7 Reasons

Tag: gift

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons Men Really Send Flowers

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons Men Really Send Flowers

    The time old tradition of sending flowers may be associated with well wishing, congratulations or the proclamation of love, however when men choose to furnish their loved one/ones with a fragrant bouquet of botanicals is rarely as plain as it seems. Forever masquerading as the simple, straight forward, uncomplicated strain of the human species, there lies a risk assessment, point scoring undercurrent to every decision a man makes, which would shock women. Well, maybe only some women. Actually, hardly any women, as most women are usually a few steps ahead in the second guessing game. For all those ladies who are still living in blissful ignorance of manipulating males, here are some illusion shattering things to look out for:

    7 Reasons Men Really Send Flowers

    1.  Persuasion. There is no such thing as a free bunch. One of the more obvious reasons, I grant you, but worth a mention anyway. Love hungry men trying to lure a mate or those who are trying to reignite passion need to flag their intentions. To send flowers may look like an innocent declaration of gentle feelings, but beware, strings will be attached.

    2.  Showing off. Although men have evolved from knuckle dragging primitives of yester year into modern day knuckle dragging primitives, they have failed to develop any colourful plumage. In lieu of shakeable eye-catching tail feathers or a flamboyant extendable quiff these simple-minded beasts resort to flowers, attempting to bedazzle their prey.

    3.  Distraction. How could a man considerate enough to send you flowers consider sending anyone but you flowers to? However, could those beautiful, fragrant roses have been sent to throw you off the scent? Always read the label. If they are simply addressed to ‘My Darling’, ‘Sweetheart’ or ‘Love Puff’, further questioning may be required.

    4.  Get Out Clause. So, you receive an arm full of Gladioli from your beloved, so glorious that it would make Morrissey weep with jealousy were he to unexpectedly clap eyes on it. Nevertheless, before you start swinging them round your head whilst singing ‘This Charming Man’, think. Has he, or is he planning on letting you down any time soon? Only time will tell.

    5.  Lazy. There’s not much to it really. Sending flowers cancels out having to waste any time or thought about what to get someone. Flowers can be ordered to and from anywhere in the world in less time that it takes to eat a doughnut. The old adage ‘It’s the thought that counts’ is true, but it is also the ‘effort’ and ‘imagination’ that counts, and will be counted.

    6.  Guilt. ‘Sorry’ does seem to be the hardest word and one that men feel they don’t have to bother actually saying if they have sent flowers. Avoiding the real issues and trying to curry favour with someone whom they may have wronged occasionally works. However, unless men man up and say exactly what they are sorry about, the flowers in question may count against them.

    7.  Love. Ok, ok. I’ll admit it. The majority of men who send flowers to their loved ones do so purely to make them happy. Crazy, I know, but in this cynical world we live in it is easy to forget that doing something to make someone feel all warm and fuzzy can in turn make the doer feel all warm and fuzzy too. So, why not start to make everything much warmer, fuzzier and if you suffer from hay fever, sneezier by buying someone they love some flowers.

  • Sponsored Post: 7 Reasons It Takes A Watch To Say Sorry

    Sponsored Post: 7 Reasons It Takes A Watch To Say Sorry

    Yeah. You messed up. Big time.

    But don’t worry, you’ve found the ultimate relationship advice column from a fat, single American. How do you fix everything? Do what any self-respecting American would do: Buy an expensive imported product for him or her!

    Not only do I have a sexy selection of timepieces to choose from, but I’ve got a watch for every specific screw-up. From offending your mother-in-law to skipping out on Sunday dinner with the extended family, there is a watch that will make things all better. So without further ado…

    1.  Screw-up: You burnt the roast you cooked for his boss coming over for dinner. Solution: The Mondaine Evo Chronograph watch.

    OK, so the turkey was slightly drier than Cousin Catherine’s rubberized masterpiece in Christmas Vacation. You know he’ll never retaliate by leaving the burgers on the grill too long with this Swiss chronograph from Mondaine watches.

    7 Reasons To Say Sorry With A Watch

    2.  Screw-up: You deleted Project Runway off of your TiVo. Solution: The Wenger Alpine Crystal watch.

    Alright, man—she’s not buying that you did it on “accident”, so stop trying to sell it. (We both know it was intentional anyway.) Any fashionista would be proud to sport this blinged-out lavender head-turner on her wrist. Eat your heart out, Heidi.

