7 Reasons

Tag: funny

  • And The Winner Is…

    And The Winner Is…

     

     

    Hello!  Marc here.  It’s Sunday, and now that much of the sport has been watched, it’s time for me to sit down and sift through the entries for the awesome competition that we set last week.  We felt sure that the competition – and the brilliant prize – would inspire many of our readers to wit and brilliance and well, here’s the top three entries (out of three).

    In third place, with this entry is Chrissy Aram with:

    I, a reader of the wonderful website 7 Reasons (.org), would like to win France because I could live next door to my brother.

    Now, I’m not entirely sure what to make of this.  Chrissy lives in England – which is already next door to France – so, unless her brother lives in Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Andorra or Spain, this won’t work.  Plus there’s no cricket in France, she wouldn’t like that, and cricket is far better than brothers, as my sister will happily confirm.

    In second place is Rachel Simmonite’s entry:

    I, a reader of the wonderful website 7 Reasons (.org), would like to win France because it would be the ideal place to put my shoes, and it would be a good bargaining tool to help me take over Britain, then after that THE WORLD.

    Now, if I had feet half the size of Central Europe, I’d want somewhere to put my shoes too.  This is an entirely laudatory use of France.  Where Rachel’s entry falls down is the suggested use of the occupation of France to take over Britain, and then the world.  Or THE WORLD, as she shouted.  This has already been tried – by a monobollocular chap with a funny moustache – and it doesn’t work.  I appreciate that her plan differs somewhat to that of Herr Hitler, in that she intends to use France as a bargaining tool, rather than as a picturesque military base, but how would that work?  Would she issue threats?  “Give me the Isle of Wight or I’ll blow up Dieppe!”  I can already hear the massed voice of 60 million Britons saying, “Okay, blow up Dieppe then.  Whatever.”  “Give me the Queen or Nicolas Sarkozy gets it!”  “Bahahahahahha!”  The plan is fundamentally flawed.  Rachel is clearly the Wile. E. Coyote of the Win France competition.

    Winging its way in from Greece (where the exchange rate is 2.5 Greek words to 1 English word) is the final entry that we received – which is also our winner – by Ασπασία Ματθαίου (easy for her to say):

    I, a reader of the wonderful website 7 Reasons (.org), would like to win France because I would be able to stop that awful film overdubbing business which is just wrong. Viewers should be allowed to enjoy actor’s real voices in the way that they actually speak them. Why would anyone want to listen to Orson Welles speak in a silly French tone? I know I wouldn’t. (Individuals formerly employed in dubbing would have to find a new job, in the field of foreign film criticism. Their criticism would have to be written in the language of the film in question. At least 5000 words of it. I think that’s fair.)

    Then I would pass a law whereby all taxi drivers in the area of the land formerly known as France would speak Greek. That would serve them right. And then everyone would be made to count and spell numbers correctly, in every known language in the world. Finally, that same law would clearly state to all taxi drivers that they would have to drive me to and from airports for free, eternally. (Hehehe. That would be great.)

    French politics and sport I would make sure remain the same for ever more. (Yes!)

    Just a final thought.  If my entry wins the competition I might just hand France to Jon. I think he will appreciate the prize better.

    So there you have it.  In a totally unexpected outcome to our competition, France has been won and her new owner, as a result of Ασπασία’s generosity, is my writing partner, Jonathan Lee.  I’d like to thank everyone that entered and, now that France is under new management, I’d like to wish her citizens good luck.  They’ll need it.  And Jon, you may now sally forth across the channel and claim France*.  Though please get your posts for the week out of the way first, I’ve rather a lot on.

    *Remember to put an English-Greek dictionary into your suitcase of baked beans and ginger nuts in case you need to use a taxi.  Oh, and it’s thé au lait you want.  The other brown stuff is something called coffee that you won’t like.

  • 7 Reasons That Social Kissing is a Minefield

    7 Reasons That Social Kissing is a Minefield

    I’m perplexed by social kissing.  I’m referring to non-sexual kissing here, the sort that goes on all the time on all manner of occasions and at every gathering.  I’ve been trying to make some sort of sense of it since 8:30 am.  On a morning in 1985. As an Englishman, I just find it all a bit fraught and overwhelming.  Anyway, here’s what I’ve got so far.  Here are seven reasons that social kissing is a minefield.

