you may have noticed, I am not taking the demise of the World very seriously. That’s because I’m writing this the day before and the idea that I shan’t be writing 7 Reasons on Monday hasn’t really hit home yet. Tomorrow morning, when I rise to the Sounds of the Sixties, no doubt I will start worrying. I dare say I will be petrified. This is it. It’s all over. I had so much to do. There’ll be tears. There’ll be praying. And then there’ll be tea. And a whole lot of waiting. There is no point in doing anything tomorrow. What’s the point in shopping? Or DIY? Or writing my birthday list? There isn’t any. So I’ll just sit there and wait and be bored. What a waste. At least if the world had ended at 6am I wouldn’t have had to endure the slowest day ever.

2. Awkward. The problem with 6pm is that it’s that awkward time between coming home after being out for the day and going out for the evening. Those who don’t know anything about the world ending or those who have decided to stupidly ignore it, will be getting ready. And that means a whole lot of nakedness on display. When we end up in heaven or ‘the other place’ surrounded by naked flesh, where are we supposed to look? I tell you something, there will be many an argument in full flow come 6.15pm. “You were looking at that girl’s bottom!” “No I wasn’t. She just raptured in front of me!” “I didn’t believe that excuse last time and I don’t believe it this time. And will you cover yourself up! You’re embarrassing me.” “Oh, I’m embarrassing you am I? Look at yourself, you are the only one who put weight on whilst rapturing.” Yes, many an argument and many a divorce.

3. Indigestion. Many people will be cooking or thinking about cooking dinner when it gets close to 6pm. But what should we do? Eat and be prepared to get indigestion during the rapturing phase or miss our evening meal and hope something is provided at arrival when we reach our new destination. It’s a tough call. One we wouldn’t have had to make had the world been due to end at, say, 3pm.

4. Heineken Cup Final. This kicks off at 5pm. That means I’m not going to know what happens. Do you know how many hours I have put into watching the Heineken Cup this year? Dozens. Bakers dozens probably. And for what? Just so I know who enjoys their half-time oranges more. It is said that 2% of the population will be ‘raptured’ to heaven at 6pm. No doubt those who end up there will get to see the second half, but for the rest of us – and I rather suspect that includes me – will no doubt be faced with burning hell that is ‘So You Think You Can Dance Live’. That’s a hugely inadequate outcome and should it happen I propose we make an appeal (or overpower The Devil/Piers Morgan and steal the remote control).

5. Children. For a lot of young families, 6pm signifies the time at which the youngest members of the family are put in their cots for the night. Or, if you are eighteen and have parents like I, just put to bed. There is nothing wrong with that, especially if you have spent all day chasing them around. The evening is the time when you get to relax. Only tomorrow you won’t. As soon as baby Byron is sung to sleep, death will come knocking at the door.

6. Work. Some people, believe it or not, actually have to work on Saturday. As such they’ll be working tomorrow. What a day they’ll have. Wake up early, go to work, work hard, come home, world explodes. The forces at large could at least let them sit down with a beer first.

7. Plus This Lot. Given that this is the last proper 7 Reasons post we thought we’d celebrate life by opening this up and asking the 7 Reasons faithful why 6pm would be a bad time for them. Here are some of the replies. (It suggests only a few of our followers are bothered about the world ending. Fair play to them).

Nick Barrow: “Because it’s my day off.”

@rachel_simmo: “Because we’d only be half way through the Heineken Cup final! Surely they can put it back a couple of hours to 8pm?”

@splex: “Dr Who wouldn’t have been on telly yet. Could you postpone the world ending until at least 9pm?”

Sarah Ay: “Because we’d miss the Champions League final.”

@rachel_simmo: “We wouldn’t find out what happens in Doctor Who! With Amy and the baby and the eye-patched nurse!”

@Kateypotatey: “Because I wouldn’t have had time to finish my first glass of fizz/cocktail. 6.30 would be better.”