    7 Reasons It Takes A Watch To Say Sorry

    3.  Screw-up: You refused to let him go paintballing for a bachelor party. Solution: The Wenger Standard Issue XL watch.

    The only way to make sure he stayed in one piece and could still be the father of your futures kids was to not let him go. Now he refuses to do the yard work to get back at you. Get him this Wenger watch with its steel case and heavy duty strap, and he won’t be able to wait to try out its toughness while cleaning the gutters and re-shingling the roof.

    7 Reasons It Takes A Watch To Say Sorry

    4.  Screw-up: You faked an illness to skip the marriage retreat. Then she came home and found you drinking beer, smoking cigars and playing pinochle with your buddies. Solution: The Tense Sandalwood Digital watch.

    In your defense, all of the cigar smoke and Guinness did end up making you quite sick. But get her the latest from Tense watches, and she’ll be proud to wrap the all Maple piece around her wrist when you go on the nature hike. At the marriage retreat next weekend.

    7 Reasons It Takes A Watch To Say Sorry

    5.  Screw-up: You put his favorite watch through the washing machine and ruined it. Solution: The Casio G-Shock Retro-Vintage watch.

    Let’s face it—his old sports watch was grimy and filthy; it needed a good cleaning. How could you possibly be expected to not try and get sparkling again? Get him the brand that everyone who’s anyone in the hip-hop industry is rocking today. This all white G-Shock watch would be fit for the couch or one of Diddy Dirty Money’s white parties.

    7 Reasons It Takes A Watch To Say Sorry

    6.  Screw-up: You feel guilty that she just bought you a new white G-Shock. Solution: The Casio Baby-G Multifunction watch.

    She gave you such a baller watch that her nasty old leather piece looks awful. So getting her the matching model from Baby-G watches will score you some major points (Just in case you accidentally sell something she loves at your next yard sale).

    7 Reasons It Takes A Watch To Say Sorry

    7.  Screw-Up: You accidentally sell something he loves at your next yard sale. Solution: The Fossil Ansel watch.

    Hey, it goes both ways. So he’ll never have his old teddy bear, first baseball mitt or birth certificate ever again—he’ll get over it pretty quickly with this classy Fossil watch. It never needs a battery, so it will never stop living—just like your love, even after all of these mishaps.

    7 Reasons It Takes A Watch To Say Sorry

    Author Bio: Post contributed by Barrie on behalf of Watchco.

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons I’m Going To Buy Window Blinds As A Christmas Gift For A Stranger

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons I’m Going To Buy Window Blinds As A Christmas Gift For A Stranger

    If you can remember as far back as March, you may recall Ewan MacDougal advocating the art of building a fortress from furniture. Well, we are pleased to say he’s back. And this time he’s got Christmas on his mind.

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons I'm Going To Buy Window Blinds As A Christmas Gift For A Stranger

    Window blinds as a Christmas gift for a stranger? “Well that’s a little odd!” I’m sure you’re thinking. Window blinds are generally something one buys for themselves. Choosing window blinds is a big task that can change the whole feel of a room. It would be presumptuous for me to think I could choose how someone else’s’ room must look. “Maybe,” I imagine you suggest. “Maybe choosing window blinds for a loved one could work.” And certainly I agree it would make more sense if I told you I was buying window blinds for, say, my Grandmother – whose tastes I’m likely to know well, especially if she had been hinting she wanted window blinds and knew I had worked with a window blinds company for my job. However, Grandma will have to wait, because this Christmas I’m buying window blinds for a (near) stranger.

    It is not that I am a blind fanatic who hopes he can create a little piece of Christmas magic by having blinds delivered to a random strangers’ home. It’s actually far more self serving than that. It has been said on occasion, that I am perhaps at times a little socially awkward. (Shocking I know.) This was proved to me the other day at a party when, whilst trying to make friends with a stranger, I may have accidently given the impression I could be a stalker. I assure you I am not a stalker!

    It’s okay, though, I have a cunning plan, window blinds will save my reputation and potential friendship, and here are seven reasons why.