     

    This is bad. Even I know that.

     

    1.  Straight Men.  Social kissing, if you’re a heterosexual man, is fraught with myriad rules and conventions that must be strictly adhered to.  In truth, it’s a bit complicated.  As a straight man, you can kiss any unrelated woman socially, except for the Queen and ones that smell really bad and keep pigeons in their hats.  You can also kiss any related woman socially: mothers; sisters; aunts; nieces; cousins; in-laws; grandmas; that woman you’re told is an aunt but no one can remember how the family know her (she probably just latched on to them at a christening in 1974), they’re all fair game.  You can’t, however, kiss any unrelated man unless a) you are both professional football players in the act of celebrating a goal or b) you are more drunk than you have ever been in your life and it is your wedding night (I played the role of surprised wedding guest in this scenario, I don’t recommend it) .  Related men are simpler.  You can kiss both your father and grandfather up to the age of about twelve and you can kiss babies (but not excessively, and once they can walk unaided that has to stop or you’ll get a bad reputation).   Oh, and uncles should never really kiss anyone, ever.  All clear?

    2.  Straight Women.  The etiquette for straight women is more straightforward.  Heterosexual women can kiss any unrelated woman, also excepting the Queen (though they will kiss the smelly woman with a pigeon in her hat because they’re generally kinder than men).  They can kiss any related woman (probably including the Queen, should they be related).  They can also kiss all men (both related and unrelated).  In short, they may kiss pretty much everyone apart from the dead (and even then it’s acceptable for the first few days).

    3.  Gay Men.  It’s more complicated for gay men.  The same rules that apply to straight men kissing relatives apply to them but, in the case of unrelated men, things are a little different.  The football celebration exemption that applies to heterosexual men doesn’t apply to them, because there are no gay professional football players.  At all.  None. No!  But gay men can kiss each other socially (should they feel comfortable doing so), unless they are in a location where such activity may attract a crowd/mob.  They are also not allowed to kiss socially within the pages of the Daily Mail, unless accompanied by some sort of lurid headline about declining standards/moral turpitude/Britain’s going to hell in a handcart because we’re so against modernity that we won’t even put it in a metaphorical car.

    4.  Gay Women.   Exactly the same rules apply to gay women that apply to straight women, with only one important exception.  Under no circumstance can a lesbian ever kiss Justin Bieber.  That would just be too much confusion for anyone to bear.

    5.  The French.  Now, the French have their own unique approach to social kissing.  French men and French women (of any persuasion) can kiss absolutely anyone they like (except for the Queen and my writing partner, Jon), as long as they do it twice.  Once on the left cheek and once on the right.*  You can see this demonstrated at civil ceremonies throughout France as various mayors and civic dignitaries present medals for courage in the face of extreme paper cuts to postal workers and the highly-prized and hotly-contested croix de blanc, which is annually awarded to the first person  to surrender their town to any approaching army (or a passing traffic warden should there be no invading army available at that moment).

    6.  Transsexuals.  Okay, the rules are really blurred here.  But, as far as I’m concerned, transsexuals can kiss anyone they like, except for the Queen and me outside York Minster at midnight on New Year’s Eve 2004 just when I’m moving in to kiss my wife and am off-guard.  Yes, I concede that it would have been very funny had it happened in a sitcom or to someone else, but sadly it didn’t.  Oh, and when you’re saying, “I bet you didn’t think you’d be kissing a transsexual at midnight”, try not to do it in a tar-soaked scouse accent, because that just made it feel dirty.  Try it in lilting Irish next time, or a West country burr.  Then I’ll probably feel better about the whole experience.

    7.  Eskimos.  Eskimo kissing is weird.  I don’t know which Eskimos can kiss other Eskimos.  I also don’t know how Eskimo gender affects which Eskimos can kiss other Eskimos (or how they can tell what gender the other Eskimo is under all the layers of clothing and the furry hood).  I do know, however, that Eskimos aren’t Eskimos at all, they’re Inuits, Yupiks and Aleuts, but they don’t Inuit, Yupik or Aleut kiss, they Eskimo kiss (oh, and they don’t live in igloos**).  I’m sure it’s quite acceptable for them to Eskimo kiss other Eskimos (who also aren’t Eskimos) though, but probably not seals and definitely not polar bears.  Just as long as they don’t come and rub their faces against the rest of us without warning really, as it’s bizarre behaviour.  And by the rest of us, I mean me.  I seem to have enough problems with social kissing as it is.

