7 Reasons

Tag: funny

  • 7 Reasons That There is no Stigma Attached to my Spectacles

    7 Reasons That There is no Stigma Attached to my Spectacles

    Regular readers of 7 Reasons might be not have been aware that half of the team has been expecting a rather special delivery for the last fortnight or so but we have and now, I can proudly announce, that it has arrived.  My new spectacles are here.  I’ve never had to wear them before and here are seven reasons that there is no stigma attached to wearing them whatsoever.  None.  At all.  Got that?

     

    Spectacle-ur*

    1.  Because I Got To Go To The Optician.  And while I couldn’t write about my experiences there – because it’s been done far better already – I was able to enjoy a unique facility that is provided by my local Specsavers:  Their waiting area overlooks the front door, just inside of which is a loose doormat.  I have never been so royally entertained by slapstick in my entire life.  The sight of almost all of the hapless and unsuspecting customers stumbling through the door was one of the most entertaining things I have seen in a long while.  And they would have been able to enjoy the sight of me stumbling out onto the busy street half an hour later if this were not an optician.  There is no stigma attached to physical comedy and even Norman Wisdom is cool.  In Albania.

     

    2.  Because I Am Long-Sighted.  I’m not near-sighted, short-sighted, ordinarily-sighted, conventionally-sighted or even averagely-sighted; I’m long-sighted.  This is optician-speak for awesome.  I can see a long way.  I have super-sight.  There is no stigma attached to being awesome.  Superman is only unofficially awesome and he can get away with wearing his underpants on the outside of his trousers.  I am officially awesome, therefore can easily get away with spectacles.  And perhaps even the checked-shirt.

     

    3.  Wearing Spectacles Is A Necessary Public Service.  Because I’m long-sighted, there’s almost nothing that I wouldn’t be able to see if I weren’t wearing them.  The spectacles are actually needed to tame my sight.  If it weren’t for them, the Hubble space telescope would probably be redundant and people as far away as Addis-Ababa would need curtains (if they don’t already).  I’m wearing them for the greater good and there should be no social stigma attached to philanthropy.

     

    4.  I Need Them To Look At A Screen For A Long Time.  I’m not going to guilt-trip the readers of 7 Reasons by suggesting that I would go blind writing my half of it if it weren’t for the glasses, but I would.  Because I have to stare at a screen for a long time and I occasionally have to look at this image.  Which always makes me try to stab myself in the eyes with a pencil.  The glasses are necessary protection against this.  If only they made spectacles for the mind.

     

    5.  Because Science Is Cool.  Science is currently seen as hip and interesting, and glasses are a universally acknowledged signifier of scientific knowledge and capability.  Watch any Hollywood movie – or Thunderbirds – and you know that the one in the glasses is the scientist; usually it’s Jeff Goldblum.  Does Professor Brian Cox wear glasses?  No.  Do I (very occasionally) wear glasses?  Yes.  So to those unfamiliar with him, this makes me the better scientist.  Right until I start to talk about quarks and molecular something-or-other and get distracted and end up talking about Ray-Bans.

     

    6.  Because They’re Ray-Bans.  I love Ray-Bans.  I’ve always worn them as sunglasses and I once got called a Ray-Ban geek by an assistant in a Ray-Ban shop, just because I knew the model numbers off by heart.  And what the little codes on the arms mean.  And I foolishly mentioned it out loud.  Once.  And my spectacles are Ray-Bans that I can wear at night and indoors without looking like a complete cock**.  This is progress.  Now the only place I can’t wear Ray-Bans legitimately is in bed when I’m asleep.  And perhaps even then I could put opaque lenses in and use them as the world’s coolest eye-mask.  Wearing spectacles is another step on my journey toward having Ray-Bans permanently affixed to my face.  And Ray-Bans are cool:  In my head, if not outside it.

