Tag: Food

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
It’s That SPAM Again

It’s Sunday today, so we’ve taken our traditional day away from the reasoning-mine and, as they are often wont to do, our thoughts have turned to food. Now, some time back we brought you what we considered to be the ultimate SPAM recipe – Planked SPAM – but now we’ve unearthed something that has easily trumped Planked SPAM and knocked it into a cocked hat. Whatever that means. Brace yourself! It’s…

Yes, it’s SPAM ‘n’ Beans which is, apparently, exactly right for Saturday night (which is rather a shame as I took my wife for cocktails and to a really good concert in Northern Europe’s largest Gothic Cathedral last night (if only I’d seen this first)). It seems delightfully simple to cook, consisting as it does of two ingredients; SPAM and baked beans. Simply place slices of SPAM in baked beans and cook them on the hob, then serve in some sort of dirty brown pot with congealed sauce oozing over the side. Who wouldn’t be overjoyed to be served this? It seems that the simplest recipes are often the most delicious.*

*Sadly I’m the member of the 7 Reasons team that doesn’t eat meat and – as SPAM is a distant relative of meat – I can’t try it myself. Any readers care to give it a go?**

**7 Reasons will be back tomorrow, without any tummy trouble whatsoever.

May 8, 2011
7 Reasons To Celebrate The Royal Wedding With A Commemorative Pizza

Tomorrow, people up and down the land will be watching and ignoring the Royal Wedding in equal measure. I’ll probably be in the former category as I’ve been invited. Not officially you understand, but I’m assisting the photographer, Clayton Bennett. I’m holding his tripod or something. Clayton and I aren’t invited to the Wedding Breakfast but we will be hiding behind a curtain with this beauty.

Here are seven reasons you should join us and celebrate with a commemorative pizza from Pappa Johns:

1. God Save The Queen. If, like me, you are a royalist but not monarchist then you’ll probably have an interest in the wedding even if you are not caught up in all the hyperbole. Eating a commemorative pizza says, ‘Congratulations Will and Kate, I wish you the best of luck for the future,’ without going over the top. If you are a monarchist you’re probably from a generation that doesn’t eat pizza.

2. Elizabeth Who? If, on the other hand, you are an anti-royalist and/or a republican – like that Welsh girl who is now Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard – you can rid some of that anger by biting the King presumptive on the neck. Given that you’ll probably also be giving the world snide commentary on twitter, a pizza is the perfect accompaniment to keep you fuelled.

3. It’s Loaded. Some people will be having street parties tomorrow. It’s not really my type of thing, but food certainly is. And, if I were going or heaven-forbid put in charge of organising such an event, I would certainly turn to the commemorative pizza. Why provide various plates of salami, pepperoni, cheese, pepper, ham, sweetcorn, onion, olive, mushroom and jalapeno when I can have it all on the same one? Mixed in. On a doughy base. I would save a lot of time, a trip to Tesco and hours of washing up.

4. Sharing. A pizza, unlike a sausage for instance, is ideal for sharing. I hope we all agree that we could never share a sausage. Especially a cocktail sausage. A pizza though, loathed as I would be to do it, can be shared. And that’s what the Royal Wedding is all about. At least according to Big Dave. We’re all supposed to share in this happy day according to him. And if Dav’s sharing his pizza then I think we should all follow in his example. No double dip for us.*

5. USA! USA! I like Americans. I like Americans because they like our Queen. And Princes. And assorted others. And they like them more than we do. I also like them because they adhere to the maxim that when it comes to food ‘quantity beats quality’. While paying £10 for a mushroom on a stick of celery is okay once in a decade, I would much rather a stack of nachos for $5. Anyway, the point is that the company selling the commemorative pizza is Pappa John’s. An American company. So there you go. You know your royal wedding pizza is coming from a team who love royal weddings and you know it’s going to be huge.

6. It’s Free! Assuming enough of us buy it that is. Imagine if we all ordered a commemorative pizza. Pappa John’s would be inundated and unable to cope. They would never deliver it within forty minutes which means we get it free. All we have to do is whack it in the oven for ten minutes and it’ll be as good as new. Obviously we don’t want too many people ordering because if they do we probably won’t get the pizza until June. And it’s too hot to eat pizza in June.

7. Mystery. That’s right, you don’t have to eat the pizza. You can keep it. In the loft. Then, in many years time, when you have grandchildren and you are searching for an old train set, you’ll find it. Once the mould is scraped off you can put it on the kitchen table and stare at it. And then you’ll wonder who the hell these two people are. That Kate girl looks a bit like Queen Catherine, but who’s the bloke? He looks like Walter from the Beano.