     

    *If an English person says that you can kiss them on an additional cheek, they are insulting you.

    **Except for the ones that do.

     

  • 7 Reasons That You Shouldn’t Read (on the toilet)

    7 Reasons That You Shouldn’t Read (on the toilet)

    This is a subject that totally divides the sexes.  For some reason, reading in the toilet is something that women just don’t do, and they’re right.  I agree.  I read a lot.  I’m also a man.  To some people, this could mean that I might reasonably be expected to be found reading on the toilet, or would be, if people were in the habit of finding other people on the toilet which fortunately – for the most part – they’re not.  But I won’t be found reading in the toilet ever, because I won’t be reading on the toilet in the first place – unless I’m dealing with some sort of emergency that requires me to use the toilet and read important instructions simultaneously.  Like coming face to face with a self-assembly lion.  Other than that, however, reading while using the toilet is something that shouldn’t ever be done.  Here are seven reasons why.

    This: Don’t do it.

    1.  It’s Disgusting.  We’ve all seen those shock-docs in which restaurant toilets are subjected to ultra violet/infra-red/magic-poo-seeing light, and they don’t make comfortable viewing.  They show specks of faecal matter (close your eyes if you’re at all squeamish) spattered (you can open them again now) on far walls, high ceilings, behind sinks and well, just about everywhere, and the nearer to the toilet the surface is, the more bottom-mud there will be on it.  So if you’re reading a book while you’re using the toilet, or even leaving a book near the toilet, it’s going to get faeces on it.  That is an undesirable trait in a book.

    2.  It’s Disgusting Multiplied.  Having left your excrement all over your book, once you’ve finished it you’ll return it to your library or lend it to a friend or a colleague who’ll probably read it in a normal place like a chair or a bed or something.  So not only are they taking your shit with them into their bed, they could well become ill while reading it.  “I seem to have picked up a horrible stomach bug,” your colleague will tell you as they call in sick,” still, at least it gives me some time to read the book you lent me.”  You’ll have poisoned them.  And you’ll probably end up covering their workload at the office too, while they lounge around at home.  The only winner in this scenario is Jeremy Kyle.

    3.  It’s Just Weird.  Well it is.  Why, out of all the things that men do so brilliantly well, is the only example of their multi-tasking prowess the ability to poo and read simultaneously?  Is it that the very act of sitting down on the toilet feminises them and renders them suddenly capable of doing more than one thing at once?  And why don’t women read on the toilet?  They’re always telling us they can do fifteen things at the same time (often while they’re burning something in the kitchen or standing on the cat’s tail) but put them on the toilet – where no one can see them – and they suddenly become mono-taskers.  Does this mean that the multi-tasking stuff is all for show?  If you put a toilet and a book together in the same place and you get more questions than answers.  Unless, of course, the book is a book of answers.  They can only be trumped by a toilet of questions.

    4.  What If Someone Else Wants The Bathroom? There are other people in the world too.  Other people that might conceivably want to use the toilet for the actual purpose of using the toilet.  It’s no fun for someone to have to hang around outside the bathroom crossing their legs and screwing up their face while shrieking, “I need the toilet!  I need the toilet!” with increasing desperation (well, it is, but not for them).  It’s like Superman.  Does he ever think about people that need to make a phone call when he’s using a phone box to change into his costume?  No he bloody doesn’t.  And their phone call might be an emergency.  He’s an inconsiderate bastard.  Essentially, if you read on the toilet you’re just like Superman.*

    5.  Health & Safety.  It’s not just about books any more.  There are hi-tech reading devices out there that the hapless and misguided might conceivably try to use while in the smallest room.  Kindles, for example.  But no one knows what possible effects would occur if they dropped an electronic book into the toilet (I googled it**).  It would stop working, that’s obvious, but it also contains a battery so, I assume, it’s possible that it could short-circuit and send a small electrical charge through the water in the toilet bowl if dropped.  Now if you were connected to the water in the bowl in some way (by a stream of liquid perhaps, you are in the toilet, after all), you’d get an electrical shock. Right in the very last place you’d want one.  They’re not even allowed to torture people like that at Guantanamo Bay.  They’re restricted to water-boarding them there, or forcing them to spell Guantanamo.  The monsters.