     

    7.  Parenthood.  I’m now a parent and, in years to come, when Byron Sebastian Fearns is making the long and daunting walk to his father’s desk to receive some sort of stern admonishment, I will need to move the glasses to the end of my nose so that I can look over the top of them while rebuking him.  Because I know – from experience – that no telling-off is complete without that.  And that putting clingfilm over the toilet bowl is frowned upon by people in glasses.  Bugger.  I used to love that.

     

    *Yes, I did type this entire piece using only one hand.

    **Sadly, they won’t prevent me from being one.

     

  • 7 Reasons That I Hate the M&S Dine in for £10 Deal

    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).

     

  • 7 Reasons That Mongolia is Wrong to Celebrate Men and Soldiers

    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.

     

     

  • 7 Reasons to Borrow a Flat Cap

    7 Reasons to Borrow a Flat Cap

    Yesterday, my colleague Jonathan Lee wrote 7 Reasons to Borrow a Cat Flap.  As sometimes happens at 7 Reasons, I found myself in disagreement with some of his reasoning and decided to write an answer post.  I sat down.  Before I had accomplished anything, my wife asked me what I was writing.  An answer post to “7 Reasons to Borrow a Flat Cap…Flat Cap…Flat Cap………Flat Cap!  Fuck it.  I’m writing 7 Reasons to Borrow a Flat Cap.”  So there it is.  Today’s post is brought to you courtesy of my inability to say the phrase cat flap.

    This is not a flat cap
    This is not a flat cap.

     

    1.  DNA.  If you borrow a flat cap you might find that there are fragments of DNA in it that you can use to clone the lender.  And what better birthday surprise is there for a flat cap owner than to be presented with the gift of themself?  Then they’ll be able to see how daft they look in a flat cap.  And pretend to be in the dining room when they’re not.

     

    2.  Yorkshire. Yorkshiremen are notable for two things.  Their wearing of flat caps and their fiscal prudence/utter meanness.  While a purchased flat cap satisfies one of these criteria; a borrowed flat cap fulfils both.  Nothing screams Yorkshire like a borrowed flat cap (except for a drunken ruddy-faced cricket spectator screaming “Yorkshire” at a whippet).  Real Yorkshiremen borrow hats.  I’m certain of it.

     

    3.  Versatility.  Flat caps aren’t just headgear.  They can be used for other purposes too.  Imagine you find yourself at the beach without a Frisbee.  You can borrow a flat cap and use it as one.  Always remember to remove the owner first and include them in the game though.  Otherwise you’re just bullying them.

     

    4.  Disguise.  You’re on the run.  They’re after you.  They’re after you!  You’re like Richard Hannay in The Thirty-Nine Steps (except that in this example I have thoughtfully provided an escalator).  As you flee through the fog, the whistle-blowing rozzers are hot on your heels.  You round a corner and almost collide with an old man in a flat cap.  Thinking quickly, you tear the hat from his head and place it on your own.  You spin round, stoop, and shuffle in the direction from which you have come, while the police tear past you round the corner and continue running into the fog.  You breathe deeply, fleetingly experiencing the sweet serenity of relief.  Then the old man – a retired escalator salesman – sets about you with his walking stick, hitting you thirty-nine times, as you repeatedly yell “Stop!”

     

    5.  Finance.  A borrowed flat cap has an approximate annual maintenance cost per annum of £0.00.  This represents great value.  If worn all the time this could – in my case – mean an annual saving of £120 on haircuts. So borrowing a flat cap makes great fiscal sense.  You could use the money you’ve saved by not getting your hair cut (highlighted/dyed (you might be a girl or a pillock)) to buy some sort of larger over-hat to hide your flat cap.  Perhaps a pirate hat. Then you’ll have saved yourself money and you’ll look like a pirate. I really should have been a financial adviser.

     

    6.  Comedy.  Why, you might reasonably ask, would someone wear a hat which makes their head look like they’ve had an unfortunate accident involving both gravity and an anvil?  The answer is comedy.  Borrow a flat cap and you can:

     

    • Convince a small child that your head is flat.
    • Wear it backwards and pretend to be a git.
    • Impersonate Norman Wisdom (this is only funny in Albania)
    • No, that’s about it.
    • For comedy you’re actually better off borrowing a custard pie.
    • Or a plank.

