Tag: farmers

7 Reasons to Wear a CAT Cap When Borrowing a Flat Flap (For Fat Cats)

The CAT cap, that iconic piece of American headgear is, despite what you may have read yesterday, the ideal piece of millinery to wear when borrowing a large cat flap. Here’s why.

1. You’re Lost. On the way to see your flat flap (for fat cats) lender you get lost and you don’t have a map. Normally, you couldn’t ask for directions at all but, with your CAT cap as a disguise, you can. By pretending to be an American. It’s a well known fact that 94% of lost American tourists that you encounter in the UK are actually fat, badly dressed British people putting on a funny accent. You can be one too!

2. Whippets. You might not own a fat cat at all, you might own a whippet; those mid-sized runts from greyhound litters. But what if you want to borrow a cat flap for a whippet and don’t want it to be known that your greyhound is inadequate? You can’t wear a flat cap, they’ll assume you’re a whippet owner. You can, however, wear a CAT cap and pretend that you’re borrowing one for a cat. And that your caps lock is stuck.

3. Escape. You’re on the run. They’re after you. It’s your own fault really, you fell into bad company and were led astray. When one of your friends suggested that you should brilliantine your hair and don clothes from the 1920s to go out for a night on the town, you acquiesce. Unfortunately, your gang’s – having consumed several too many Tom Collins and Manhattans – behaviour has become indecorous and has descended into committing acts of japery and tomfoolery. Soon, you and your friends are filming each other with your portable telephones as you grab total strangers on the night bus and forcibly dance the Charleston with them. After one happy flapping incident too many, you find you have become separated from your chums and are being chased by an angry, powerful looking man called Matt whose only desire for the evening was to enjoy a quiet meal out with friends, and transport his large cat flap (for his fat cat, Pat) home. And boy is he fast. As you tear round the corner of Crash Street you find that he is tiring though, and you begin to pull away from him until, eventually, he is out of sight altogether. Then, with creeping horror, you realise that something is blocking your path. That’s right, it’s the Crash Street wall: You’ve run into a dead end. Desperately scanning the surrounding area for some means of escape, you spot a yellow CAT cap protruding from a bin bag. You dust it off and put it on just as Matt bounds into view. “He went in there” you shout while pointing at a padlocked door to your right, “here let me hold that for you”. He hands you the large cat flap and furiously heads toward the door. While his back is turned, you rapidly attach the cat flap to the wall and make your escape through it. If it weren’t for the CAT cap, this might not have ended so well.

4. Baldness. Have you ever lent a cat flap to a bald person? No. No one ever does. They need to cover their heads to get cat flaps. A CAT cap will achieve this.

5. Fame. You’re Guy Ritchie. You need to go out and borrow a prop. It’s a flat cat flap for a fat cat (the film’s in plain old 2D, so you only need a flat one). But you’re being papped, so you can’t wear a flat cap (as you’re a recognisable chap who they’ll try to snap) so you slap on a CAT cap to borrow your flat flap (for a fat cat), which you’re able to borrow without incident.

6. When Abroad. You’re in America. In the American mid-west, in movies from the eighties, where most people wear plaid shirts and mesh CAT caps. And you’re on holiday. Being the sort of person who likes to be prepared (and has a suitcase full of baked beans, ginger biscuits, tea and beige trousers), you have remembered to pack your fat cat and your door, but have unaccountably forgotten your cat flap. Your cat won’t be able to get through the door so you’ll need to borrow one. And how better to approach the locals and showing them you’re not a stranger than by donning a CAT cap, and driving over to their place in a pick-up truck. With Michael J. Fox or Kevin Bacon in the passenger seat. It’ll put them at their ease and they’ll be happy to let you take their cat flap. And these broken wings.

7. Donning. Perhaps you’re already the wearer of a CAT cap. And already own a fat cat, for whom you have a cat flap. But what if your fat cat has had some sort of cat flap mishap that caused it to snap (the cat flap, not the fat cat) while you were having a nap? Well in that case, you’d need to don your CAT cap and pop out to borrow a flat fat cat cat flap to replace the one that snapped. Self-evident, really.

[poll id=”2″]

March 17, 2011
7 Reasons To Wear A Flat Cap When Borrowing A Cat Flap

Having examined the virtues of borrowing a cat flap on Monday and a flat cap yesterday, it seems only logical to combine the two. Logical, that is, to a professor of reasoning to the tune of seven. So, here you go. Seven reasons to wear a flat cap when borrowing a cat flap.

Flat Cap Cat In Cat Flap Flap Shocker!

1. Doffing. Unless you are very, very old, you probably haven’t had someone doff their hat/cap/beanie/pork pie at you. Sadly, along with the ability to offer thanks when you open a door for their entire rabble, it is from another age. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to do so. In the same way that I am now pleasantly surprised if I get a thank you- or indeed a tip – when I hold open the door to the local Co-Op or Claridges, a cat flap owner would be impressed if you doffed your flat cap at them when they answered the door. Immediately this disarms them. Well done, you have broken down the barriers to the cat flap.