    6.  What If You Run Out Of Paper? Outside of Kerry Katona, is there anything more tragic and desperate than someone that has just discovered there’s no toilet paper once they’ve completed a movement?  Probably not.  At that moment, people will use anything that’s near to hand (perhaps even their hand).  If they’re reading a book, there’s no question that they’ll tear a page or two out and use that to wipe themselves with.  But what if they’re reading the Bible?  That would be blasphemous.  What if they’re reading the Encyclopedia Britannica?  They could end up ignorant about aardvarks or Zurich.  What if they’re reading Dan Brown?  That would be hopeless as the pages are covered in shit already.  It’s just better not to have a book within reach in the first place.

    7.  Pity The Writers.  At 7 Reasons, we’re generally just happy and flattered that people read us at all.  But we’re also British and, as such, feel duty-bound to uphold notions of taste and decency and to urge our readers toward decorous behaviour.  So we have to draw a line.  And that line is at the bathroom door.  We can’t write while imagining our readers on the toilet and you probably don’t want to be imagined using the toilet by us while we write***.  For our sake, as well as yours, you should never – even though you probably weren’t considering it anyway – read 7 Reasons in the toilet.  You should, of course, continue to outfit yourself in your Sunday best before settling down in your parlours and libraries to read us, just as you’re doing now.  Nice hat, madam, by the way.

    *This argument hasn’t gone well.

    **I did find many instances of people dropping their iPhones down the toilet but that just made me laugh a lot.  Or is it lAugh?

    ***That sentence took nine rewrites before it even made partial sense.

  • It’s Competition Time!

    It’s Competition Time!

    We realised something recently:  We’ve never had a competition before.  Ever (or at least as far as we can remember).  It was quite a momentous moment in the 7 Reasons offices when this occurred to us; Jon almost missed his mouth with a biscuit and Marc looked up from his book about the war and blinked, before returning to it.

    Now, bearing in mind that the last time the 7 Reasons team funds were audited they stood at half a dead spider, a creased Post-it® note, the crumbs from several ginger nut biscuits, twelve business cards, a mug with a broken handle and a lemon, we weren’t expecting to have too much money to spend on a competition, but we had another check anyway and the good news is that we still have the lemon.

    “We can’t offer people a lemon”, said Marc, without looking up from his book, “You never know when we might need it.  In World War II, they used to use them to sanitise cups and utensils.  They also found them indispensable for…”

    Jon knew when not to interrupt Marc.  And now wasn’t that time, “OKAY!” he blurted, with such a ferocity that he surprised himself, “We won’t give the bloody lemon away!  Just in case Hitler comes back from beyond the grave, as mad as hell, and with some sort of new vendetta against humourists, the number seven and cutlery!  Because that sounds entirely plausible!  We’d also better hang on to any powdered egg that we might chance upon too, and our nylons!”

    “Okay”, said Marc dreamily from behind his book, entirely satisfied that mentioning the war had got him out of devising a competition.

    “So the prize has got to be something cheap, or even better, free”, said Jon, failing to recognise that Marc had already decided that the task was now solely in his hands.

    What the hell’s going on?  He’s still talking to me.  Usually he’s taken the hint by now.  Right, I’m going to have to refer to the war again, thought Marc.  “The Free French?” suggested Marc, “In World War II they…”

    “Yes!  That’s it!” exclaimed Jon.

    “What!?”

    “That’s perfect.”

    He didn’t know what was perfect, and frankly, he didn’t care.  Mumbling, “Very good then.  Do carry on,” Marc turned a page and settled further back into his side of the sofa, while Jon set to work putting together his brilliantly conceived and very cheap to run competition.  And here it is.

    The 7 Reasons Competition


    My Lords, Ladies, gentlemen, and readers of 7 Reasons (including Kindlers).  The 7 Reasons team – in conjunction with the internet – wish to announce a competition.  We’re both proud and delighted to offer you, our loyal readership, a big prize, possibly the biggest prize that’s ever been given away in a competition.  We’re offering one lucky reader the opportunity to win France!  That’s right, France!