*A recession double dip I mean. Obviously we’d get the garlic dip.

April 28, 2011
7 Reasons To Take Your Lady To A Spar

Today it is my lady’s birthday. ‘My’ being me, Jon, and ‘lady’ being Claire. In the midst of discussing what she would like to do for her big day, I discovered that she’d really like to go to Bath Spar. My initial reaction was one of questioning. ‘Really?’ I thought, ‘You want to go to a Spar for your birthday?’ And then it dawned on me. She didn’t mean a Spar, she meant a spa. I thought about it. I did some research. I tried my swimming trunks on. And in the end I came to the conclusion that taking your lady to a Spar is so much better than taking her to a spa. Here’s why.

1. Types Of Water. Bath Spa offers warm water. Spar offers natural still water, spring water, purified water, mineral water, sparkling water, elderflower water, tonic water, isotonic water and loads of other waters that I really can’t be bothered to look up. That doesn’t matter though, I have offered enough. For variety take your lady to Spar. For tepid results take her to a spa.

2. Products. In a Spar you can purchase a vast range of suncreams, fake tans, cosmetics and plasters. All are new and nicely packaged. In a spa, while they may be free, these products are certainly not new. They are all mixed together along with hairs and dead skin cells and happily float about on top of the water. Who in their right mind would wish to expose their loved one to such an environment on their birthday?

3. Dressing Gowns. A spa is a fantastic place hiding place for people who have escaped from hospital. They’ll blend in seamlessly. You’ll have absolutely no idea which dressing gown adorned visitor is healthy, ill or dangerous. At least if you see someone in a Spar attired in just their dressing gown you know they’ll be recaptured very soon. Or they’ll head back to their halls of residence.

4. Sights. Let’s be honest, there are some people who perhaps don’t look after themselves as well as they should. As a result they are fatties. Fatties with clothes on the majority of us can just about bear, but fatties with no clothes on are a sight we wish we never have to witness. Spar, being a decent public service provider, have a rule. ‘Shoppers must wear clothes’. A spa of course just lets anyone and anything in.

5. Boredom. I have never been to a spa before but from what I hear there is a lot of sitting around in water doing not very much. A bit like when you fall asleep after Sunday lunch. I have, however, been to many a Spar. And many a Spar sells magazines and newspapers and even the occasional DVD. So the choice is simple. Take my lady to a spa so she’ll be bored for two hours or take her to a Spar where she can relax with a film, magazine and six hundred bottles of wine? I’m not an idiot.

6. Entry Fee. For a two-hour session at the Bath Spa it costs £25 per person. For a two-hour session at a Spar (not necessarily in Bath) it is free. This should be enough to persuade you, but should you need further evidence keep reading. If you don’t like the Spar, you can leave. You need not feel guilty about doing so and no one will ask you why. If you don’t like the spa however, what do you do? Well you’ll probably pretend that you do like it for a start. And then you’ll stay for the whole two hours so you get your money’s worth. There’s a complete logic fail in there somewhere. A massive one.

7. Associated Costs. So you’ve been in the spa. Now you’ve got to dry yourself and re-apply any make-up, hair wax or fake nails you may have lost. Then, when you get home, you have to use electricity to wash and dry your swimsuit and towel. This is all costing you money. When was the last time you went to a Spar and had to wash your towel because of it? Exactly, never. I’m not making my lady do unnecessary washing on her birthday. And neither should you.

*Happy Birthday Claire. Have a great day.

April 26, 2011
7 Reasons to Replace the Horse With the Cow

Great news from Germany! The horse is obsolete. A fifteen year old girl has trained a cow to show-jump because her parents refused to buy her a horse. At 7 Reasons, we love this sort of defiant ingenuity so, in honour of the quite brilliant Regina Meyer, here are seven reasons to replace the horse with the cow.

1. The Grand National. Or, The Festival of Horse-Death – as it’s called in my house – with its high fences and terrifying leaps is dangerous for both riders and horses. If we replaced the horses with cows though, imagine how much better it would be. Would cows even attempt to hurdle over Canal Turn or Becher’s Brook? No, of course they wouldn’t, they’d just amble round them, perhaps pausing to nibble at the racecourse (or grass, as it’s known to laymen). There’d be no injuries to jockeys, no innocent animals would be shot and there’d be fresh milk for everyone at the finish. Or – if the race had been ridden at a quick pace – milkshakes. Even if cows did get injured and required shooting it would still be better. If you shoot a horse, you get a dead horse. If you shoot a cow, you get a nice sofa or a handbag. Or a steak.