    1.  Proof That I’m Gainfully Employed. I have a job, like a proper one with an office, day time hours, email address, phone number, a monthly wage, the works. All these very normal things. I’m sure the random stranger I may have seemed like a stalker to, has in mind a stereotypical stalker. I imagine this stereotype of a stalker is quite a weird individual. Who does not get on with people and does not keep regular hours. A stalker fitting this stereotype would probably struggle to get or hold down a regular office job such as mine. Thus by making it known that I have a job I will surely seem less stalker like. How will blinds help? Well one of my clients at the moment just happens to be a leading window blind manufacturer. I’ll be sure to mention the work connection on any gift tag, making my normalness apparent.

    2.  Window Blinds Create Privacy. This reason is surely an obvious one, but in case some didn’t share quite the same train of thought as I did… Stalkers are notorious for staring through the windows of their victims. Watching all their movements, keeping track of every happening in their life. If someone was to use blinds this would become much more challenging. So, unless I was a stalker particularly looking for a challenge, it would be completely counterproductive to give someone blinds. Thus, the stranger I met at this party will only be able to conclude that I am not a stalker.

    3.  Sending Window Blinds Is Actually Less Creepy Than Explaining The Situation. So the ‘sensible’ among you may be thinking, “Surely this mistaken stalker conundrum is all just a miss understanding that could be sorted out by explaining.”. Well.. maybe. However, the only means of contact I have for my possibly alleged victim soon to be friend, is a postal address. This is what got me into the whole mess in the first place. After the party I was calling a taxi for myself, and being the generous non-stalker that I am I called one for her as well (hence having an address) and at the time I joked that now I had her address I could send her a postcard. I’m no comedy genius, but even I can tell that offering to send someone a postcard isn’t a particularly funny joke. In fact, in all honesty, I don’t know if it can be deemed a joke at all. So how could I save myself as being remembered as that guy who tells non-funny jokes? Well, I could only think of one way. Pretend it was never a joke at all and actually send her a postcard.

    So, that’s what I did. The next day I bought a postcard, drew a nice scene of seals on the back (why seals? Why not?), wrote on her address, a return address and a shiny first class stamp and popped it in the post.

    It’s been four days now and still no response.. the more I think about it, sending a hand drawn seal scene to someone you hardly know might be a little weird.. perhaps stalkerish? It was a party, there was drinking. Does she remember I have her address? How will she think I got it? What if she thinks I found it from somewhere else? Is finding home addresses of strangers stalkerish? Yes.

    So, if my fears are founded, and I have been deemed a weird stalker by sending a postcard, is sending another really the best option? Fixing a mistake by doing the exact same thing again, has been proven (I’m thinking the Brand/Ross vs Andrew Sachs thing) to be a bad idea!

    No, the only option is a completely different gesture. Sending window blinds to her home address instead.

    4.  Drawing Another Picture Would Make Things Worse Still. Before I completely ruled out writing to her again, I did consider creating a second drawing. This drawing would be entitled ‘proof I’m not a stalker’ and feature a sketch of the bushes I saw outside her house on Google street view – it would be clear I’m not hiding in them. The picture would also feature a dustbin being raided for food by foxes – and therefore confirm it was not being raided by me looking for whatever it is stalkers steal from bins. Finally, it would include a sketch of the shelf in my bedroom – which currently has books on it and not a creepy shrine dedicated to her. So that’s what I was going to draw.

    However, I do all my drawings from life, and I feel the amount of time I’d have to secretly sit outside her house to capture the bins and bushes really might not help my case. So really we’re back to the window blinds.

    5.  It’s A Good Value Gift With 50% Off Selected Blinds. The window blind shop I’m looking at currently has 50% off most products. I know I shouldn’t be cheap about saving my own reputation, but there’s no harm in looking for good value.

    6.  Christmas Is A Magical Time Of Year. By making the blinds a Christmas gift the recipient will get them at the most magical time of year. It’s surely much harder to be mad at someone and worry that they might be a stalker when you’re filled with Christmas cheer. Plus, Christmas is a time when you have lots of guests. So what better time to spruce up your living room with some new blinds?! She’ll only be able to think good things about me after this Christmas gift.

    7.  A Personal Gift Will Say I’m Thoughtful Not Creepy. Blinds are a really personal gift, which takes a lot of effort to give. Think about it, I’m going to have to break into her house to measure the windows to make sure the blinds fit. Then I’m going to have to go through all of her stuff to get familiar with her tastes and make sure I choose blinds she’ll really like. Roller blinds or Venetian blinds? I’m going to have to track down the homes of all her friends and family to make sure none of them have blinds that look too similar. It’s really going to be a lot of hard work to make sure the gift is perfect. How could she possibly be mad or scared by me once she knows how much work I’ve gone to in order to get her this perfect and special Christmas gift? I mean, if someone broke into my house, rummaged through all my things, started snooping around the homes of all my friends and family, I know that I’d feel… uh… oh wait… maybe not then.