     

    7.  Benevolence.  By borrowing a flat cap, you provide a valuable service to the flat cap owner.  I, for example, am the owner of two flat caps.  If someone borrowed one of them I’d feel less like Guy Ritchie.  I’d like that.

     

     

     

    Coming tomorrow: 7 Reasons to Borrow a Flat Cat*

    *or 7 Reasons to Borrow a Cap Flap

     

  • Pearls of Wisdom

    Pearls of Wisdom

    It’s Sunday.  This is Marc.  I was thinking last week (as I occasionally do) and something occurred to me.  I love writing 7 Reasons.  I also love dictionaries of quotation.  Wouldn’t it be amazing if I combined the two?  The answer was emphatically yes.

     

    I decided to fire up the Randomator (it’s up there at the top of the page where it says “Randomator!”) and harvest a few 7 Reasons quotes on various aspects of life and living.  Here – in the order that I found them – are some 7 Reasons pearls of wisdom on an array of topics.

     

    On sharks:  “In my 27 years, I believe I have sleep-walked only once. And even then it wasn’t a very exciting sleep-walk, I just went looking for the bathroom in the lounge. I couldn’t imagine doing that every night though. Which is what a shark has to do. Apart from it swims instead of walking. And it rarely ends up in my lounge.”

     

    On St Peter: “It is generally accepted that 156,000 people die everyday. That’s about one every 1.8 seconds. I don’t believe that Saint Peter has the stamina to sit there all day every day shouting out names. When does he sleep?”

     

    On Viagra:  “When a man takes one Viagra pill, his penis assumes the shape of the number 1 for a considerable time. Therefore, if a man takes seven Viagra pills, his penis must assume the shape of the number 7 for a considerable time. I’m not sure why anyone would want a 7 shaped penis – unless they wanted to make love to someone round a corner – so it’s probably the wrong number of pills to take.”

     

    On the Dutch: “Dutch people are fantastic.  They’re tall, which is more space-efficient than being fat, and they speak many languages…”

     

    On supermarkets:  “A supermarket is not a place for mankinis and it is certainly not a place for jogging in them. No one wants to see that while deciding what to have for dinner. Apologise. Immediately. And then cover yourself up with a parsnip.”

     

    On measuring time: “I have no idea exactly how long I was in the kitchen, but I do know that I had a ginger beard when I emerged from it.  I had one when I went in too, but I was definitely in there for a very long time.”

     

    On supporting England:  “My heart has sunk so many times I am amazed it’s not lodged somewhere around my groinal area.”

     

    On the pole vault: “…it’s a sport which involves physically exerting yourself until you’re panting and thrusting a long, rigid shaft into a box before you briefly soar heavenward and eventually end up lying sweaty and exhausted on a mattress with a horizontal pole.”

     

    On popemobiles:  “A popemobile is visible from quite a distance.  Even when there isn’t a pope in it.”

     

    On new planets:  “I want a planet that is 100% water. Not ice, water. I want a planet that looks like a sausage. Or, even better, a planet that morphs into a sausage from its 100% water state.”

     

    On Christmas: “When the children burst into our bedroom at six o’clock this morning and jumped up and down on the bed screaming “It’s Christmas, it’s Christmas!” we were very moved. We don’t know whose children they were, or how they got into our house, but we were moved.”

     

    On polar bears:  “If you do insist on dating a polar bear, then you have to understand one thing. You will never be able to use your bath again.”

     

    On flamingo farming:  “With the new flamingo farms, it will be possible to stumble across fields full of pink clusters of gangly birds – all year round.  This will brighten up the landscape no end, especially at sunset.  Countryside campsites will become countryside camp sites where you’ll be able to enjoy the countryside camp sight of intense pink colours in tents (pink coloured).”

     

    On the Sinclair C5:  “Always a bit annoying having to get out of your vehicle and push it up a hill isn’t it? Which is why the Sinclair C5 should have come with a tow rope. Or a map that just showed hills that went down.”