2. Food. Strange as it may seem, there are people out there that eat horses. They’re called The French. But French cuisine is awful. After all, if it was any good, French chefs would stay there and cook it, wouldn’t they? But they don’t, they’re all over here in Britain, cooking food that doesn’t contain horses; making hors d’oeuvres rather than horse d’oeuvres. Is France teeming with British chefs? No. That’s because horseless cuisine is better and they want to stay. If France replaced the horse with the cow, their chefs wouldn’t leave in their droves.

3. Milk. The phrase, “get off your horse and drink your milk”, is often attributed to John Wayne. But if we were to follow Wayne’s suggestion, and get off our horse and drink our milk, we’d still have to find a cow because drinking horse-milk would just be weird. And would you fancy trying to milk a horse? I certainly wouldn’t. So if you had a horse, you’d still need a cow. If you rode a cow though, you’d only need one animal – your cow – and rather than getting off it to drink your milk, you could probably construct some sort of straw/hose milking-device to deliver your beverage to you in situ. Call yourself a cowboy, John Wayne? Too bloody right you were.

4. Society. Cows aren’t horses. They aren’t evil, terrifying, flighty and they don’t chase me round the dining room in my dreams. The world would just be a nicer place with fewer horses. What happens in a society where there are lots of horses? I’ll tell you. The streets of Edwardian Britain were riddled with the infernal beasts running amok, terrorising women in corsets and babies in perambulators just because they’d heard a backfiring omnibus or been startled by an oncoming charabang. Would cows have reacted in such a dangerous fashion? Nay.

5. The Future. You can predict future events just by looking at animals. If you look at a horse, you can tell that something bad will happen, and if you see a cow, you can apparently tell what the weather will be, just by whether it’s sitting-down or standing-up. And there’s an old piece of country wisdom which goes, “pink cow at night, Angel Delight”. Cows tell you stuff about the future and horses just give you the heebie-geebies.

6. India. In India, cows are sacred and roam free and many drivers will swerve into almost anything to avoid a collision with them. It stands to reason, therefore, that the safest place to be in India, is on a cow. Cars and trucks would actually go out of their way to avoid you. Brilliant. It would be safer than riding a horse and safer even than riding an elephant. And cows aren’t governed by speed limits, traffic lights or contraflow systems. They can go anywhere. Usually to moo at things.

7. My Family History. My late father was a horse. Not all the time, you should understand, but occasionally. I believe he was a horse twice during his lifetime. Or rather, half a horse. As a part of Manchester University’s rag week in the late 1950s, he and two friends competed in the 2:10 at Lingfield one Saturday. He (front half of horse) and his friends (back half and jockey) hid behind one of the fences during a rare – in those days – televised meeting and waited. When the other horses approached and jumped the fence, my father and his friends sprung from their hiding place and galloped down the course in pursuit of them. Despite a great deal of exertion over the following couple of furlongs, they were unable to make up much ground and soon began to tire. Their race concluded early when they were chased away by an angry policeman. That was the highlight of my father’s sporting career. In fact, it’s the biggest sporting accomplishment in our entire family history. But if those horses had been cows, my dad could have won that race. And then we could have put him out to stud. He’d have liked that.

April 7, 2011
7 Reasons That I Hate the M&S Dine in for £10 Deal

Marks and Spencer have a Dine in for £10 meal deal in which you select a main course, a side-dish, a dessert course and a bottle of wine and pay only ten pounds for them. Other supermarkets have similar deals but I don’t shop at them, so I’m only qualified to write about my abject hatred of the M&S meal deal, which seems to be aimed solely at people who dine together in even numbers. Anyway, here are 7 Reasons that I loathe it. With every fibre of my being.

Grrr.

1. They’ve Got It Surrounded. It’s the weekend and there they all are. The throng. A grey horde of people aged over fifty-five standing four-deep, apparently transfixed, around the Dine in for £10 (But Only If There Are Precisely 2.0 Of You And Absolutely No Singletons Or Children Welcome) display. Some of them are actually viewing the food, picking it up and inspecting it, but many are not. A lot of these people seem not to have any involvement in the decision over what to eat at all, but there they stand, in the way of anyone else who might conceivably want to see the food. My wife, for example, will want to see the food. As will other customers so, if you’re not actively looking at the food, why not step away from the food? Hello! Hello! We want to see the food! Actually, I can already see the food – as all people over the age of fifty-five are tiny – but I can never get within nine feet of it for fear of damaging the doddering Lilliputians as I lumber through the waist-high mass of grey to get to the growers choice salad bag. Get out of the way! Other people want to see the food!