  • 7 Reasons That I’ve Been Baffled By Something That Isn’t A Doormat

    7 Reasons That I’ve Been Baffled By Something That Isn’t A Doormat

    “What do you think?” My wife enquired, prompting the man-klaxon to sound in my head. Alarmed by the…er…alarm, I took heed. The warning message of the man-klaxon was clear. It was telling me that under no circumstance should I say anything. Nor should I make any noise at all. It would also be prudent not to make any facial expression or move my hands, in case that could be interpreted as a gesture. Then she handed me this:

    7 Reasons That I've Been Baffled By Something That Isn't A Doormat
    What is it?

    1.  What Is It? “What the buggery-bollocks is this?!” I didn’t say, thanks to the man-klaxon. What is this thing? I’ve seen many things before, but nothing that resembles this. It’s large and square at one end and tapers to a point at the other, could it be a mouse?

    2.  Technology Was Baffled Too. Breaking one of the rules of the man-klaxon, I feigned interest by means of a slight facial expression and pulled out my phone to photograph it, hoping that this would demonstrate some enthusiasm for the wonky mouse. What I was actually doing was using Google Goggles, a handy app that, if you photograph anything in the world, will tell you what it is. It didn’t know. Google Goggles was boggled. Bugger.

    3.  What Does It Do? Having been failed by the internet, it dawned on me that I was on my own. Why do babies never wake up screaming when you want them to? I was going to have to work it out by myself. Having failed to ascertain what the thing was by trying to interpret its form, I attempted to identify its function. The most functional looking part of it was a button on the front. But the button wouldn’t unbutton. It was just sewn on with nothing to attach it to. Perhaps it was an eye. Was this some sort of weird fish? A sea monster? Why would my wife make a sea monster? I couldn’t recall her bemoaning our lack of a sea monster at any point recently, so it seemed unlikely that she’d just make one on the spur of the moment.

    4.  What Does It Mean? There was a strange symbol in the middle, so I decided to concentrate on that. It clearly wasn’t a swastika, which was good (though if it had been second world war-related I would have fared far better at identifying it), but what was it? It looked like a snowflake, but the other thing that you may notice about it is that it is green. There’s a wise old saying that warns people never to eat yellow snow. It goes something like this: “Never eat yellow snow”. Well surely green snow must be even more fearsome than yellow snow! How the hell do you get green snow? What’s in that?!

    5.  Wait! A snowflake! A green snowflake and the majority of the thing’s red. Red and Green! Red and green should never be seen! It’s a Christmas thing! The only time of year that anyone with eyes would conceivably use red and green at the same time. It’s a Christmas…er…um…pencil?

    6.  A New Approach. Trying to work out what this thing was wasn’t going well. After all, I’d been regarding the seasonal pointy thing for ten minutes and my lack of any sort of response to her question might – if left for many more minutes – have raised suspicion. I decided to try another approach to working out what it was. An approach that I usually reserve for dire emergencies. I decided to try talking. “What the buggery-bollocks is this?!” I asked.

    7.  It’s A What?! The response was surprising. After my wife had struck me several times with the (surprisingly hard) Christmas thing, she blurted out, “It’s a house!” She then turned the object ninety degrees to the right. And that’s what it is. It’s obvious, really. It’s one of those traditional tree decorations, a Christmas house. Because no Christmas is ever complete without a Christmas house on the tree. It’s clearly the house of a person that lives in a Cath Kidston designed traffic cone, but it’s a house nonetheless. A Christmas house. For the tree.

    7 Reasons I've Been Baffled By Something That Isn't A Doormat
    Aaarrrrggghhhh!!!!

    There’s only eleven weeks to go, so don’t forget to get your Christmas houses ready. I know I’ll be enjoying mine. In the shed, probably.*

    *Note to self: Must build shed.

