Tag: Humor

7 Reasons Manu Tuilagi Should Be Embarrassed

On Saturday afternoon, the country had two choices. They could either watch a bunch of tarts or a bunch of thugs. Being someone who lacks a passion for theatrical performance this choice didn’t apply to me. My radar featured solely the Leicester v Northampton Premiership semi-final. The FA Cup Final only appeared on nancy boy’s radars. And Ricky Hatton’s. My choice, as happens regularly with my choices, was the correct one and I was treated to a terrific sporting occasion. However, it wasn’t all savoury. During the first half there was an off the ball incident between Leicester’s Manu Tuilagi and Northampton’s Chris Ashton. For those who didn’t watch it, this is what happened. Manu Tuilagi attempts something resembling a tackle on Chris Ashton. Unfortunately, Ashton didn’t have the ball. And in rugby, tackling someone without the ball is frowned upon. So, Ashton gives Tuilagi a shove to say, “Excuse me ol’chap, I am without ball. That’s terribly unsportsmanlike conduct.” To which Tuilagi replies, “No it ******* well isn’t! This is!” Although he replaced the words with three punches. Unfortunately footage of the incident isn’t great, but it’s as good as we have for now.

At full speed it looked like a brutal attack and one Audley Harrison would be proud/incapable of. On closer inspection though, it’s pretty poor. And for that Manu should be incredibly embarrassed. Here’s why:

1. Eyes. In such circumstances the victim should really have his eyes shut as he prepares himself for the blow. The puncher, on the other hand, should be looking in the direction of his target. This is all back to front. Firstly, although it’s hard to tell, Ashton has his eyes open. And secondly, Tuilagi has his eyes shut. So what can we establish from this? Well, firstly that Ashton is a madman. He likes pain and he loves watching the impact of a fist on his face. Secondly, Tuilagi is squeamish. He’ll gladly give someone a happy slap but he doesn’t want to see blood.

2. Body Position. Now, I’ve done a bit of boxing – in a ring that was frequented by Justin Langer and Adam Gilchrist no less – so I like to think I know what I am talking about. When you punch, you’ll get more joy if you hit in front of you as opposed to the side. Obviously, there may be occasions when your target is not in front of you. If this is the case it is generally a good idea to move.

3. Oxygen. It’s always a good idea to breath when involved in a pursuit that actively encourages being alive. Tuilagi’s decision to hold his breath was not only dangerous, it also made him look a little chubby.

4. Standing. If you get a chance to see decent footage, do watch it. That’s because this footage is useless at showing what happened next. It also doesn’t fully show the impact of the other two punches. Well, actually, it doesn’t show the other two punches. And, while I have suggested these punches weren’t particularly great, they were still pretty damn forceful. The slow-mo footage shows Ashton’s head turn into a jelly for a few moments. The thing is though, after Tuilagi threw the punches, nothing happened. Ashton just stood there. And so did Tuilagi. And Tuilagi looked at Ashton standing in front of him and said, “Huh? What the hell aren’t you doing on the floor? Get down son, you’re making me look like a tit.” Which he did.

5. Officials. While Tuilagi was trying to punch Ashton into Nottingham, the touch judge was doing what all good touch judges should do. He was waving his flag around. The referee, Wayne Barnes eventually noticed the semaphore message and stopped the game. He then had a chat with his touch judge and then sent both Tuilagi and Ashton to the sin-bin. So yes, Tuilagi should be embarrassed for putting the officials in a position where they made the worst decision in the history of refereeing. Ever.

6. Ovation. Despite all I have said about the punches and their ineffectualness the home crowd seemed to love it. I felt somewhat uncomfortable as I watched the Tigers faithful give Tuilagi an ovation as he ran back on the pitch after his sin-bin. Sure, if he had flattened Ashton, give him an ovation. But don’t applaud the guy for half measures. He must have felt three inches tall after hearing that. How embarrassing to hear your own supporters cheer you for not punching properly. They must have thought that’s all he had. Which it was.