2. It’s A Compromise. Putting together a meal from the Dine in for £10 menu is a study in the art of compromise. And compromise is an abomination. Did Churchill compromise? Rarely. Did Neville Chamberlain compromise? Yes. Ergo, compromise is abominable and speaks with a Birmingham accent. So when my wife and I put together a meal from the Dine in for £10 menu it becomes a power-struggle that even the UN would back away interceding in (we don’t have any oil, for one thing). I approach the menu searching for the most interesting and tasty thing there, and my wife approaches it searching for the most insipidly dull and bland thing that they have which, in turn, causes me to become angry and refuse to compromise further on any of the other courses or the wine (just imagine Hitler food-shopping or, if you shop at the same branch of M&S as me, look for the angry giant bellowing “Who the hell has fish and chips with a side dish of rosemary new potatoes?!”). So in the end, neither of us get the meal we want. I can’t really blame M&S for this, it’s my own fault. If I wanted to eat nice, tasty, well balanced meals I should have followed Simon Cowell’s example and married myself.

3. It’s Discriminatory. I’m not a single person but, between bouts of not being single, I have been. I remember it well; a time when I would always find things exactly where I left them and had much more space in bed. But single people today need that extra space in bed because they are required to eat twice as much as people in couples to take advantage of the Dine in for £10 offer which will, ironically, increase their chances of remaining single. Or perhaps I’m being fanciful there. No one (in Europe) is actually going to eat twice as much to take advantage of a special offer, so the offer discriminates against single people. But M&S don’t care. They seem perfectly happy to condemn the single to evenings of dining – on full price non-special food – alone while viewing whatever television programme they fancy without interruption and in their pants. But surely being single is tough enough without being excluded from special offers? What if you were unfortunate enough to be a widower? What if, after the two of you have enjoyed a Saturday night ritual of dining in for £10 for a few years, your tiny grey husband dies (possibly crushed to death by a giant food-Nazi next to the ultimate potato mash)? There’d be no more Dine in for £10 menu for you. How iniquitous.

4. It Forces Extreme Measures. Many of the best ideas are borne out of adversity and, much in the noble tradition of Barnes Wallis inventing the bouncing bomb or Soviet cosmonauts using pencils in space, I have formulated a plan; a method by which single people might take full advantage of the Dine in for £10 offer and stick it to the man by enjoying a spinach and beef roulade followed by a raspberry panna cotta at the cheaper price. Single people need to find a food-buddy. They can do it by placing a personal ad like this:

Fiscally frugal food-lover (Male, early thirties, GSOH, NS, NK) with a penchant for rosemary and lemon crusted seabass and the green pea, bean and vegetable layer seeks similar to take advantage of the M&S Dine in for £10 offer. Must be willing to consume a lesser share of the profiteroles. All applications welcome but please, no time-wasters or merlot-drinkers.

By getting organised, single people can take advantage of the Dine in for £10 offer. But should single people have to resort to their guile, cunning and organisational adroitness to take advantage of the same offers that are unconditionally granted to couples?*

5. It’s Being Discriminatory Again. My wife and I qualify for the meal deal now, but what if we were to have a child one day? It’s not inconceivable (and nor are children, hopefully). Or three children? We’d be disqualified from the offer. Cruelly cast asunder by Marks and Spencer. Because you can’t feed three or five (or any other odd number, I won’t list them all) people from the M&S Dine in for £10 menu. In fact, only one person has ever successfully accomplished a similar feat: His name was Jesus and what he did with the wrong quantity of food for a gathering of people is spoken of as a miracle (which is a biblical word meaning fiction). So – miracles aside – families that contain an odd number of members are excluded from the deal too. The father, the son and the holy ghost can’t take advantage of the Dine in for £10 deal but Hitler and Eva Braun can.