@RugbyByDilbert: “I wouldn’t of sung happy birthday to my mate! #actofrevenge”

Rob Lee: “Because I might be either batting or bowling at that time, and I’ll never know how I got on.”

@kittyQ: “Because I am getting married next year to a 7 reasoner, that’s after Saturday, that means I won’t get to be the happiest kitty ever”

Jack Pitts: “Bad? At least we won’t have to sit through Britain’s Got Talent anymore.”

@RugbyByDilbert: “If the world was to end on Saturday, I wouldn’t have gone to the Waratahs game in Sydney (makes me sad)”

@NellPlant: “I’d die a work and this would mean I would not be able to iPlayer Doctor Who when I’ve finished work.”

@rachel_simmo: “We wouldn’t ever know if Birmingham City could manage to stay up on the last day of the season on the Sunday…”

Richard O’Hagan: “Because (a) Marc would never get the website to work for a whole 7 days in succession and (b) the world would be deprived of the weekly spectacle of one of you accidentally posts a piece they meant to schedule for later in the week.”

@kittyQ: “Kent play Sussex on Sunday.. I am hoping to go. I’ll get to see the signs I set up for print. If the world ends I won’t get to see Kent THRASH Sussex”

Richard O’Hagan: “Because we would never get to read the second half of the Russian Roulette interview?”

@rachel_simmo: “Plus my brother would only be a 21 year old for 3 and a bit days, not even a week being 21!”

@RevdKathy: “6pm Saturday? The world CANNOT end before Doctor Who has aired!”

*On behalf of Marc and myself, may I thank you all for reading 7 Reasons for the past 20 months. It’s been ace. See some of you soon. (I’ll bring the ball, you bring the bat).

May 20, 2011
7 Reasons Blackout Blinds Are Surprisingly Effective

My wife and I are trying to train our child to recognise the difference between day and night at the moment and the latest weapon in our armoury is a blackout blind: a blind which prevents any light coming through the window. This, we not unreasonably thought, would prevent our six-week old son waking up at 5am when sunlight streams through our East facing bedroom window and would help him get into a settled routine of sleeping at night. So far, it has proved effective (after a fashion).

1. Fitting. As the member of the 7 Reasons team that is competent at DIY I envisaged that there would be no problems installing our blind, and I was almost correct. It was incredibly simple to fit, with only a bit of light drilling required. And it was simple right up until the moment – while I was balanced precariously atop a step-ladder – that everything went dark. Not just dim, you should understand, but dark. Preternaturally dark. Darker than spending a dark night in the darkest room of the Prince of Darkness wearing a sleeping mask. Darker than anything ever. There was no light. “Help!” “Help!” I called until my wife came up the stairs and opened the door, flooding the room with light from the hallway. “It all went dark”, I explained to a sceptical wife who couldn’t comprehend – or didn’t believe – that something as insubstantial as a piece of material could block out all light. I climbed down from the ladder with my reputation for DIY prowess, if not my dignity, intact.

2. Baby’s Bedtime. In the evening our son fell asleep before we expected him to and, rather than look a gift horse (or a sleeping baby, which is a very similar creature to a gift horse) in the mouth, we decided we would put him to bed right then. We gingerly carried him up the stairs and swaddled him in his cot. We began to sneak out of the room and paused to close the blind on the way. Everything went black. We couldn’t see a thing. We partially raised the blind again so that we could find the light switch and turned on the light so that we could see the door and find our way out. This woke the baby. Bugger.

3. Mummy’s Bedtime. Eventually, we were able to get our son back to sleep and, quite soon after, my wife snuck up to bed. I have little idea what happened, but after a couple of minutes, from my position in the room below, I heard a loud bang, followed about thirty seconds later by the noise of the baby crying. Then I heard the sound of my wife trying to placate the crying baby with a cuddly toy, before my parental selective deafness kicked in and I returned to what I was doing.