7. Handshake. So you’ve thrown everything at your opponent. He’s taken an absolute hammering. So what’s the worst that can happen now? That’s right, he comes up to you at the end of the match without a scratch on him and says, “Well played.” And all you can do is smile and remind everyone that you spend far too long shaping your sideburns.

May 16, 2011
In Conversation With Marc Fearns

In something of an oddity, we’re both on the sofa this Sunday. Usually it’s just Marc and his spam fetish, but this week we thought we’d bring Jon into the equation to give things a little more substance. 7 Reasons has been going on twenty months now. Given our success we would have thought we’d at least have been interviewed on Yorkshire based radio station Whippet FM by now. Sadly, we haven’t. And that’s really disappointing. But, being innovators of great stature, we have decided to do what Whippet FM hasn’t. We are going to interview ourselves. In this two part special we are going to be sitting on the sofa talking to each other. Via the medium of email. This week, it’s Jon interviewing Marc. Here we go.

JL: Hello Marc. Nice baby/glasses. Why did you feel it necessary to involve me in 7 Reasons?

MF: Hello Jon. Nice fiancé/biscuits. It seemed logical. I realised that with someone else on board, I would only have to come up with three and a half reasons per day and – I’ve been told – that doing things on your own is less fun. The first seven reasons piece that I wrote (which was on my own blog, before the provisional concept of the site came to me in the bath) was also partially your idea, so it seemed like the thing to do. It does have its drawbacks: Not being the best writer on my own website occasionally irritates me and I’ve learned more about Whitstable than I ever wanted to but, those minor matters aside, time has proved that it was the right decision. It’s a bit like a variant on infinite monkey theory: If there are two thoroughly daft people in the world with roughly compatible interests and skill-sets, eventually they’ll end up running a website together. Or annoying a woman. Or both. I’m also a big fan of the writing of Jonathan Lee. This way I can see it more often (and get to remove the rogue apostrophes).

JL: It’s nice to hear you’re such a fan, but let’s talk about you more. Almost two years ago you quit the wine industry to start 7 Reasons and redesign the whole of your house. Which do you feel has been more successful?

MF: Well, I do now have a library, a loft, a working roof and a big muddy hole in the front garden but parts of the house are still pink. 7 Reasons, on the other hand, isn’t pink at all. It is also visible from Rio de Janeiro. Definitely 7 Reasons.

JL: We’re approaching our 500th post Birthday. That’s a lot, especially when you consider we use the same formula every single day. Have you ever been tempted to call it a day and go back to fearns.blogspot.com?

Oh, most days. Usually when I’m stuck on five reasons. But other than that, no, not really. I test myself occasionally just to ensure that I retain the ability to write without counting to seven, but 7 Reasons is much more fun and some days it just seems to write itself. Saturdays, mostly.

JL: Obviously an ability to write and count up to seven are essential requirements for a 7 Reasons writer – and may I just say on one of those counts you succeed admirably – but are there any other skills that you feel lend themselves favourably to being part of the 7 Reasons team?

MF: Yes. Anyone can write seven reasons for something, but to make it entertaining requires some sort of minor unhinged-ness, eccentricity, neurosis, and perhaps a soupçon of Francophobia. Most people, for example, on hearing the captivating tones of the woman next door singing lullabies to her children would think no more of it and carry on. A member of the 7 Reasons team would have a different thought process:

That’s the woman next door singing a lullaby. Wow, she’s got lovely pitch and an impressive range. I wish my child’s mother could sing this well to him. Perhaps I could convince the woman next-door to sing to him occasionally, he’d like that… Wait! What am I doing? I’m coveting my neighbour’s wife! I’m not supposed to be doing that, the Bible says not to (possibly). And I’m not even coveting her out of lust! I’m coveting her for her parenting skills, which is probably an even worse betrayal of my child’s mother than coveting a woman for more conventional reasons. Or is it? Does this mean I’m going to hell? Can I get a 7 Reasons post out of it?