6. Paying For The Thing. Okay, so – after about an hour of pushing tiny grey people around and bickering with your partner about broccoli – you’ve carefully assembled all of the components of the meal and you take them to the checkout. But when you get there they don’t ask you for ten pounds. They ask you for seventeen. “I thought that it was all a part of the Dine in for £10 offer”, you will state. And then they’ll press the Total button and say, “Oh yes, I hadn’t pressed the Total button”. This happens every time. Just press the Total button! We know we’re saving money, we don’t need you to remind us of that every time we buy the meal deal – that’s why we’re buying the bloody meal deal in the first place. All you’re accomplishing by reminding us of the money we’ve saved is to make the widow in the queue behind us cry.

7. The Third Pie. Marks and Spencer does something further to confound us all. As a part of their 2 for £10 menu Marks and Spencer offer a key lime pie. Which comes in three portions. Why three? We’ve already established that there’s only room for two people in this meal, what do they want us to do, fight over it? Go outside and scour the streets for a total stranger to hand it to as a random act of kindness? Perhaps they think we’re so abominably cruel that we’ll invite a dinner-guest – a single dinner-guest – round to watch us consume the rest of the menu before we reward them with a tiny dessert? I know this for certain; cats will not eat key lime pie, no matter how much cat food you mix in with it, so what’s with the third pie, Marks and Spencer? The third pie is sinister, frustrating and baffling. As is the rest of the Dine in for £10 deal.

*No. (But your conscience will surely have told you that already).

March 21, 2011
7 Reasons to be…an Icetalian!

I’ve often been told that I’m more Italian than English. I like coffee, tiramisu and risotto more than I like tea, trifle and Yorkshire puddings; I like Fiat 500s more than I like Minis; I like sun more than rain; I like waving my arms around more than I like…er…not waving my arms around. All the signs are there. But last week I had a bit of a revelation. As I was celebrating March 1^st (and the end of my traditional February abstinence) a friend tweeted me. March 1^st is Beer Day in Iceland, he informed me. That’s funny. March 1^st – the first day of the month that has my name at the start of it (this is Marc, by the way, not Jon. The month with his name in it is Jonuary) – is my Beer Day too. Perhaps I’m not just Italian, I thought, perhaps I’m part-Icelandic too. Maybe I’m…um… an…Icetalian! From Icetalia! Even if I’m not, here are seven reasons that I should be.

1. What’s in a Name? Is there a cooler word than Icetalian? Well, perhaps mantacular or shabazzle, but they’re only really words in my head. If you stack Icetalian up against actual words that other people would recognise it comes out rather well. It contains ice, which is an actual cool thing, and talian, which isn’t a thing at all, though it still manages to be evocative of Vespas and sunglasses. If you’re an Icetalian you’re instantly cool. It’s like being named Jet or Raffaela.

2. Cuisine. Icetalian food would be the best fusion-cuisine in the world. Italian cooking is already renowned the world over, featuring tiramisu, pasta, tiramisu, risotto, tiramisu, ice cream, tiramisu, bean stews, tiramisu and tiramisu. In short, it’s awesome. How, you’re probably wondering, can that be improved? Well, Icelandic food consists of salted fish, salted lamb, more salted fish and some other salted stuff. So essentially Icetalian cuisine would be Italian food but with more salt. And salt, as we know, improves all food. Has anyone with a tall white hat ever stuck a spoon in a pan and, on tasting the contents, said “Hmm. I think it needs less salt”? No, of course they haven’t. Everything always requires more salt. Even salt, probably.

3. Sightseeing. What’s the most famous tourist attraction in Iceland? No, it’s not Kerry Katona’s prawn ring, it’s the Icelandic Phallological Museum; that’s right, a whole museum devoted to the penis. But Iceland’s a cold place, whereas Icetalia (which would have a more temperate climate halfway between that of Iceland and Italy) would be much warmer. This would make the Icetalian Phallological Museum twice as impressive as the Icelandic one, even though it would have the same number of exhibits.

4. Expression. Italians are a voluble and wildly expressive people who, in conversation, communicate as much with their gestures as they do with their words. The people of Iceland, being rather more reticent Scandinavian types do not. They prefer to emote by not expressing anything at all. Ever. Icetalians would be a happy and healthy blend of these two styles of expression. If it goes right, they’ll be similar to the English and will express themselves in a physically moderate and understated way, and if it goes wrong then during conversation half of the average Icetalian’s body will remain absolutely, rigidly still while the other half will be an exuberant, wildly-flailing blur of expression that could resemble Riverdance: Officially The Stupidest Thing In The History Of The World.* I’m hoping that it will be the former, obviously. A land where people communicate with each other via the medium of Riverdance: Officially The Stupidest Thing In The History Of The World would be dreadful. And deafening.