  • 7 Reasons That This Is The Worst Present Ever

    7 Reasons That This Is The Worst Present Ever

    Okay, 7 Reasons readers.  It’s September, so there’s only one thing we can possibly write about today.  That’s right, Christmas.  Because – strange as it may seem – there are people out there that are actually planning their Christmas and buying presents right now.  I, of course, will be leaving my shopping until the last possible moment, as usual, but I feel I should issue a cautionary tale to those of you that may be contemplating buying presents.  For, if it prevents anyone else having an experience quite like this one, I feel I will have done the world a great service.  This may make me appear to be an ungrateful man and a bad brother but that’s okay, because I’m an ungrateful man and a bad brother.  So, present-buyers: Don’t buy this!  Here are seven reasons that it’s the worst present ever.  I have obscured the name of the sender to protect her identity.

    This is not the actual gift. This is a far more tastefully coloured version of it.

    1.  It Created Expectation.  It was Christmas morning.  My wife and I had finished the croissants and were sipping our second glasses of bucks fizz while, in the background, Frank Sinatra gently exhorted us to have ourselves a merry little Christmas.  It was time to open the presents.  My wife pulled the many gifts out from under the tree and divided them into four piles: presents for her; presents for me; presents for us and presents for the cat (the largest pile).  We took it in turns to unwrap them (and to help the cat) and fairly soon the floor was a gaudy collage of discarded paper.  Then it was my turn again.  It was a small, rectangular present.  It was tastefully wrapped and surprisingly weighty.  A glance at the tag revealed that it was a gift from my s*ster.  “Who’s it from?” my wife asked.  “It’s from my only s*ster.”  I replied.  Expectantly, I tore the paper away, to reveal a narrow blue gift box about six inches long.  Wow!  This looks great, I thought as I unwrapped the box.  Then I opened it.

    2.  My Eyes!  My life prior to opening the box had been a poor preparation for that moment.  My life had been one of carefully and tastefully matched colours and textures.  Of aesthetical sobriety and decorousness.  I was fundamentally ill-equipped for the spectre that cruelly and aggressively assaulted my retinas.  What greeted me was the sight of a glass object consisting of a conical frosted glass stem tapering up toward a rounded top that was made up of most of the colours in the world – minus all of the nice ones and the ones that go together – encased in glass that was partially frosted and liberally spattered with gold leaf.  It was the single most hideous thing that I have ever seen.  And I’ve seen the Lidl in Scunthorpe.

    3.  It Caused Bafflement.  What is it?  What is this glassy-horror?  Why has my s*ster sent me this?  Why is it covered in gold leaf?  Is the glass frosted to obscure the thing, like a toilet window?  Why does it have a stem? Why does it have a bulb?  Why does it have a rim?  What the buggery-bollocks is this thing?!  “What is it, darling?” My wife enquired.

    4.  It Caused Speculation.  Putting all aesthetic squeamishness aside, I coolly regarded the gaudy object in as objective a manner as I could.  It had a tapering stem.  It had a bulb at the end.  It was simultaneously shiny and frosted.  It was a myriad of lurid colours and was festooned with gold leaf.  “It’s…it’s…(got it!)…Liberace’s butt-plug!”

    5.  It Caused…The Pause.  “Don’t be silly,” my wife said, snatching Liberace’s butt-plug from me to regard it more closely.  “It’s…(there then followed a long pause.  A pregnant pause so long it seemed that an elephant could have been brought from conception to gestation during it.  In fact, it was merely a pause of several minutes)…a wine-stopper!”  “A what?” I enquired.  “It’s a wine-stopper.  It stops wine.”

    6.  It Caused Incredulity.  It does what?!  Of all the things one could conceivably want to stop why in the hell would anyone pick wine?!  I like wine.  Why not send a gift that stops something more objectionable, like fascism or tennis?  Wine is fun!  Sending something that stops it is like giving the gift of abstinence.  For Christmas!

    7.  It Caused Me To Lie On The Telephone.  “Thanks for the…um…thing.”

    “We got it in South Africa.”

    “It’s…come a long way.”

    “It took us ages to choose that one.”

    “Really?”

    “Yes.  There were so many different coloured ones.  Have you used it yet?”

    “No, but I will.”

    And that was a lie.  Until now!  Because now – five years later – I’ve finally found a use for it, even if it is as a cautionary tale.  A gentle reminder for 7 Reasons readers to choose their Christmas presents carefully.  And, even if you don’t, you could at least get it in a colour that matches the recipient’s loft because that’s where it is.  Or rather, where it was, because earlier today when I went up there to relive the horror and to photograph it in all its sickening hideousness for you, the reader, I discovered that it had disappeared.  My investigations have revealed that it may have been placed in a charity bag by my w*fe during some sort of cull-of-the-horrid.  With some irony, it may well have been a bag from the RNIB.  I can only offer our apologies to them.