4. Daddy’s Bedtime. Eventually, the baby became quiet again and, having spent the remainder of a fascinating evening reconfiguring the 7 Reasons W3 Total Cache plugin and our email servers*, it was time for me to go to bed. I went up the stairs and changed in another room, so as not to disturb anyone. Then I snuck across the landing into the bedroom and closed the door noiselessly behind me. Where once there would have had been some residual light filtering through the blind to aid my navigation across the room, now there was none. I knew roughly where the bed was though, and I took several tentative steps toward it before stumbling over something and letting out an involuntary scream as I lost my balance and landed in a heap on the bed.

5. “AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” Shrieked a lump in the bed from beneath me as, in the pitch darkness, a screaming and unknown assailant pounced on her. I groped around for the switch to the bedside light and, finding it quickly, turned it on. I looked behind me to see what was on the floor. “Are you drunk?”, the now slightly calmer lump in the bed enquired. “I fell over an owl,” I replied.

6. “WWWWAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!” Said a tiny voice from the other side of the room reacting to the sudden light. Eventually we were able to get him back to sleep.

7. Sleep. I was unaware of what occurred during the remainder of the night. I have since been told that the usual cycle of the baby waking up and requiring feeding and changing carried on unaltered by the loss of the light. I was told that this morning when, after what I can only describe as the most blissfully tranquil sleep of my life, my rather tired looking wife shook me awake and informed me it was 11am and that we were going to be late for our lunch appointment. “But it can’t be”, I replied, “It’s still pitch black”.

So there you have it. Blackout blinds do work, and you can use them to lull the unsuspecting into sleeping longer and later. They just don’t work on babies.

*I had hoped to watch a couple of episodes of Bergerac. We sacrifice a lot for 7 Reasons.

May 11, 2011
7 Reasons The Samoans Really Haven’t Thought This Through

If you read the Weird & Wonderful section of the BBC website you may well have seen that Samoa is to set to jump forward by one day. You may also know this if you are Samoan. And live in Samoa. If you don’t, you need to read this next bit very carefully. At midnight on 28th December 2011 – Samoan time – it won’t be 28th December 2011. It will actually be midnight on 29th December 2011. The Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, says the twenty-four hour leap to the west side of the international data line will be good for the economy. It will enable them to do more business with Australia and New Zealand. But have they really thought it through? Our investigations show they may want to rethink.

Samoa Wants To Move To The Left Of The Dotted Line

1. 28th December 2011. That’s a Wednesday! Wednesday is a business day. Surely logic would have said jump forward in time at a weekend. Lose a Saturday or a Sunday. Not a Wednesday!

2. Tourism. Unsurprisingly, what with it being a small island with beautiful beaches, Samoa is a popular holiday destination for people like to lie around doing nothing while getting sunburnt. As a result the tourist industry is a major part of the Samoan economy. The problem is that went people book a ten day holiday they expect ten days. They don’t expect nine days. But that’s exactly what would happen if you go to Samoa for Christmas and New Year. Which is why you won’t. No one will. At the end of this year Samoa will be completely free of tourists. The Samoan economy will shudder to a worrying halt.

3. Natives. What happens if they have a birthday on 28th December? They are either going to stay in Samoa and not have a birthday which means no money being spent on presents, cake, balloons and Pin The Tail On The Donkey kits. Or they are going to go away to celebrate which means money will be spent on presents, cake, balloons, and Pin The Tail On The Donkey kits in Sydney. Either way, Samoa’s economy loses.

4. Productivity. So, without a 28th December, Samoa will be faced with a four day week. Only they won’t because the 26th and 27th are public holidays. So they’ll have a two day week. Thanks to the foresight of Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, Samoans are going to have to cram five days work into just two. It’s not going to happen. I guarantee you now that the entire Somoan workforce will be on strike on the 29th and 30th December. So basically, from 23rd December until 3rd January, nothing is going to happen in Samoa. Hardly the sort of attitude that is going to inspire New Zealand and Australia based companies to work with them is it?