     

    On Annie Lennox:  “Annie Lennox has got a problem. If her heart keeps going boom whenever she walks into an empty room – and it has been at least 25 years since it started – she needs to do one of two things. Go to the doctors or avoid empty rooms.”

     

    On philosophy:  “If a butterfly beats its wings in a forest in China does a tree fall on a deaf person on the other side of the world?”

     

    On the French:  “The French have dainty little feet. It’s a well known fact, in my mind, that they spend 56% of their time in the bathroom moisturising their toes.”

     

    On Foursquare:  “foursquare iPhone App Would Like To Add Your Current Location. Jonathan Lee doesn’t. He is very happy doing some work at home without the whole of foursquare’s Jehovah Witness community knowing where he is.”

     

    On rhymes:  “They say that nothing rhymes with orange, but this doesn’t seem quite right to me:  Nothing rhymes better with puffin.”

     

    On candles:  “There are always candles on the table at dinner parties but no one knows why.  I don’t want to singe my arm hair every time I pour some wine or pass the salt.  Why would you want to put a fire on the table?”

     

    On Nelson:  “Fancy losing a battle to a bloke with one arm and one eye. Do you know how difficult it is steer a ship with one arm and one eye? That’s pretty lame France.”

     

    On parenthood: “There are toys everywhere.  And if you have children, you have to get rid of your toys and replace them with stuffed animals and pushchairs.”

     

    On Turkish barbers: “…a middle-aged man – shaking and hyperactive from far too much strong coffee – holding a cut-throat razor to your jugular and gesticulating wildly, millimetres from your face, while he asks you where you’re going on holiday this year?  Then he sets your ears on fire.”

     

    On ironing:  “There are only so many movements you can make with an iron – assuming you are doing the job properly anyway. Right to left or left to right seem to be the only options. I would love to do top to bottom, but whoever invented bras made it impossible.”

     

     

     

     

  • 7 Reasons That Question 17 is Frustrating

    7 Reasons That Question 17 is Frustrating

    This is Question 17 in the Individual Questions section of the UK Census.  It’s “intentionally blank” and will drive you slowly mad.  Here are seven reasons why.

    Question seventeen in the individual questions section of the 2011 UK Census

     

    1.  Why Is It Intentionally Blank? What is the intention?  Why?  Why? Why?  Why, oh why, oh why, oh why?  I had to go online to find out why.  Apparently it’s a question about the Welsh language.  But wait, I’ve seen the Welsh language and it isn’t invisible. And if it was then the answer would be blank too, so there’d be no point in asking the question in the first place.  And why would you just state that it’s been left intentionally blank?  Why not just remove it?  Is there some sort of nefarious purpose to it?  Should we don our foil hats before completing the census?  Should we be afraid?  I’m afraid.

     

    2.  It’s A Temptation.   While I was online I checked Twitter.  Which is where I saw this:

    A tweet from Twops Twips who used to be more the sensibly monikered Top Tips.

    Now there are some things that people should never ever see.  The insides of other people; anything to do with Harry Potter and daytime television are all high up the list.  But higher than that, higher than anything else, the absolute worst thing they can see is any sort of suggestion that they should draw a cock in a box on an official document.  Obviously that’s what they’ll want to do right at that moment, with every fibre of their being.  But they can’t because they’d have their tax raised or be sent to prison or something.  And that just makes it all the more of a temptation.  Essentially question 17 is a form of torture in which we are forced to wrestle our primal urge to undermine authority and officialdom by drawing a cock.

     

    3.  It’s Not Actually Blank.  It’s got words in it.  I can see them, they’re right there at the top of the box telling us that it’s blank.  But that’s a lie.  It’s the most blatant example of officialdom fibbing to us since Jeffrey Archer had any power.  It’s like a spoon that says “I am not a spoon”.  It’s not exactly like a talking spoon, I grant you, but it is in the sense that it is lying.  Badly.