That’s the sort of mindset that the 7 Reasons team bring to the plate every day.

JL: What about the need to have a thick skin? You recently wrote a piece about the M&S Dine In For £10 deal. On reading the article, Mark Spencer (probably not his real name) suggested that you were a complete idiot and proffered that you were someone who moans about anything and everything. He then called you an idot. An improvement on idiot though one suspects not overly complimentary. How do you deal with the personal insults?

MF: Before he(she?) called me an “idot”, which as a fan of irony, I heartily approve of, he(she?) also complained (semi-literately) that I wrote a full article on the subject. Presumably he(she?) inhabits a world where people that disagree with him(her?) can only do it in that arcane and obscure form, the partial-article. Either that or Mark Spencer (or, more accurately, Anonymous-From-The-Internet) is a bit unhinged and should really be ignored by right-thinking people. After all, if you have to resort to abuse where there is room for debate and opinion, you’ve really already marked yourself out as not worthy of anyones’ consideration or attention. Generally, I’m happy that I write fair-mindedly, and if people choose not to read things in that manner, that’s really up to them. And most people do, which is heartening.

JL: 7 Reasons is very much concept driven, in a marketplace full of content driven websites do you think the 7 Reasons approach has helped or hindered its growth?

MF: No. Or yes. Or, more accurately, I don’t know. I think it adds a nice hook to the titles of pieces and gives the potential reader some sort of inkling of what to expect. If you imagine the titles of our pieces without the prefix 7 Reasons, what you might expect to see when clicking on that link would be far less clear. I think people realise that they’re not going to get some dull, sprawling, ranty tract that will take all day to read when they see that there are a fixed number of reasons. Plus it gives people that have failed to observe the name on the link or the website’s header the chance to say of any given post, “What, only seven?” and wear their own ignorance as a badge. They seem to like doing that.

On balance, I think the concept helps to attract an audience, but it isn’t the key to retaining them. That’s the role of the content. And all I need to do now is add the phrases “evolve viral experiences”, “synergize leading-edge web-readiness” and “drive front-end bandwidth” to this paragraph and then I can draw a cock on my own back and beat myself to death with an iPad. Great question, Jon. Thanks.

JL: They don’t call me the young Michael Parkinson…actually, that sentence stops there. They don’t call me the young Michale Parkinson. In what will hopefully be a more enjoyable question to answer, which three posts, from the 500 plus that have been published, stand out in your mind?

MF: 7 Reasons Not to Write on a Train stands out. I really enjoyed writing that one, though it really sticks in my mind as a result of the epic battle I had to upload it from Essex the next day. The friends that we were staying with had a broken internet connection that I could have fixed but they couldn’t remember their password. Then it turns out that no establishment in Essex (apart from one place) had working WiFi. Then the working WiFi in the place with the working WiFi stopped working just as I started using it, and many of the places that advertised WiFi weren’t there any more. After six hours of trying to upload the piece from Essex I had to abandon my wife and friends to go to London to use the internet. And to have a beer.

7 Reasons We Love Propaganda Posters also stands out. Just because there are websites out there that have accepted our posters and explanations as historical fact and there’s a part of me that finds that very funny.

7 Reasons Sports Personality 2009 Was A Joke also stands out, mostly for the debate about sport in the 1990s that ensued in the comments section. I don’t think you’ve ever researched anything as thoroughly as you did the sporting year of 1994 during that debate. And then someone else we knew turned up and commented thinking that our website was The Guardian. Fun all round.

JL: And finally, what hopes do you have for 7 Reasons in the future?

MF: Untold riches, tiramisu, world domination and minions; it’d be great to have some of them. Oh, and a book deal.

JL: Well best of luck with that Marc Fearns. Thank you for talking to us.

MF: We’re welcome.

Next week: In Conversation With Jonathan Lee!