5. Pressure. At the moment Samoa is the last place to see daylight. The pressure is off them really. Everyone else has done that day and are now either chilling, sleeping or preparing for a the next day. Samoans can pretty much do what they want safe in the knowledge that no one is watching. Come 2012 though, they are going to be leading the world into every new day. They have the responsibility to get us off to a good start. If they have a bad one, so do the rest of us. That is a lot of pressure and a lot of change. Really, they should have had a trial period first. Perhaps moving Samoa to just West of Ireland. This way they’d have experienced some pressure, but not potentially economy damaging pressure.

6. The Americas. Samoa’s argument is that the majority of their business ties are with Australia and New Zealand and so by advancing by a day they get to work with them for five days instead of just three*. That’s putting an awful lot of eggs in just two baskets. There are thirty-five ~~countries~~ baskets in The Americas. Some baskets, like the basket of the USA, are so big that they contain sub-baskets. There’s a basket for New York. A basket for Chicago. A basket for Los Angeles. In other words, there is opportunity. If a Samoan finds a basket is full, well he can move on to another. This time-travelling is not only going to reduce the size of these America based baskets, but some will disappear all together.** Lots of Samoans will be looking to transfer their eggs to the baskets of New Zealand and Australia. And while these baskets are going to be slightly bigger, there are going to be a whole lot more eggs in them. And when you have too many eggs in a basket that leads to cracking. And, eventually, egg white saturation.

7. Warranties. Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, I purchased a freeview box in Apia on 29th December 2010. The warranty runs out on 28th December 2011. What happens if it breaks down on 28th December? A date that doesn’t exist. I foresee a lot of correspondence going back and forth. That’s a whole lot of stamps. And a whole lot of expense. It alarms me that Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has made the decision without even contemplating such eventualities. And let me assure you, by hook or by crook I will get my hands on a Samoan freeview box and I will be following this up. All for the love of reasoning.

*At present, when it’s Monday in New Zealand and Australia, it’s Sunday in Samoa. And when it’s Friday in Samoa, it’s Saturday in New Zealand and Australia.

**When it’s Monday in Samoa it will be Sunday in The Americas and when it’s Friday in the Americas it will be Saturday in Samoa.

May 10, 2011
7 Reasons to Follow @MongolianNavy on Twitter

In February we discovered that Benicio Del Toro was on Twitter and brought you the news in 7 Reasons to follow @BenicioDToro on Twitter. We weren’t sure whether it was him or not, but we thought the Twitter account was interesting anyway, and we had a big reaction to the post. Firstly, many unhinged people descended on our comments section and began calling each other names (we eventually had to referee this) and secondly, someone stole the piece and reposted it elsewhere without our consent until – after we’d threatened legal action more than once and they’d removed it and re-posted it a few times – their web hosts intervened and shut them down. In all, it was a whole lot of irritation and hassle. So let’s do it again.

Great news, 7 Reasons readers! The Mongolian Navy are on Twitter! Here are seven reasons to follow them.

Swim for your lives! It’s the entire Mongolian Navy! Really.

1. They Won’t Swamp Your Twitter-Feed. I mean, how much news can a navy with one boat, seven sailors (only one of whom can swim) and no sea generate?

2. Comparison. Have you ever felt really down? Have you ever felt pangs of existential angst? Have you ever questioned what you’re doing with your life? Have you ever felt that you’re getting nowhere and that you’re just going round in circles? Well the Mongolian Navy are stuck on the landlocked Lake Hovsgal so they actually are going round in circles. All day, every day. Who doesn’t feel better about themselves now?

3. War Is Hell. I watched the Dreamworks mini-series The Pacific recently and a brilliant, absorbing, and appropriately reverential bit of television it was too. But it was a highly confusing in places because there were many, many characters and they were all dressed identically. The Mongolian Navy has only seven sailors though, so there should be little of that sort of confusion in their Twitter feed. In time, you’ll probably get to know and love the entire Mongolian Navy, which is a lot less time than in would take you to get to know and love a larger navy.