2. Pink. Obviously if you have shocking pink hair then wearing a flat cap is a necessity. Anything that alienates you from a potential cat flap sharer is a bad thing. And pink hair is such an alienator. So wear a flat cap and ignore the doffing. In many ways doffing when you have pink hair is worse than not wearing a flat cap at all. But that’s not an invitation. Wear it and keep it on. Just as a by line, personally, I don’t believe you should be allowed a cat if you have pink hair. Under the incumbent government though it is allowed so all I can do is urge you to wear a flat cap. At all times.

3. Association. There are five types of people who wear flat caps. Hoorays, Guy Ritchies Marc Fearns’, whippet owners and farmers. The probability of a Hooray wanting to borrow a cat flap is slim, Guy Ritchie can afford to buy one, Marc Fearns already has one and we’ll come to whippet owners in the next reason. That leaves farmers as one of only two type of people who would knock on a door and ask to borrow a cat flap. Now farmers, as I am sure we are all aware, like animals. As a result the typical cat flap owner is going to be much more receptive to a farmer’s request than they would be if it came from someone attired in pith helmet. With accompanying shotgun and elephant tusks.

4. Preconception. As mentioned in the previous reason, the other type of person who wears a flat cap is a whippet owner. Or, if you prefer, a whippetier. Why should it be that the flat cap is synonymous with a type of dog and not a cat? It shouldn’t. It is catist. There is no better way therefore than to challenge the flat cap/whippet association by attempting to borrow cat flaps in a flat cap. And of course, if you are successful in your pursuit of a cat flap borrowing you will then have to decide what to do with your whippet. I find listening to Delia helps.

5. Bargaining. If may be that the cat flap owner – particularly if they are a 7 Reasons reader – is on the look out for a flat cap to borrow. How lucky therefore that you should be wearing one. It’s the perfect exchange of goods.

6. Versatility. In the unlikely event that the cat flap owner declines your request you may well become desperate. You may well start begging. And of course the best way to beg is by kneeling down and placing your cap upside down in front of you. If you smell bad this would also help.

7. Fame. As with many of the things we encourage on 7 Reasons, this has never been done before. I can absolutely guarantee that no one in the history of the world has attempted to borrow a cat flap while wearing a flat cap. So why not be the first? This time next week you could have the front page of your local paper framed and hanging on your wall. And what a wonderful talking point that would be. “Why is this, ‘Flat Cap Wearer Harasses Cat Flap Owners’, story on your wall?” Be sure to mention us won’t you?

March 16, 2011
7 Reasons To Stone The Crows

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.

January 17, 2011
7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Play FarmVille

If you use the social networking site Facebook, you’ll doubtless be familiar with FarmVille, the most successful Facebook game there is. Here are seven reasons that you shouldn’t play it.

1. Imagination. When you’re playing FarmVille, you’re pretending that you’re a farmer. Farming is not exciting. It’s essentially portly, ruddy-faced people and mud, or portly, ruddy-faced people and blood, depending on which type of farming it is. If you’re going to pretend to be something, pretend to be something interesting; a pirate, an astronaut, a mermaid, a flying horse, a rock star, an oculus, an aardvark, a many-headed warrior-beast, the Archbishop of Canterbury…anything, it’s all better than pretending you’re a farmer.

2. Spam. Your friends want to log onto Facebook without being inundated with updates on the progress of your pretend farm. Tell us about something that does exist instead. How are your children? How is your husband? How is your pet? Step away from the “farm” for a moment and check that they’re all still there and in good health, then tell us about it. Perform a head-count if you need to.

3. Reality. Instead of pretending to grow vegetables on your computer, why don’t you actually grow some vegetables? It’s not difficult. All you need are some seeds and some mud. Just weed and water them occasionally (this takes less time than tending your suppositious crops) and eventually you’ll be able to pull them up and eat them. You can’t eat your computer can you? No, no matter how much the rest of us wish you would.

4. It’s not sociable. My Facebook friends that play FarmVille assist each other on their imaginary farms that don’t exist. I know this from my news feed. Yet these people don’t come and help out in my garden, which is real. I grow real things there (badly). If you came to help me grow my real plants, I’d share them with you and ply you with beer. This is how people really interact and bond. When FarmVille tells the world, via Facebook, that “David helped Rachel harvest her plums”, you haven’t really interacted with each other – unless it’s a euphemism, in which case, well done David, I never knew you had it in you.

5. Swastika. Okay, I’m not going to pretend that I don’t find it funny, but it obviously took a lot of time and effort to grow your swastika. That’s time you could have spent being a real Nazi, goose-stepping about in a fetching uniform, annexing the Sudetenland and shouting things in German…or not, no, that’s a bad idea. You could surely have done something better with that time though: Read a book; go for a walk; climb a mountain – no – climb every mountain; ford every stream; follow every rainbow; till you find your dream. Or perhaps do something unrelated to The Sound of Music, your choice.

6. Grow up. This may come as a blow to some of the 7 Reasons team, but it’s not socially acceptable to have an imaginary friend after the age of nine. So why is it deemed acceptable to have an imaginary farm? A farm is bigger than a friend – unless your friend is American – so surely it’s a bigger no-no?

7. AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH! It’s come to this: I’m actually writing about real people growing imaginary plants and tending non-existent animals on their pretend farms which only exist in cyberspace, and you’re reading what I’ve written about actual people cultivating fabricated crops and make-believe livestock on fictitious farms which aren’t real. What has become of us? Death to FarmVille! Stupid bloody fucking FarmVille.

April 14, 2010