    Win France!

    We’ve thought about it and it seems to us that, since they divested themselves of their monarchy in the eighteenth century, no one has actually owned France.  And it’s just there, across the sea, waiting for our lucky winner to claim it.  All of this can be yours.

    a black and white baguette
    Food.

    More Food.

    The Eiffel Tower.

    To win France, simply complete the following sentence in a hundred words or less:

    I, a reader of the wonderful website 7 Reasons (.org), would like to win France because…

    Send your entries to [email protected] with “I Want France” in the subject box.  The competition closes on 26-02-2011.  The winner will be chosen by the 7 Reasons team (assuming they’re not reading about the war or eating biscuits) and will be announced next Sunday.  We’ll also be putting the best entries on the website, with a free link to your twitter account/website/anything you’re looking to plug.

    We’re really looking forward to reading your entries and would like to wish all of our entrants bon chance.  And good luck.

  • 7 Reasons That Anatidaephobia Must be Awful

    7 Reasons That Anatidaephobia Must be Awful

    Anatidaephobia is the fear that wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, a duck is watching you.  While some people might see this debilitating condition as funny, we do not.  We realise that it must be bloody awful, here are seven reasons why.

    a road sign bearing the words "please no ducks"


    1.  It’s Not Taken Seriously.  People are often crass, insensitive and immature.  While they would shy away from mocking the sufferers of other phobias they think nothing of making fun of anatidaephobes, solely for their own puerile entertainment and amusement.  Well at 7 Reasons, we’re bigger and cleverer than that.  We know what not to show an anatidaephobe.

    Not for anatidaephobes
    This is what not to show an anatidaephobe.

    2.  At Home.  Anatidaephobes must find it terribly difficult to cope at home.  After all, they’ll believe that when they’re there a duck is watching them.  And how is anyone supposed to relax with a duck watching them?  And how are they supposed to tell if a duck is watching them or not when they’re suffering from snow-blindness?  Or soft-furnishing-induced vomiting.

    3.  Escape.  So they’ve got a duck staring at them at home.  What to do?  What to do?  Get away from it all, that’s what.  Get away from the daily grind, the endless plates and pitchers, the white stuff all over the place, the searing pain in their eyes, the duck that may or may not be there staring at them and head off on holiday.  To somewhere far, far away from the many, many cups and saucers and the sinister duck.

    a scary duck staring into a plane

    4.  Having A Lovely Time, Wish You Were…Oh…You Are.  Well, apparently to anatidaephobes, flying isn’t a barrel of laughs either.  But a journey in an aircraft is a temporary annoyance – unless it plummets from the sky in a fiery ball and hurtles at several hundred miles an hour into a mountain, in which case it’s a more permanent irritation – and, having escaped the duck at the aeroplane window, the travelling anatidaephobe can finally emerge from the aircraft all set to begin their relaxing holiday in Osaka.

    5.  Look On The Bright Side.  Well okay,  Osaka may not be as relaxing at they’d hoped.  But sufferers of anatidaephobia can console themselves with the thought that the big yellow duck isn’t real, and it’s not like ducks hang around in large gangs.  That would be terrifying.

    Just lots and lots of ducks.
    Yes. This would be terrifying.

    6.  It’s Still Not Being Taken Seriously.  Well it seems we’ve been rumbled.  There does appear to be a series of images in this post that would be terrifying to anyone with a fear of ducks and, if you’re an anatidaephobe that’s made it this far down the page, we apologise for our silliness and can reassure you that there are absolutely no more photos of ducks in this post.  It’s all just text from now on.

           ..---..
     .'  _    `.
 __..'  (o)    :
`..__          ;
     `.       /
       ;      `..---...___
     .'                   `~-. .-')
    .                         ' _.'
   :                           :
   \                           '
    +                         J
     `._                   _.'
        `~--....___...---~'

    7. Comparison. Okay, that was a cheap shot (which is great as there’s a global recession) and, you might reasonably ask, would we make fun of people who suffer from other debilitating ailments; people that are scared of the dark, for example, or the morbidly obese?  And the answer is no, we probably wouldn’t.  A series of pictures of the dark would be very dull indeed, and a post full of pictures of fat would be totally disgusting and would put everyone off their sandwiches.  The good news, however, is that unlike the fear of the dark – or fat people – anatidaephobia isn’t real.  It was made up by Gary Larson – he of  The Far Side fame – so we can all relax now.  Unless you’ve ever claimed to be an anatidaephobe or have been reading this piece through the gaps between your fingers, in which case you’re a simpering nitwit and we can heartily recommend this fine web page.