4. Learn About Mongolia. How much do you really know about Mongolia? That’s a question I’ve asked myself on several occasions recently, and in my case, the answer is very little. I imagine that by following the Mongolian Navy on Twitter I’m going to learn a great deal more about Mongolia. After all, they’re landlocked, so it’s not like they’re going to be tweeting about anywhere else.

5. Because You Love An Underdog. Yes you do! You can’t help it. And surely, in naval terms, a navy with only one vessel (a tug) is the biggest underdog of them all. Or the littlest underdog, perhaps. After all, it’s hard to feel any sort of empathy with large modern navies with their state-of-the-art destroyers deploying smart torpedoes and missiles against enemies that don’t stand a hope-in-hell’s chance. But the Mongolian Navy’s epic quest to tow other boats around and keep their lake free from better navies* is something we can all appreciate and get behind.

6. Because They’ll Follow You Back. I’ve looked at their Twitter page and it seems that they’re following the people who are following them back. And who wouldn’t want to be followed by the Mongolian Navy (if you’re going to be followed by a navy, the Mongolian one seems like the best option)? It seems that the Mongolian Navy are as curious about us as we are about them. Let’s tell them what things are like where we live. Near the sea. Or tweet swimming tips, I think they’d like that.

7. Show Your Support. Because no one in Mongolia loves them. As we pointed in out March, Mongolia has a National Men and Soldiers Day, but not a National Men and Sailors Day. This seems deeply unfair. Let’s show them that people out there do care about them. Let’s show our support for by following @MongolianNavy on Twitter.**

*Which is all navies. Even Birmingham has a better navy than Mongolia.

**As this doesn’t seem like too much of a commitment.

April 13, 2011
7 Reasons That Mongolia is Wrong to Celebrate Men and Soldiers

Hello 7 Reasons readers! It’s Friday here in the world, but in Mongolia it isn’t. In Mongolia, today is Men and Soldiers Day: The day when the good folks of Ulaanbaatar (and the parts of Mongolia that we can’t name) celebrate men and soldiers. Are men and soldiers the right people to be celebrating though, we asked ourselves. Doesn’t it seem a little unfair and iniquitous to be only celebrating men and soldiers? We think it is. We think there are far more deserving groups for modern Mongolia to celebrate. Here they are.

1. Men and Sailors. Now, the more observant of you will point out that Mongolia is a landlocked country and as a result have little need for sailors. While I might agree with you, it doesn’t stop Mongolia having a Navy. Indeed, as recently ago as the 13th Century, Mongolia had the third largest Navy in the world. Sadly, these days it comprises of three boats, two guns and seven sailors. Laughable you may think, but when I tell you that only one of the sailors can swim you will understand the gravity of the situation. Mongolia should be celebrating their sailors before they’ve all gone.

2. Men and Roy Chapman Andrews & His Merry Men. A name not familiar to most of you I am sure, but in the early 1920s Roy and co explored Mongolia in a fleet of Dodge cars. He was intending that his trip to Mongolia would help him discover something about the origin of man – why he thought Mongolia was the place he’d find this remains a mystery – he’d have probably had more luck in Lidl. Unsurprisingly he discovered little about man, but did discover a treasure trove of dinosaur bones. Not my words, those of Wikipedia. Then in July 1923, he became the first man to discover dinosaur eggs. All this leads us to believe that Roy Chapman Andrews inspired the creation of Indiana Jones. Given the success of the franchise, I feel it only proper that we should celebrate the real-life Indiana. And when I say ‘we’, I mean Mongolia.

3. Men and Weathermen. In summertime the temperatures can reach as high as 40 Celsius in Mongolia and in the winter drop as low as -45 Celsius. That is some extreme weather one has to stand outside holding a thermometer in. No one ever thinks about this though do they? All they care about is whether they need the camel or the bus the next day.