May 15, 2011
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Cash Peters is Awesome

It’s Saturday and, as is traditional at the weekend, the 7 Reasons team are off somewhere avoiding DIY and trying not to see the inside of a shoe shop. So, sitting up straight in an immaculately pressed dinner jacket on the 7 Reasons sofa today poised to inform, educate and entertain us, is regular guest poster, Dr Simon Percy Jennifer Best. Take it away Simon.

Many of you won’t have heard of Cash Peters. If you are one of these people, you’re missing out. He is awesome. Here’s why.

1. Television Reviews One of Cash’s jobs is reviewing US television for the BBC Radio 5 Live programme, Up All Night, though sometimes reviews appear to be an afterthought during his weekly twenty five minute slot. He talks about a seemingly random assortment of stuff including; the neighbours he suspected of being in a witness protection programme, burying a lady’s dog behind his garage, the ghost in his house, celebrity encounters in LA, the space shuttle and Idaho. But it is when reviewing television that he is at his best. He described Downton Abbey as “Upstairs Downstairs with a bit more upstairs” and the ABC show Skating with the Stars as “Rather like Dancing with the Stars, except with no dancing and no stars”. He has also managed to mock Piers Morgan about the slump in his ratings. Cash Peters is awesome because his TV reviews are laugh out loud funny.

2. Longevity. Cash’s regular BBC 5 live slot has been running for thirteen years. This is an impressively long time for any radio feature where things generally last for a few weeks or, if they’re really special, about a year before being dropped. The only other slot that has been running this long on late night radio is Dotun Adebayo’s Virtual Bookshelf.* Despite this Wogan-esque longevity Cash still has all his own hair, has never worn a cardigan, and the slot still feels fresh and interesting. Cash Peters is awesome because his slot – though long lasting – remains vibrant.

3. Location, Location, Location. Cash is probably most famous, worldwide, for his all-too-short-lived travel show: Stranded with Cash Peters. In this show, he travelled to lots of exotic locations and basically lived rough. However, that isn’t why he’s is awesome, it’s his radio broadcasting that marks him out. After using a studio in LA for years (where he was basically squatting) he switched to broadcasting from home. At first he did this from inside his sauna, until it was discovered that this made him sound like he was talking from inside a small wooden box.** He now broadcasts from his living room floor surrounded by cables and his laptop. He has to put up with numerous technical difficulties but despite this he always entertains. Cash Peters is awesome: He is his own sound engineer, producer and studio manager.

4. Timing. Cash’s slot on BBC Radio 5 Live is broadcast on a Tuesday night/Wednesday morning at 2:35 am. This is not exactly a prime time slot. It is, however, the prime slot for insomniacs, lorry drivers, shift workers and milkmen. All you get on TV at this time is Quiz Call, reruns of Bergerac and Countryfile with sign language. However, the fact that he is on in the middle of the night and doesn’t get the recognition or listenership that he deserves doesn’t diminish his enthusiasm or the originality of his material. Cash Peters is awesome because he’s brilliant on radio when the rest of the world is asleep.

5. Diet. Cash Peters likes cake. “Big deal” you might say, “So do I”. Cash eats a lot of cake: Then every so often he does a liver flush or a master cleanse, which is basically a two week regime of torturing your body to discover you have been walking around with a conga eel, a vat of grease and a sizeable quantity of Inca gold in your gut. Cash purges himself, blogs about it, and tells you how healthy he feels as a result. He’s so evangelistic and compelling on the subject that he gets right up to the point of making you think it is a good idea, before he returns to the cake, hamburgers and buffet food, which makes everyone else feel better despite not having been through a liver flush. Cash Peters is awesome because, unlike other celebrities, he is not on a constant guilt inducing diet.