5. Venice. I love Venice. It’s bloody marvellous. If they (whoever they are) were taking nominations for an eighth wonder of the world, I would nominate Venice. But the Icetalian Venice would be even better, because it would be almost exactly the same as the Italian version, but with ice skating during the winter months and sleighs instead of gondolas. And there’d be fewer American tourists because they’d fall through the ice. It would be a true winter wonderland as well as being a summer one.

6. The Flag. The Icetalian flag would contain the colours red, blue, green and white. That’s all of the primary colours on one piece of cloth plus white, which is the colour of nothing when the lights are on. It doesn’t contain black, which is nothing in the dark, but you can’t have everything. Though with all of the primary colours, perhaps you can. In any event, the Icetalian flag will clash with just about every imaginable outfit so nationalism will be kept to a minimum. It’ll be a nicer place to live.

7. Names. Icetalians would have better names than just about everyone else. In Iceland, the tradition is that the first name of the father becomes the surname of his sons and daughters. Thus the daughters of Gudmund Magnusson get the surname Gudmunsdottir, and the sons of Gudmund Magnusson get the surname Gudmundson. Why this doesn’t lead to irresponsible people giving their children the first names Son and Alison, I don’t know. Then, if their children did the same thing (any why wouldn’t they?), they’d end up with grandchildren called Son Sonson and Alison Sondottir. Within several generations, the Icelandic telephone directory would contain names likes Alison Sonsonsonsonsonsonsonsonsonsonsdottir and Son Sonsonsonsonsonsonsonsonsonson and would be visible from space. It would be brilliant. Why no one from Iceland had ever invited me to name anything I don’t know. Icetalian names would also be amazing (and only slightly shorter). Icetalian people would be called things like Ambrosiano Giordanoson and Ausilatrice Zoccolittosdottir. This would make introducing people to each other much more fun and ink manufacturers would be the richest people in the land. Oh, and this would also mean that school would finish at about the same time that the calling of the register ended, so teachers wouldn’t have to prepare lessons and children wouldn’t have to sit through them. The people of Icetalia would be thick, but happy. And work in my ink factory. I’m moving to Icetalia, it’s going to be brilliant!

*And now that I’ve mentioned it, how did Riverdance: Officially The Stupidest Thing In The History Of The World even come about? Someone must have done it first. Why didn’t other people just point and laugh at them? And who the hell was the second person to do it? Who, on witnessing someone clippity-clopping about like a deranged horse with a broomstick up their bottom and total paralysis of the arms and head, would think I want to dance like that person? There is nothing about Riverdance: Officially The Stupidest Thing In The History Of The World that makes any sense. At all.

March 7, 2011
Russian Roulette Sunday: It’s Cake!
Hello 7 Reasons readers! It’s Marc here and today, dear readers, we would like you to make a cake. This cake.

It’s Oxfam’s Easy Lime and Ginger Cheesecake, the recipe for which comes from my local Oxfam Bookshop’s brilliant blog . The recipe calls for the use of Fairtrade Stem Ginger Cookies and, when you go to your nearest Oxfam shop to buy them, you’ll be giving money to a worthwhile cause. That’s right readers, by making and eating an ethically sourced cheesecake (unless you buy mascarpone sourced from warmongering cheesemongers) you’ll be helping a good cause in an ethical way. In fact, if we can all make and eat enough cheesecake, we can probably save the world, and I’ll be trying very hard. Here’s the achingly simple recipe as published by Oxfam Books, Petergate York:

Easy Lime and Ginger Cheesecake
- Serves 4
- Prep time: 15 min
- Chilling time: 30 min
- Basically, in 45 minutes you’re in business.
Ingredients
- 200g pack of Fairtrade stem ginger cookies, crushed
- 50g butter, melted
- 500g mascarpone cheese (they usually come in 250g tubs, so get two of these)
- 40g icing sugar, sifted
- Finely grated zest and juice of two limes
Method

1. Mix together the crushed biscuits and melted butter (I also like to add a bit of sugar to my cheesecake bases to make them a bit jazzier) and press into the bottom of an 18cm (7inch) spring-sided or loose-bottomed cake tin.

2. Place the mascarpone cheese, icing sugar, lime zest and juice in a bowl and beat together. Spread this mixture over the biscuit base.