4. Men and Trans-Siberian Train Drivers. The Trans-Siberian railway line cuts through Mongolia as it joins Russia and China. A trip from St Petersburg to Beijing – taking in Ulaanbaatar – can take anywhere from between fifteen days to a month and a half. The first reason that Mongolia should be celebrating this dedicated group is that they are bringing in tourists which of course boost the economy. Secondly, do you know how hard it is to stand up for a month and a half? No, neither do I. But that is what these train drivers do. Heroes. The lot of them.

5. Men and Yurt Manufacturers. While Mongolian soldiers might once have blazed a bloody trail across Asia under Genghis Khan, the Mongolian Army is no longer the all-conquering behemoth that it once was. Mongolian yurts, however, unlike Mongolian soldiers, can be found all over the world and are something of a national Mongolian symbol. You can even order them online. Can you order a Mongolian soldier online? Well yes, probably, this is the internet we’re talking about, but a yurt would look better in your garden and would be less terrifying to your womenfolk and neighbours.

6. Men and Economists. The major currency of Mongolia is the tögrög, the tugrik or the tugrug, it depends who you ask. And if you ask me, it’s the tugrug. I don’t know how many tögrögs there are to the tugrik or how many tökraks there are to the tugrug (I just made one up myself, being an economist is fun!) but anyone who has invented a currency that has at least three names – one of which sounds like a silent comedic prank – should be celebrated. And then locked up.

7. Men and the Sun-Starved Geeks That Update Wikipedia. If it weren’t for Wikipedia, how much would we know of modern Mongolia? Sure we all know about Genghis Khan and the yurts and…the…yaks and things? But Wikipedia – fortunately – knows everything. I, for one, was flabbergasted to learn that Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan and that on November 21, 2005, George W. Bush became the first-ever sitting U.S. President to visit Mongolia. To the rest of the world, Wikipedia is a shop window for Mongolia, spewing-forth fascinating facts and marvellous Mongolian minutiae for our amazement and astonishment. Mongolia should celebrate the people that update Wikipedia from their bedrooms in their pants. And so should we. Wikipedia, we salute you.

March 18, 2011
7 Reasons You Should Never Buy a Half Bottle of Champagne (on Valentine’s Day)

It’s Valentine’s Day here at 7 Reasons and, as you might reasonably expect, everywhere else too (we don’t have a special one just for ourselves, you know). Anyway, we’ve decided to do something different today. Usually we’d bring you seven reasons for something: Reasons full of speculation and conjecture; hypothesis; whimsy and made-up statistics. Today, however, is different: We’re not going to do any of those things. Because in another lifetime, one of the 7 Reasons team spent several years running wine shops (yes, you didn’t think either of us had any sort of practical use, but you were wrong). As a result of this, today’s 7 Reasons post comes from experience. Make the most of it, it won’t happen often. This piece is mostly aimed at men who, while in the minority of wine-buyers for the majority of the year are – by far – the majority of champagne-buyers in the run-up to (and at the last minute) on Valentine’s Day. Anyway, from experience, here are seven reasons that you should never buy a half bottle of champagne for Valentine’s Day.

1. You’re Missing The Point. Allow me to explain the point of buying champagne. It is a luxury item; an extravagance; a frippery; an opulent treat to be blissfully enjoyed in intemperate immoderation. You cannot have half an extravagance. You can’t have partial gratification. It is not possible to temper excess. If you buy half a bottle of champagne to share with your beloved on the universal day of romance and indulgence you will – should it turn out that you’ve parked it in front of someone’s driveway – be able to move your car; you’ll be able to put up shelving safely; you’ll be able to do the crossword with a clear head. Trust me, those things are not the point of Valentine’s Day.

2. Consider The Message You’re Sending. What kind of message are you giving to your loved one with a half bottle? That your gesture is half-hearted and half-arsed, that’s what message you’re sending. This is a token gesture. The spark’s gone out of our relationship. I don’t really want to spend a romantic evening with you. Here’s a bit of lip-service (which will, ironically, ensure that no lip-service will occur). I have no feeling for you whatsoever. I have no romance in my soul. I’m an insensitive bell-end and you’re wasting your time with me. You’re not saying just one of those things with half a bottle of champagne, you’re saying all of them. It’s sending a worse Valentine’s message than turning up with flowers that you’ve pilfered from a graveyard. In fact, it’s worse than turning up with a wreath that you’ve pilfered from a graveyard.