6. Travel. Cash is also a travel writer and broadcaster (or rather he was, he’s now given it up for life in LA with his partner, his cats and his ex-ghost***). He has authored two books, Gullible’s Travels and Naked in Dangerous Places. The second is connected with the TV series Stranded with Cash Peters (currently showing on Discovery Travel and on Living at 5 am and 5:30 am respectively (see what I mean about a milkman’s prime time viewing?)). In these books Cash went to such enticing places as the Museum of Dirt, the Precious Moments Chapel and even further afield to Vanuatu and Alaska. He says on the cover of one book that he eats little and is allergic to just about everything, but still he went and, what is more, he wrote about going. I don’t think he features on the Solvang, California tourist board’s Christmas card list but that is a small price to pay. Cash Peters is awesome because he visited lots of inhospitable, godforsaken and frankly boring places so that you and I don’t have to.

7. Listener Engagement. Cash often jokes with Rhod Sharp (the venerable presenter of Up All Night) that, given the timing, their slot only gets fifteen listeners. This isn’t false modesty but their genuine belief. Sort of. One day Cash set out to find these 15. Not only did he find them (via the medium of Twitter) but he assigned them numbers and established a list. Unsurprisingly the list grew beyond the original 15. Cash has promised to use these listeners to storm town hall meetings, picket book-signings by celebrities, or just to disrupt a taping of Strictly Come Dancing. I for one am looking forward to going for Craig Revel Horwood with a pitchfork. So what if you’re not on the list? Well this is just an example of how Cash engages with his listeners . He’s responds to those fans who tweet him and write into the show. Last year a listener – Brit Homes – wrote to Rhod complaining about the “rubbish programmes” Cash reviews. Did Cash listen to her points and respond in a calm and reasoned manner? Not a bit of it. Cash’s response was the withering: “Well Brit, you clearly have no taste”. Cash Peters is awesome because he engages with his listeners, both positively and negatively but always to the benefit of those he interacts with and always in an entertaining manner****.

*Actually it’s only be going for about six months it just feels like it’s been running since Jimmy Young was on the BBC home service.

** This shouldn’t have come as a surprise. He was doing exactly that.

*** They don’t have a ghost anymore, they had their house cleansed.

****Yes Brit I do believe that you needed to be told you have bad taste.

May 14, 2011
7 Reasons The News of the World Should Hack My Phone

Breaking News: Sienna Miller has received a payout of £100,000 in damages from the News of the World as compensation for hacking her phone. This seems like a nice bit of business for her, but not such a good deal for them. But I have a better one. I would like to propose that the News of the World hack my phone as I believe it would be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Here are seven reasons why.

1. It Would Be Easier. I don’t mind the News of the World hacking my phone. I’ll quite happily consent to it (on my terms). That means that you’ll have to spend a lot less time and money on skulduggery and post-hacking legal fees. Sure, there’ll be less exposure if it’s legal, but the savings will more than offset the loss of free publicity. And the News of the World will be able to stop reporting on the goings on at the News of the World every week, so your staff would be able to get out of the office and get some fresh air. They’d like that. You’d have a happier, healthier work force.

2. It Would Be Different. The tabloid papers are full of stories telling us what celebrities are wearing on the beach and it’s always a bikini that reveals super sizzlin’ so and so’s superb post-baby beach bod/frumpy formerly fab actresses new-found flab/supermodel’s cellulite horror! (delete as appropriate). I don’t own a bikini and display none of those things on the beach so would be a genuine point of difference for your paper. Surely there are people out there that would rather see pictures of a man on a beach dressed in a shirt, jeans and a sensible pair of brogues cavorting with a bag of chips or pointing at a donkey. I also make sandcastles.

3. It Would Benefit My Friends And Family. And that’s important. As a fellow practitioner of the Jonathan-Lee-Method-of-Telephonic-Acknowledgement, I too ignore the phone a lot, as I’m usually busy doing something else; often something to do with writing, babies or writing about babies. This means that I can be quite hard to get hold of. If you hacked my phone then everyone that calls me for information would be able to keep up with what I’m doing in your newspaper and there’d be fewer calls for me to ignore. That would greatly benefit both my friends and the woman with the monotone voice that tells me how many messages I have. She must be quite tired of it.