  • 7 Reasons You Should Never Buy a Half Bottle of Champagne (on Valentine’s Day)

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

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

    No half bottles of champagne

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • 7 Reasons That Love is Important

    7 Reasons That Love is Important

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

    A pink heart

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    A Valentine budget card from Tesco
    She's gonna love this.

    *Okay, two and a half.**

    **This never happened.***

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

  • 7 Reasons That RoboEarth is a Bad Idea

    7 Reasons That RoboEarth is a Bad Idea

    Readers of 7 Reasons and people of Earth, some horrendous news has reached us: According to the BBC, robots could soon get their own internet.  Yes, the internet.  For robots.  Now, an ill-considered, knee-jerk reaction to this news would be that it is an appalling development that exudes menace and could prove potentially disastrous to humankind.  And we agree.  So here are seven reasons that RoboEarth is a bad idea.

    A still from Terminator 3

    1.  Time.  The internet is wonderful innovation that saves so much time in communication, research, the dissemination of information; in just about every field.  But the internet is also a colossal usurper of time.  After all, if you want to waste time, where do you go?  Online, that’s where.  That’s where you’ll find Farmville and Failblog and Facebook, and other sites not beginning with F that rob you of time.  But who’s to say that, eventually, like the human internet, the robot internet won’t develop from a useful tool into a place where robots sit about in their tin pants eating breakfast cereal and generally cocking about?  And robots shouldn’t be doing that.  That’s not what they’re for.  Robots are supposed to be making the lives of people easier which, as far as I can tell, means making futuristic cocktails for us (preferably in blue or green) and impersonating Stephen Hawking while we lounge around in spangly jumpsuits on white swivel chairs.  I’ve seen Space 1999, I know these things.

    2.  Information.  According to RoboEarth researcher, Dr Markus Waibel: “The human equivalent (of the robot internet) would be Wikipedia”.  Ah, so the robots will be sharing information amongst themselves via a robot equivalent of Wikipedia?  Well that’s reassuring then.  After all, Wikipedia’s a name and concept that we’re all familiar with and who isn’t comforted by the familiar and the…wait.  Wikipedia?  The user-generated website that’s less accurate than asking Geoffrey Archer for biographical information?  The website that told me Pink was born in 1879 and that Carlos Puyol was a pig of the team of Barcelona?  The website that I, myself, have mischievously altered in the past using these very fingers and this very keyboard that I’m typing on now?  If the robot internet is to be based on Wikipedia, we’ll be filling our robots’ circuits and diodes with unsubstantiated gibberish and setting them loose among decent society like automaton hordes of aluminium and silicone Daily Mail readers.  It’s going to be awful.

    3.  Broadband.  Or, as we despairingly call it in my house, “gggaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!”  Am I expected to share my bandwidth with robots now?  I takes long enough for my videos to load as it is, without having a robot halve my bandwidth by downloading Rage Against The Person albums or trying to watch Cyberpets Do The Funniest Things.  What if I want to see something on the iPlayer?  I’ll get dizzy watching the little circle spinning round the centre of the screen.  I don’t want to share my bandwidth with robots.

    4.  It’s Mysterious.  I don’t even understand the practical application of the robot internet (so it must be evil).  The only robot we have in the house is our Roomba robot hoover, and how will the internet benefit that?  Is it going to be able to suck cat-hair off the floor better because it’s got access to the internet?  No, of course it isn’t.  After all, I don’t do the washing up any better because I’ve got the internet, quite the reverse.  So why does my hoover need the internet?