3. Put it in the fridge and chill for 30 min! That’s really it.

That’s the entire recipe. It’s basically spreading cheese on biscuits and it’s so simple that absolutelyanyone should be able to make it. And now we’re going to demonstrate that even people with no food preparation skills, knowledge or aptitude can follow this recipe. I’m going to hand you over to my writing partner: A man whose culinary education began and ended with learning how to boil water for tea: A man who – before he moved to Kent – was known as The Fulham Poisoner: A man whose litany of culinary disasters includes failing at defrosting a chicken and the hospitalisation of a flatmate*. He’s going to make a cheesecake himself and feed it to his fiancé Claire – a renowned and accomplished maker of cakes – who will judge it on appearance, texture and taste (should she survive). Here’s Jon.

“It was only when I was standing in the queue that I realised I had been well and truly duped. The idea of making a cheesecake and then eating it had originally sounded like a good idea, which is why I had agreed. Marc had, after all, said all it required was a spare half hour. In my book, that’s a fair exchange for cake. But as I stood there I realised it had already been twenty-five since I had left home and I hadn’t even purchased the ingredients. There was no way I could make a cheesecake in five minutes. Not there. And then I got to the till. Which is when I realised this idea was also going to cost me money. Just short of £5 in fact. That’s a lot to spend just to have something to write about. I couldn’t help but think if I had managed the past year and a half writing without having to pay for the privilege, why did this have to change? I trudged home.

Having spread the ingredients in front of me and read the recipe, I realised this was the exact same cheesecake that Claire makes. And she makes it very well. Brilliant. So I’ve had to walk all the way the shops, spend the best part of a fiver on ingredients and now I am challenging my future wife by making one of her specialities. Perturbed, I carried on. Twenty minutes later I was left staring at the following creation:

Making it was something of a doddle. What was not a doddle was the washing up. I don’t know how often you zest a lime, but cleaning the zesting part of the grater is quite possibly a harder job than watching England play cricket. Still, an hour later I was done. I also had lime poisoning from licking the bowl.

The next part of this project – and that is very much what it had become – was to get Claire to profer her opinion. These are the results of the Claire survey.

On Appearance: “That looks nice.”

On Texture: “It’s nice.”

On Taste: “That was very nice”.

So there we have it. I make nice cheesecakes. I am sure your Sunday just got a whole lot better with that news.”

*Which he denies.**

**Falsely.

***As Oxfam Books, Petergate York would (and actually did) tell you themselves, remember the whole point of this recipe is that it is a Fairtrade recipe. So help the global community during this Fairtrade Fortnight (and after) by buying Fairtrade goods as much as you can.
March 6, 2011
7 Reasons The Protection Of The Cornish Pasty Is A Jolly Good Show

You’d be forgiven for missing this news, but yesterday the Cornish Pasty was awarded protected status by the European Commission. Or at least the term ‘Cornish Pasty’ has. It now means that a Cornish Pasty can only be called a Cornish Pasty if it has been prepared in Cornwall. So what? I’ll tell you what. With the help of the tried and tested 7 Reasons formula, here are seven reasons why this is brilliant news all round.

1. Employment. A) All Cornish Pasties will now be stamped with a Protected Geographical Identification logo. That’s a job for someone. B) All those who sell fake Cornish Pasties will have to hire designers to redo their menus and, in the case of ‘Glasgow Cornish Pasties’, their whole identity. C) Those who fail to adhere to the new legislation will be sued. This means more jobs for lawyers.

2. Tourism. I don’t have the facts to hand, but I reckon more pasties are sold each year at train stations across the country than actually in Cornwall. Or at least they were. That now will change. Instead of grabbing your pasty from London Paddington, you’ll actually have to get on the train and head down to the South West. And while you are there you may as well check out Tintagel and the Beast Of Bodmin Moor.

3. Pasty Wars. That pasty manufacturer in King’s Lynn who has been selling bogus Cornish Pasties since 1997 now has a wonderful opportunity. And that opportunity is to create the Norfolk Pasty. Come November we are going to see a pasty price war.

4. The CPA. That’s the Cornish Pasty Association to you and me. After nine years of trying, they have finally done it. They have protected the pasty. Congratulations guys! Have a pint and pie on me.

5. When is a Cornish Pasty not a Cornish Pasty? When it’s not made in Cornwall! At long, long last I can use this joke and people will laugh. They just didn’t get it before.