    *For fans of gifts like this, this is the place to find them.

  • 7 Reasons That Men Shouldn’t Wrap Birthday Presents

    7 Reasons That Men Shouldn’t Wrap Birthday Presents

    Did I give this the title 7 Reasons That Men Shouldn’t Wrap Birthday Presents?  I didn’t really mean that.  I meant 7 Reasons That Me Shouldn’t Wrap Birthday Presents.  Or I, to be correct about it.  Because I’m sure that there are some men out there that are good at wrapping presents.  Neat, methodical men that actually welcome the task; men that positively enjoy it, in fact.  The thing is though, that I’m definitely not one of them.  And I’m sure that somewhere there must be other people (most likely men) who are as ill-suited to wrapping gifts as I am.  Possibly.  Here are seven reasons I shouldn’t be allowed to wrap stuff.

    Finished! At last!

    1.  Loathing.  I fundamentally dislike wrapping gifts.  I’m not good at it and I don’t enjoy it; much like dancing a ballet or sketching a bowl of fruit, I’m temperamentally unsuited to it and it’s much better when done by others.  This affects my whole approach to the burden of having to wrap presents.  I will procrastinate; I will obfuscate; I will participate in the most mundane or bizarre displacement activities to avoid it.  I would literally rather do anything (photograph my belly-button fluff; listen to Jedward; fellate a baboon) than wrap a present.  This leads to problems.

    2.  Delay.  It means that I will leave performing the odious task until the last possible moment.  And then, when that arrives, I’ll leave it for an hour or two more.  Then I’ll have a beer or two, which I may follow with some gin or – as preceded one spectacularly disastrous present-wrapping session – absinthe.  I will not wrap a single birthday present until I am so tired that I absolutely have to go to bed on the eve of the birthday.  Only then is it time to start wrapping.

    3.  Practice Makes Perfect.  It’s then of course, that I am reminded of how epically, stupendously, mind-bogglingly bad I am at wrapping presents.  It’s something I get to do so rarely (thankfully) that I believe I may be getting worse at it with every passing year.  I only do it rarely, not because I am ungenerous, but because I am forbidden to do so.  My wife – having seen many examples of my wrapping – would rather allow Prince Phillip and Pete Doherty to mind our baby for a weekend than let me wrap a gift that anyone will see (feel, or even be within the same postcode as).  This division of labour suits me fine as it leaves me in charge of hammering stuff and assembling things, but it leaves me ill-equipped for the four occasions per year on which I am called to wrap presents.

    4.  Wrapping Is Dull.  There are few tasks duller than wrapping presents.  Probably.  I’ve been trying to think about something duller than wrapping a present for several minutes now and have so far failed to come up with anything that tops the unremitting tediousness that is covering things for other people in paper.  So I would be better off if I had a distraction from the wrapping.  But I can’t watch television or listen to music while I’m wrapping because of the hour and because rustling wrapping paper is the loudest sound known to humankind outside of Muse and Vanessa Feltz being sucked into a jet engine.  When you are wrapping presents, you are wrapping presents.  There.  Are.  No.  Distractions.

    5.  Sellotape.  But there is Sellotape.  There’s a fundamental flaw with Sellotape; one that renders it almost all but unusable to me.  It has two sides; one of which is smooth and presents me with no problem, and then there’s the other side, which is sticky.  The sticky side adheres to everything:  It sticks to me, it sticks to itself, it sticks to the table, it sticks to the floor, it sticks to anything that has fallen from the table to floor and retains it in the form of a visible mass of crumbs, dust, fluff and (always) a single pubic hair stuck between the Sellotape and the wrapping paper.  The only thing that Sellotape does not do – in my hands – is affix neatly and evenly to the edges of wrapping paper.  One birthday, I got this reaction: “Thank you for the present, Darling.  Why is there a tortilla chip stuck to it?”