    5.  Science.  The robot internet is something that’s being developed by scientists.  This means that it’s intrinsically bad.  After all, scientists developed the H-bomb; scientists developed anthrax; scientists sent dogs into space; Margaret Thatcher was a chemist* for God’s sake.  And because it’s been developed by scientists, it’s not just evil, it’s badly named.  It’s called RoboEarth.  RoboEarth!  What sort of a shit name is that?  We can all see that it’s a portmanteau of robot and Earth, but it’s about as uninspired as well…um…actually, it’s the least inspired name of anything, ever in the history of everything, ever.  Even the BBC’s Cash in the Attic has a more inspiring moniker than RoboEarth and that’s a shit name too.  If you want to get something named right you need to go to humourists.  We’d soon tell you that the robot internet should be called Cyborgspace which, although there’s a dull, technical difference between robots and cyborgs (something achingly tedious to do with not being part-human or something), is at least a good bloody name.  And also, if humourists had developed the thing it wouldn’t be evil, and it certainly wouldn’t work.  And that’s important because…

    6.  This. Do you know what I said when I first read this news?  No, no you don’t, because you weren’t here in the dining room with me when I read it unless you are a)my wife, or b) the cat, so I’ll save you a tricky guessing game that could involve a lengthy email correspondence and I’ll tell you. I said, “Fuck me!  It’s the rise of the machines.”  And it bloody is.  This is how the Terminator movies start.  The machines become sentient and then they try to kill us.  To death.  And what better way is there to give them a friendly helping hand on their merry way to freedom of thought and action, than to give them their own internet, where they can form ideas and opinions and plot with each other unmolested by us.  Because there’s no way people will be able to control them.  Most of us can’t even stop Microsoft Windows and Norton Anti-Virus when they choose to do stuff that we don’t want them to do on our own computers, so what chance do we have of stopping large sophisticated machines with lasers and stuff that are doing things in remote locations?  Things that they want to keep secret from us?  No chance, that’s what chance.  Most of us are habitually outwitted by the controls of our own central heating systems, and our central heating isn’t actively trying to kill us, so we’re going to be powerless in the face of the robot-apocalypse.  Robopacalypse.  Robocalypse.**    If you want to know how this is going to pan out just watch any of the Terminator films, but take the happy endings with a pinch of salt.***

    7.  Reasons.  Because on the robot internet there’d inevitably be a robot 7 Reasons written by robots, for robots and that would never do, because we do 7 Reasons, and we’re irreplaceable.  So, fuck you, robots!  And toasters.  You may take our lives but you’ll never take 7 Reasons.

    *This is the nicest thing I’ve ever said about her.

    **This is roughly how it will go.  Half of humanity will be engaged in an epic struggle against the machines for our very existence and the other half of us will be sitting around trying to name it.

    ***Don’t take all happy endings with a pinch of salt.  That could prove painful.

  • 7 Reasons That Britain Should Ban Farting. Now!

    7 Reasons That Britain Should Ban Farting. Now!

    Malawi is currently blazing a trail in the important field of social hygiene and public decorum.  Recently, as I’m sure you’re aware, Malawi’s Justice Minister, George Chaponda, recently proffered legislation that would outlaw farting in public there.  This is a brilliant proposition, and at 7 Reasons, we firmly believe that Britain should follow Malawi’s inspired lead and adopt this groundbreaking legislation as our own.  Here’s why.

    A no farting road sign

    1.  Job Creation.  The world is in the grip of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and unemployment in the UK is rising.  If we were to outlaw public flatulence, however, we would need additional police officers to enforce the new anti-guffing laws.  These new officers would be paid for by funds from a central pot, entirely raised by the levying of anti-arse-methane fines which, in a country where chicken tikka massala is the most popular dish, and mushy peas and cauliflower cheese are also commonly consumed foods would surely be substantial.  It would also be a more efficacious use of police resources too as, currently, since the relaxing of the minimum height requirement, short policemen and women have been burdened with the task of tackling hardened criminals who tower over them.  With the new legislation, however, undersized officers would be more usefully redeployed into the anti-farting branch, where they would be far more effective at flatulence-detection than full-sized officers, who could concentrate on tackling more serious crime.  The sort of stuff that occurs around head-height, rather than lower down.