6. Clarification. You know when you go into your local pub and order a coke and the barman says they’ve only got Pepsi and you say that’s fine? Well, the same thing will now have to happen with pasties. You go into a restaurant and order a Cornish Pasty. Instead of making a note of your order the waiter will now be required to say, ‘It’s a Brighton Pasty, is that okay?’ At which point you get up and leave.

7. Pedants. I expect most of them had a party last night. In fact, I know we did. We can hardly wait to get out there and correct people who order a Cornish Pasty. ‘Actually, it’s only a Cornish Pasty if it has been prepared in Cornwall.’ It’ll fit very nicely alongside my, ‘Holland is not bloody a country! The country is called the Netherlands. Holland is made up of the North Holland and South Holland provinces only.’

February 23, 2011
7 Reasons To Have A Pizza Express Tattoo

Now, I’m not really a fan of fantasy and sci-fi. Whether it be in book, TV or film format. Last week though, I caught my girlfriend watching one of those Twilight films. Eclipse I think it was. Given that the sofa faces the TV I ended up watching a bit of it. And what I saw was quite extraordinary. One of the main characters, Jacob, – who is not a person, but in fact a wolf – has a tattoo on his arm. A tattoo that looks very much like the Pizza Express logo. That was it then, I didn’t watch the rest of the film. I was too busy thinking how cool it would be to have a Pizza Express tattoo.

1. Memory. Many people get a tattoo to celebrate the life of someone who is no longer with us. In a similar vein, a Pizza Express logo is a nice tattoo to get if you wish to celebrate the life of that pizza. Maybe it disappeared due to natural causes (IE: it was eaten) or maybe it died a sudden death (IE: being burnt to a crisp in the oven). Either way, the tattoo will never let you forget.

2. Love. We’ve all seen people with the names of their loved ones tattooed across their body. They do it to express their never-ending deep affection for someone. You may feel the same way about someone you love. Or a Pizza Express pizza. But, if like me, you have deep affection for a variety of Pizza Express pizzas you may feel it disloyal to show your love for just one. In such a case, the best option would be to show your love for the entire brand.*

3. Originality. I am going to put myself out on a limb here and say that no one in the world has a Pizza Express tattoo. If you got one, you would be one of the first. You’d actually start a trend. We are well aware that we do have something of a reputation for not being taken seriously, but I can categorically state this is not the case. People take our posts very seriously. Since giving people 7 Reasons Not To Date A Polar Bear, no one in the world – that’s all six point three billion of us – has dated a Polar Bear. So people do listen. Later today people will be getting a Pizza Express tattoo. It’s up to you whether you want to be original or you want to go home and watch Eastenders. Choose the latter and you might just regret it.

4. Service. So, having decided to be original, you walk into a Pizza Express with the logo on your arm. You just watch as the staff jump into action. Anyone with a Pizza Express tattoo is free advertising for them. It would be naive and stupid not to treat you as a VIP. They want you to keep that tattoo for life. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself getting free Coca-Cola. And, if you fancy stealing a Peroni glass, do it.**

5. Service (Two). Just say though, you are more a deep-pan kind of person. Pizza Express, with their thin, crusty bases, wouldn’t satisfy the likes of you. You’d be more inclined to go across the road to Pizza Hut. Here you can have your pan deep and your crust stuffed with cheese. And, because the staff will be gutted to see you with a Pizza Express logo, they will go out of their way to treat you like a VIP. They will want to show you want you are missing. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself getting free Pepsi refills. They do that anyway. But do eat as much as you like. Just make sure you haven’t ordered the buffet. That kind of defeats the objective.

6. Mistaken Identity. If I mistakenly thought Jacob the Wolf’s tattoo was the Pizza Express logo, then it is very likely that a lot of teenage girls may mistake you for a wolf. So, if you like the idea of dozens of teenage girls yanking your tail, get a Pizza Express tattoo.

7. Reminder. Ironically, when you see the Pizza Express tattoo on your arm every day, you won’t think of Pizza Express, you’ll think of those idiots at 7 Reasons. The next thing you’ll do is log on to our website and read our latest post. No longer will you need to be on twitter or facebook to keep up with us.

*Understandably, there maybe something about Pizza Express that you don’t love. In my case it would be the dough balls. I just don’t see the point in them. In such a case I would have an asterisk placed next to the Pizza Express tattoo on my arm and then have a disclaimer on the lower part of my back to state that my love did not stretch to the dough balls.

**Disclaimer: You MUST have a Pizza Express tattoo to steal a Peroni glass otherwise 7 Reasons can take no responsibility for your actions.

January 25, 2011