     

    4.  It’s Not A Question.  The text above question 17 states that “This question is intentionally left blank”.  But in a similar manner to the age-old philosophical question (if a butterfly beats its wings in a forest in China does a tree fall on a deaf person on the other side of the world?) question seventeen gives us food for thought.  If a question isn’t a question is it still a question?  When is a question not a question?  What do you even call a question that isn’t a question?  It’s certainly perplexing.  It turns out that when a question isn’t a question it raises more questions than it does answers, but after a long, careful deliberation I can state with some certainty that: it isn’t; when it doesn’t contain a question; I don’t know; my brain hurts.  But it’s definitely not a question.  This further complicates matters.

     

    5.  Numbers.  After the lie about the question being left blank, they helpfully tell you to go to 18.  But question 18 isn’t question 18, is it?  It’s question 17.  Because the blank box with a fib in it is no more a question than I am an owl or a plant-pot. This means that the entire numbering system for the remainder of the census is incorrect.  Question 24 (which is actually question 23) says if you are aged 16 or over you should go to 25 (which is numbered 26).  But that’s not a question at all; it’s an instruction.  So question 25 is actually the 23rd question.

     

    6.  But Wait.  No it isn’t.  Because question 11 in the Individual Questions section isn’t a question either.  It’s also an instruction.  So question 25 is actually the 22nd question.  This means that all the numbers in the Individual Questions section are wrong from question 10 (which isn’t a question) on. I haven’t been this confused since…ever.  This is even more confusing than being married to a woman.  And less fun.

     

    7.  The Bastards! And the civil servants/bureaucrats/number crunchers/census-bastards haven’t just cocked up their own census.  They’ve buggered up the title of this post, which is now incorrect.  There are still seven reasons here (which is an improvement on Monday when I spent an hour trying to come up with a seventh reason only to discover that it was, in fact, the eighth and had to remove one) but this isn’t 7 Reasons That Question 17 is Frustrating any more.  It’s 7 Reasons That Question 17 Which Is Not A Question At All And Even If It Were It Would Be Number 16 But It’s Not And Furthermore It’s A Liar Is Frustrating.  I’ve read books shorter than that title.  I won’t even be able to fit it on Twitter.  Does our reader even have a screen that wide?  Right, census-mongers!  I’m drawing a cock in your blank box right now and I’m posting it back to you tomorrow.  On fire.

     

  • 7 Reasons to be…an Icetalian!

    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 1st (and the end of my traditional February abstinence) a friend tweeted me.  March 1st is Beer Day in Iceland, he informed me.  That’s funny.  March 1st – 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.

    the flags of Italia and Iceland

     

    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.

     

  • Russian Roulette Sunday: It’s Cake!

    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.

    the fairtrade fortnight logo

     

  • 7 Reasons That It’s Right To Allow The Use Of the Elbow In Football

    7 Reasons That It’s Right To Allow The Use Of the Elbow In Football

    Great news, psychopaths.  As of today, elbowing people in the head is now acceptable in football, thanks to referee Mark Clattenberg’s new and liberal interpretation of what constitutes acceptable behaviour on the field of play.  We’d like to applaud Clattenberg for his bold and innovative stance and suggest that allowing the use of the elbow to the head will improve the game greatly.  Here are seven reasons that it will.

    1.  There Will Be Less Emphasis Placed On Skill And Application.  Let’s look at Carlos Tevez (not too closely though, you may want to sleep again).  He’s an amazing, mesmeric player that simultaneously terrifies the opposing team’s defence, midfield, and young supporters in the stands.  Most teams find him almost unplayable and it seems almost impossible for opposing managers to concoct a tactic to negate his influence on the game.  With the new relaxation on the rules governing assault occasioning actual bodily harm on the football pitch, however, there’ll finally be a way to stop him.  You can have as much talent as you like, you can’t play through concussion.