3. The Customer Is Always Right. This is not true. As we know, there are many people who can’t walk in a straight line, drive a car without endangering others or operate a telephone without calling the wrong person. This wrongness also manifests itself when purchasing things. Stupid people, when placed in a retail environment, do not suddenly experience some sort of revelatory experience in which the fog of stupidity is lifted from their feeble brains, leaving them with a hitherto unfamiliar sensation of lucidity and exactitude: They remain stupid. So, should you ask, in a wine shop, in the run up to Valentine’s Day, for half a bottle of champagne, you will be treated with utter contempt. Should you choose – once the aghast member of staff has explained reasons one and two to you, possibly in a voice an octave or two higher than their normal register – to persist with your foolish purchase of a half bottle of champagne, you will be forever thought of as the idiot. They will remember you; they will point at you whenever you come into the store; they will whisper about you to their colleagues before they both erupt into laughter. This reaction is not a temporary thing, it will last for eternity, and possibly beyond. Helpfully, they will also put your tiny bottle of champagne into the largest gift bag they can find and that won’t help you at all because…

4. Symbolism. There’s a lot of symbolism around champagne. Let us consider the use of champagne in film and television for a moment. The most obvious example is the popping of a cork and the subsequent cascade of abruptly released champagne as a metaphor for the male orgasm. In this metaphor, the bottle of champagne represents the male appendage. So – even though it might not be a conscious reaction – if you turn up with half a bottle of champagne on Valentine’s Day, your lady will be doubly disappointed. Not only will you have arrived with barely enough champagne to get the cat in the mood, you’ll have arrived with a small todger too.

5. Variety. Although all champagne is grown in a small geographical location, and is composed of any, or all, of a mere three grape varieties, there is a panoply of scents and flavours across vintages and producers. The variety is absolutely fascinating. So buying champagne is your chance to turn up with something interesting, to wow your beloved. And it doesn’t have to be expensive. This is your moment to turn up with a bottle of Taittinger Brut Reserve NV and tell your other half that, like her, it has a beautiful nose, is perfectly balanced, refreshingly complex and has a glorious aftertaste. Or you can turn up with any other nice bottle of fizz that takes your fancy; there are loads of them. If you buy a half bottle though, your choice will usually be limited to the house champagne or the ubiquitous Moet & Chandon. So, you’re either saying “Darling, I brought you half a bottle of Moet because I don’t care, I have a tiny cock, and you’re just the same as all the other girls” or “Darling, I brought you half a bottle of the house champagne because I don’t care, I have a tiny cock and you have lower standards than all the other girls”. That won’t go well.

6. Cost. Buying half a bottle of champagne is cheaper than buying a full bottle of champagne and, in the current economic climate, it might seem like a reasonable economy. It is not. Not only is the cost of a half bottle far greater than half the cost of a bottle, there are other costs that accompany the purchase of one. These costs are the usual ones associated with apology for acts of crass stupidity and thoughtlessness; flowers, chocolates and the like. And while we’re on the subject of peace offerings for women, lingerie is never a suitable apology gift. Never.

7. Volume. There is one thing to be said about the half bottle of champagne. It’s an ideal size for one person. This is useful as, if you take your significant other half a bottle of champagne, there is a high chance you’ll end up drinking it alone. Perhaps for many years to come.

The 7 Reasons team would like to wish all their readers lots of love and happiness this Valentine’s Day.

February 14, 2011
7 Reasons That Love is Important

It’s Valentine’s Day!!! On Monday. Apologies for any panic we may have caused there, but the 7 Reasons team have decided to jump the gun and celebrate St Valentine’s Day prematurely. Because we’re lovesick. Well, one of us is in love and that just makes the other one feel sick, but that’s near enough. So, in honour of the patron saint of pink stuff everywhere, here are seven reasons that love is important.