    6.  Paper.  Because I am emphatically not in charge of wrapping anything ever, I am often presented with a problem when it comes to paper.  I buy wrapping paper all the time.  Lots of paper.  Because of this, I always expect to find an abundance of wrapping paper when I – with heavy heart – am obliged to wrap a present.  But because my wife spends her entire year wrapping presents in my absence, by the time I need wrapping paper, there’s none left.  Things I have been forced to resort to using in the past include: tissue paper, newspaper, plain brown paper, white A4 paper and lined A4 paper.  I have also given the gift of a small and delicate bracelet presented in a large metallic red bottle bag.  Last night I had to resort to using Christmas wrapping paper to wrap my wife’s birthday presents.  Fortunately I was able to talk my way out of the situation this morning: “Those?  Those are birthday trees, Darling…Merry Birthday!”

    7.  Apology.  There are also many apologies involved in wrapping presents:  Apologies for waking the household up by bellowing obscenities at an odd-shaped overnight bag (or Sellotape, we can’t be certain) at 0330 in the morning; apologies for affixing a dead woodlouse to the wrapping of a tub of handcream that bore the words “Be My Valentine”; apologies for the (unaccountably) ginger pubic hair that was stuck to the tube of Pringles; apologies for the “Birthday” trees line that seemed certain to work and apologies for arriving in bed with a ball of Sellotape stuck to my arm which eventually transferred to my wife’s back when she rolled over.  It turns out that wrapping birthday presents is a sorry affair, as well as a messy one.

    *I would, of course, like to wish my wife a very happy birthday (if not a well wrapped one).  Happy Birthday, Darling.

     

     

  • 7 Reasons it Must Have Been Terrible to Celebrate Your Wedding Anniversary in the 1930s

    7 Reasons it Must Have Been Terrible to Celebrate Your Wedding Anniversary in the 1930s

    In the 1930s it was decided (presumably by purveyors of gifts) that there weren’t enough things associated with anniversaries and a more comprehensive anniversary gift list was created.  Fortunately for contemporary celebrants of anniversaries, since then the list has been modernised.  This is no bad thing as I’ve seen a copy of the original list.  Here are seven reasons that it must have been terrible to celebrate your anniversary in the 1930s.

    1.  Wood.  On the original list, the fifth anniversary is wood.   This is rather fitting for the era because, after five long years of marriage, the celebration of their fifth wedding anniversary may well have been one of the last occasions that a married couple got wood.  Rather mean to remind them of that though.

    2.  Willow/Copper.  The ninth anniversary is a terrifying prospect.  According to the BBC (they who must be believed), after nine years you get the willow/copper anniversary.  The only feasible combination of willow and copper that comes to my mind is a policeman with a cane.  Imagine your surprise and delight when you sit down with your wife and she says, “Happy anniversary darling, here’s a rozzer to beat you with a stick.”  That doesn’t sound like too much fun to me.  Perhaps it was more fun back then.

    3.  Aluminium/Tin.  Times were clearly hard in the ‘30s and though your tenth anniversary present would be an improvement on the previous year’s beating, it wouldn’t be much of one as you’re likely to be presented with something in a tin or in an aluminium can.  This can mean only one thing: food.  But in the 1930s people didn’t have normal food, they had weird food: tins of tongue; tins of luncheon meat; tins of potatoes.  Is being presented with a tin of tongue even any better than being beaten by a policeman?  Well, should you have had your anniversary in the 1930s, you’d be in a great position to judge.

    4.  Ivory.  After fourteen years of wedded bliss – assuming you’d recuperated from your beating by the forces of law and order five years previously and eating your tongue the following year – it was time for the real presents to begin.  For your fourteenth anniversary, you could have expected to receive something without which no home is complete; a bit of an elephant.  Obviously your gift wouldn’t be in the form of a bit of an elephant, it would be a bit of one of those useless lumbering creatures from the other side of the world turned into something far more practical, like a letter-opener or a cruet set.

    5.  China.  For your twentieth anniversary you would have received the best gift of all, after which all other anniversary presents would come as an anticlimax.   For your twentieth anniversary you could expect to receive the nation of China.  Now China back then was war-ravaged and in the economic doldrums, rather than being the titan that it is now, but still, a whole country is an impressive gift.  All anniversaries after the twentieth would be a huge disappointment.

    6.  Pearl/Ivory.  After thirty years, while modern couples are receiving their first diamonds, couples using the traditional anniversary list are in for a rare treat.  They can expect to relive that fondly remembered fourteenth anniversary on which they received a bit of an elephant only now, as if the bit of an elephant weren’t enough of a treat, they can expect it to be augmented by a bit of calcium carbonate that had been stolen from a fish.  Yay!