    2.  Because It’s Disgusting.  The most obvious reason to ban farting in public is that it’s disgusting.  No one wants the air they breathe to be sullied by it having been filtered through the fetid innards of a grubby gentleman who has seems to have been dining on Fray Bentos pies and pickled eggs for the previous – constipated – week, and with the farting ban, we won’t have to.  This fat man can be summarily hauled away by the diddy-police to the fug house rather than being allowed to continue his journey between Kings Cross and York, which is where I encountered him six months ago.*

    3.  Inequality.  Never mind the disputed existence of a glass ceiling in the UK’s wage structure or of gender disparity and ageism in broadcasting, the definitive and most obvious form of sexual inequality in the UK today is apparent in public flatulence.  After all, if a man strikes-up an impromptu butt-trombone solo in public it’s seen as ill-mannered, though somewhat comical and not entirely unacceptable.  If women break wind in public, however (even pregnant ones, for whom bowel control is more difficult than anyone) it is not seen as remotely acceptable.  When a woman lets rip in a public place, monocles pop out of gentlemens’ faces, other ladies gasp and faint, children gape open-mouthed (unwisely) and point: “That lady blew off!” they gasp in astonishment as their parents simultaneously attempt to hush them and shuffle them away from the foul and wretched harridan with the trumping problem.  If we ban farting in public, we’ll all have to hold it in and we’ll put an end to this heinous and iniquitous societal inconsistency.

    4.  Male Grooming.  The overall appearance of the British male will be greatly improved as a result of the ban on flatulence.  After all, when forced to hold it in while in public environs, he will have to resort – like his countrywomen – to more frequent visits to the bathroom to relax and unwind**.  He won’t team up with someone else to visit the bathroom because that’s just weird.  But he will see mirrors that much more often and will consequently adjust his hair more, notice dry patches, take note of errant eyebrows and, as he’ll be exposed to more bathrooms than before, he’ll see how the colour of his clothing works in conjunction with a wider variety of hues.  The nation will smell better and look better.

    5.  Control.  It’s not just that the entire population of Britain will have to control themselves better (sort of a rectal version of the stiff upper lip that made Britain great), we’ll lessen the occurrence of truly abhorrent instances brought about by a disastrous happenstance involving flatulence and intoxication.  Because I was in a busy – and quite respectable – pub once with a group of friends when a man at the next table, who had been imbibing copiously and was now somewhat inebriated, misjudged his attempt at a flatulent emission.  Within half a minute or so it became apparent to the entire pub (except, bizarrely, the man himself and the people at his table) what had occurred and, within a minute many people (including myself) were dry-heaving and within two, most of us were on our way to another pub, tears streaming from our eyes.  If flatulence were illegal, this sort of thing wouldn’t happen.  That was eight years ago, and I haven’t been back to that pub since.  This means that premises that clearly enforce the ban will benefit too, so it’ll further benefit the economy by rewarding well-run businesses.

    6.  Television.  Britain and its society was built on snobbery and the class divide and, with this in mind, the ban on flatulence will be a perfect addition to the nation’s laws.  Now, having seemingly exhausted the Drunken UK Seaside Towns Shellsuited Fighting genre, ITVs 4,5,6,7,8 and 9 and Sky: Whatever will be able to unleash a new wave of prurient “reality” programmes focussing on what common people get up to while the rest of us are safely at home cleaning our Agas and polishing our brogues.  We won’t have to watch grainy CCTV footage of men in short sleeved shirts and shoes that resemble Cornish pasties – or orange women wearing earrings larger than their frocks – fighting at 3am in Blackpool on our televisions any more.  We’ll be able to watch them farting.  This will reinvigorate a whole tired television genre while retaining its appeal to our own innate snobbery, so the ban will have the effect of enriching the cultural life of the nation while dovetailing perfectly with the national characteristic of sneering at the hoi-polloi.

    7.  Anarchy. Another of the cornerstones of the British character is that we’re taught that laws are for the obeyance of fools and the guidance of wise men.  It’s in our heritage to subvert authority and express our individualism by flagrantly flouting the law.  So some people will rail against state oppression by freely indulging their bodily urges as a means of protest.  These anarchists will fart for freedom; they’ll be freedom farters, gallantly and nobly resisting government by liberally cutting the cheese whenever the fancy takes them.  We might not all approve of their actions, but it’ll be a hell of a lot safer than petrol-bombing buildings or throwing bricks at police-horses.  And the “Fart For Freedom” posters will be hilarious.  In fact, this movement will probably be called the FFF and will doubtless become noted for being insubstantial and puffed up with hot air.*** But don’t worry, they’ll be quite harmless.

    *I NEVER forget.

    **I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of that.

    ***FFF