1. Make Love Not War. It’s a tired expression, but – short of a nuclear missile – love really is the one thing that can end conflict. For good. We are not interested in truces. Like a dirty weekend in a Travelodge outside of Leeds, it won’t last. Real love means complete acceptance of what others believe and how they choose to live. A marriage of acceptance if you like. Not that I’m suggesting we should accept or indeed make love to radical extremists. That would be extreme. And quite dangerous if their grenades are dangling above your head. If you do find yourself in this situation we suggest you wear a helmet. Just in case.

2. Passion. That’s what love is really. Whether it’s passion for your partner or passion for your team or passion for passion fruit, it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that you feel something for something. Because it’s those feelings that keep us alive. Without emotion we’d be robots. And if you read yesterday’s post you’d realise that’s not a good thing.

3. Compromise. I guess I got lucky. The person I fell in love with also loves what I love. No, not myself. Sport. Which means we don’t have to do the, ‘You can watch Eastenders all week so long as I can watch the rugby all weekend,’ thing. Claire gets to watch Eastenders and the rugby and I get to do the ironing and watch the rugby. But we know we are in the minority. Other people really do have to compromise. And while it may mean missing England beat Wales, you do it because you’re in love. And I admire that. I admire it because I couldn’t do it. Which is why I told Claire before we even started dating that watching England play cricket or rugby comes before anything else in my life. A year later I still haven’t missed a game. And that just makes me love her even more.

4. Inspiration. Throughout human history, love has acted as a spur, a stimulus, a motivational factor in many of mankind’s greatest accomplishments. The life’s work of Thomas Aquinas; Shelley’s One Word is Too Often Profaned; Shah Jahan’s construction of the Taj Mahal, the historical examples of great works inspired by, and created out of love are almost boundless. Essentially, if we didn’t have love, we’d still be slimy-fish creatures or animal-bothering Neanderthals living in caves or swamps or our own poo or something. But thanks to love, most of us aren’t.

5. Tennis. I don’t think anything in the world explains love better than a tennis match. As I am sure you are aware, ‘love’ in tennis is the equivalent of zero. Zilch. Nothing. In other words, it is valueless. And that is what love outside of tennis is too. You can’t put a value on love. Unless you are in Amsterdam. Though between you and me I don’t think ten minutes* with a Dutch girl called Helga really counts. Love is the most valuable commodity in life and yet it is free. I have always thought that is a rather wonderful intricacy. We pay our taxes so that the NHS and the Police are there for us when we need them, but the people who are there for us when we don’t need them are free.

6. Popular Song. If it weren’t for the eternally prevalent theme of love, pop music would be wholly different. There’d be no Renée and Renato’s Save Your Love, there’d be no Yummy Yummy Yummy I Got Love in my Tummy by Ohio Express, and there’d be no When We Collide by Matt Cardle. This might initially seem like a spectacularly good anti-love argument, but it’s quite the reverse, because when repugnant, saccharine dross like this is being played, you might just find that across a crowded room, someone else is also covering their ears with their hands and bellowing, “What is this shit!?” And at that moment, your eyes may meet, and that’s when you’ll find true love. And all because of love songs, which really do begat love. However circuitously.

7. Emotional Intensity. Love – and this is important in these straitened economic times – is free. Your other half loves you because you’re you, not because of what you can give them. Love – true love – transcends the baser human tendency toward being fiscally and materially acquisitive in favour of devotion to and acceptance of another person; no matter what their circumstances or their idiosyncrasies. When you have found your true soul-mate you will have found unconditional acceptance. Which is why my other half is going to love her Valentine’s Day card this year, no matter how much it cost.

She's gonna love this.

*Okay, two and a half.**

**This never happened.***

***Well, it probably did to someone exciting.

February 11, 2011