     

    2.  Or Maybe You Can.  We’ll see way more incidents of concussion in the game now that players can cranially assault each other on the pitch.  And concussion, in some cases might actually improve players.  Who can forget what (then Partick Thistle manager) John Lambie said on being told that one of his strikers was concussed?  He said, “That’s great, tell him he’s Pele and get him back on.”  Obviously concussion won’t always lead to improvement; most of my team’s squad seem to have been concussed since December and we – if our home stadium was called the Paper Bag Arena – would be there today, still playing out our Christmas fixtures.  Still, seeing them elbowed in the head would make me feel better about things so it’s still a win.

     

    3.  It’ll Be More Popular.  Now that players can elbow each other in the chops football’s popularity could be further increased.  Look at the rise in popularity of cage-fighting, a sport with a laissez-faire to the rules of etiquette.  It’s growing far faster than its more traditional, staid and rule-bound cousin, boxing, and football attendance could increase similarly with the relaxation of the tiresome convention of not being allowed to inflict brain damage on your opponent with your elbow.  It could bring some of the excitement that we associate with the gladiators of ancient Rome to the sport.  In fact, I’ve seen Gladiator and it’ll be great: There’ll be blood; there’ll be whooshing and crunching noises; there’ll be names like Roonicus Maximus, Torresicus Uselecus, Carrollicus Howmuchicus and Coleicus Twaticus; there might be lions.  How cool will that be?

     

    4.  It’s Civilising. Allowing the elbow may well actually make football more civilised.  This might seem somewhat counter-intuitive, but it could work.  Look at the touching way that Mark Clattenberg put his arm around Wayne Rooney after Saturday’s elbowing incident.  It made a lovely change to see a player and a referee getting on so famously, because usually when players are interacting with the referee they’re barracking and abusing him*, so if allowing players to half-kill each other on the pitch brings more touching and harmonious moments like this it can only be a good thing:  Practitioners of football will finally become the role-models that we always hoped they would be; setting a good example of decorous, respectful and appropriate behaviour for children.  And they’ll get to see them belt the living shit out of each other too!  Brilliant.

     

    5.  It Benefits The United Kingdom. Elbowing another person in the head is not merely the simple, uncomplicated act of thuggery that you might suppose, as there are some fundamental laws of physics that cannot be overcome.  The act of elbowing someone in the head requires the elbower (or defendant, as non-F.A. types have traditionally referred to them) to be able to reach the elbowee(victim)’s head with their elbow.  This means that Shaun Wright-Phillips (5’4”) would have little chance of elbowing Peter Crouch (9’3”) in the head.  So taller players will have a natural advantage.  And this, in international football, will benefit teams from the United Kingdom, as we’re the twenty-second tallest nation in the world (and Luxembourg, Iceland and Estonia are ahead of us on that list and we should be able to beat them using old-fashioned skill**).  U.K. teams will, therefore, have a greater chance of winning the world cup than they do presently.  So there you go, in the future, when elbowing opponents in the head is a legitimate tactic, England will be improved by not selecting Shaun Wright-Phillips.  What a revelation.

     

    6.  It Uses Existing Skill. The new relaxation of the rules will tap into the existing skill-sets of football players and will allow them to practice on the field what they often practice as amateur-hobbyists off it.  Assaulting people.  And while it will be somewhat of a change from the traditional practice of punching people in nightclubs and takeaways – or shooting people at the training ground – it will be something that they won’t require too much additional training to adapt to.  And it would make nightclubs safer places for the rest of us to conduct the activities traditionally associated with them. Mostly vomiting and being sexually/physically assaulted (delete as appropriate) by middle-aged men in short sleeved shirts.

     

    7.  It Puts Football Back At The Cutting Edge. By allowing elbowing, football is flying in the face of convention and bucking tradition.  And, on a day when the sport is being overshadowed by a cricketer coming out and revealing that he is gay, it’s important that football is seen to be embracing new ideas.  After all, cricket is merely blazing a trail today by embracing very old ideas, which means that – with its new attitude toward our silly, outdated notions of what constitutes assault – football is doing something far newer and more libertarian.  So move over cricket, football is now the unparalleled bastion of cutting edge liberalism in sport.  How truly enlightening.

     

     

     

    *I would include female referees in this, but I quite fancy a career in radio.

    **This may be fanciful.