    7.  Blue Sapphire.  After sixty-five years of marriage, the compilers of the list clearly believe that senility will have kicked in because you’re going to get a sapphire again, but this time it’s going to be a blue one (which will be so much better than the beige one you got for your 45th).  “Look darling”, your husband will bellow into your ear trumpet, “I bought you a blue sapphire…it’s blue!”.  “Well, fancy” you’ll respond, “a blue sapphire.  Well I never!  Are these my feet?”

     

    And now, I have a confession to make: tomorrow is my wedding anniversary (and my wife’s).  I’m not going to tell you which one, but you might be able to guess, as this is what I’ve got her.  Feel free to wish me luck!

    SPAM in a can

  • 7 Reasons to Buy a Fisher .375 Caliber Bullet Space Pen

    7 Reasons to Buy a Fisher .375 Caliber Bullet Space Pen

    Great news, 7 Reasons readers!  It’s now the future, for the zenith of that great and influential piece of technology – the pen – is here.  Pictured down there, just below these words, is the most awesome pen ever.  The only pen you’ll ever need.  A pen that you can use on absolutely any occasion.  If you want to be prepared, never mind the Scouts, get this pen.  Did I mention that it’s awesome already?  It’s awesome.

    A pen that's also a bullet that is also a pen.

    1.  It’s Mighty.  Okay, I can’t get anything past you.  You’ve noticed, haven’t you?  It doesn’t look like a pen, does it?  No.  It’s made from a .375 calibre bullet.  That makes this pen mightier than the pen, which is mightier than the sword.  It’s also packaged in an attractive gift case and is easy to transport in your pocket.

     

    2.  It’s Handy.  I live in Britain where few people own guns and, as such, I have a very limited understanding of them.  But what if bands of roaming barbarian hordes turned up at my house.   Or hordes of roaming barbarian bands?  Or reams of hording, barbering hands?  Or bandaged ranks, handy with swords?   I’d be fucked.  And really confused.  But if I had a bullet pen I’d be able to defend myself and my loved ones in the best possible way: By writing a cross letter to the local newspaper and then hurling the pen really hard at an assailant.  That should work, right?

     

    3.  It’s Feminine.  Now, you might be thinking that this isn’t a very feminine accoutrement, and that this awesome pen would be undesirable to women.  But you’d be very, very wrong.  Because if you thought that, you’d be making the crass assumption that what every woman wants is a man.  But they don’t.  And let me tell you right now, there is no surer way of not getting a man than for a woman to carry a large bullet around in her handbag.  None.  You can’t even top this with a cat in a pram or a hat made of cheese.  Or Crocs.

     

    4.  It’s Waterproof. It writes underwater, which is something conventional pens can’t do.  And it’s important to be able to write under water.  For a successful submariner, for example, the ability to write under water is a necessary part of the job. They need to be able to write things down to do with charts and protractors and compasses and periscopes that you couldn’t possibly understand.  If they were explained by me.  The Fisher .375 Caliber Bullet Space Pen is ideal for all of this underwater tomfoolery.

     

    5.  It’s Airproof. It writes over water too.  So if you’re an unsuccessful submariner, you can still use the pen without feeling stigmatised and discriminated against as a consequence of your haplessness and ineptitude.  Sure, other submariners may mock you, but it won’t be because of your pen.

     

    6.  It’s Oilproof.  Who amongst us hasn’t been trapped in a barrel of oil and suddenly remembered that it’s Mothers Day?  If you own this pen, your mother will never be card-less again.  You’ll also be able to write inside a wok and on the head of my teenage self.  It’s so practical!

     

    7.  It’s A Force For Good. It raises the stakes and pushes back the boundaries of science, technology, the human species as a whole and the design of pouch laminating machines.  Because the bullet space-pen is so amazing that it’s way ahead of the curve.  Sure, the pen works underwater, and so does paper.  For a short time.  But eventually in water, paper turns to papier-mâché and, as we know, turning French is undesirable.  The only thing that can prevent this horror is the pouch laminating machine which sadly, does not work underwater.  Because of this technological imbalance, humankind will inevitably pour all sorts of resources into making the underwater pouch laminating machine a reality.  All because of the Fisher .375 Caliber Bullet Space Pen.  Bring on the future* (only £16.34 and delivered free within the UK)!

     

    *My birthday is in June.

  • 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.