4. It Would Benefit Me. I often don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing or where I’m supposed to be on any given day and my life seems to be an endless whirl of almost-missed appointments and sudden changes of plan. If my phone was hacked, I could read about what I was supposed to be doing that day in the morning paper. That would be a big help. That would save me from buying the diary that I never use once a year and it would save my wife from leaving notes stuck to the espresso machine for me to find in the morning.

5. It Would Be Interesting. I’ll level with you: I know almost nothing about Sienna Miller. She probably spends her time swanning about* in yachts and near red carpets in a gown; I just don’t care enough to find out. I do, however, know loads about myself so it stands to reason** that I’m more interesting than Sienna Miller. Who wouldn’t prefer to find out about the lifestyle of a York-based, tiramisu-obsessed father and humourist? I visit quilt museums and send texts about the war. That’s the sort of stuff that will really shift papers.

6. It Would Generate An Additional Revenue Stream. About 60%*** of my voicemails are from people asking where I am, usually because I’m late or in the wrong place or forgot I was supposed to be somewhere because I didn’t write it down/have time to make a coffee. With phone location and Google Maps though, it would be possible for a live Marc-location to be streamed on the News of the World website. At any given moment readers could find out where I was. I could find out where I was. And where I’d been too. I could also pretend to be a glamorous international gadabout by posting my phone to friends overseas. I’d like that, and the subscribers to the Marc-Locator, the Map-o-Marc, the Marc-o-Loco-Tron (I’ll work on the name) would doubtless find it thrilling. I’d definitely subscribe.

7. I’m Cheaper Than Sienna Miller. I’d quite happily settle for £50,000 to have my phone hacked by Rupert Murdoch. For that, he can have the voicemails, the text messages, the live GPS location, the conversations with my sister about how to dismantle a travel cot and the pictures my wife takes of the cat when I foolishly leave my phone unattended. At £50,000, I’m a bargain. Hack me!

*Free bonus link!

**If we don’t subject this statement to a rigorous analysis.

***Made up figure: I’m not so dull that I spend my time cataloguing and categorising my voicemail messages.

May 13, 2011
7 Reasons Not To Have A Staring Contest With The BBC One Ident Hippo

For one reason – which is why it doesn’t qualify for this site – I had to live pause the TV last night so that Claire and I could watch The Apprentice together. I paused the TV when the Hippo ident was showing. The exact point at which I paused is shown below. Knowing that I had at least fifteen minutes before I could press play, I had a choice. Start the ironing or have a staring contest with the hippo. I chose the latter. This is my story (of why it was a stupid idea).

1. Winning. From the moment I even contemplated staring at the hippo I knew I was going to lose. The only way I could have won is if we had had a power cut. (An unlikely scenario unless I was to attack the fuse box with a cucumber). And yet, despite being fully aware of the highly probable outcome, I still entered the battle. It was pointless, it was a waste of time and I was always going to finish second. Or last. Whichever didn’t come first really. For someone who enjoys winning it was a bizarre and futile decision that did me no favours. When the inevitable did happen a little bit of my aura had been destroyed. I’m was no longer the man I once was. So if you are ever tempted, don’t do it. You’ll never be the same again.

2. Distractions. A couple of minutes into the contest my phone rang. Now, even if I don’t answer my phone, I nearly always look at the display to see who I am going to ignore. It’s a habit. While on this occasion I was strong enough to ignore it, my mind was no longer on the job in hand. It was on who might be calling me. Was it Claire saying she’d be longer than she initially thought? Was it my Mum wondering where the rest of her Mother’s Day present was? Was it Marc wanting to sell me a baby? To this very minute I am not sure if my line of vision flinched towards my phone or not. It’s impossible to say. What I do know is, it did me no favours. When you are staring at a Hippo – especially a picture of one on the TV – you have to be in the zone and you have to stay in the zone. Distractions are zone killers.

3. Fish. I gave myself the benefit of the doubt. I told myself that my line of vision had not altered and so, if I was able, I may re-enter the zone. And, after a few minutes, that is what happened. I know this is what happened because my focus began to drift. The hippo was now a blurred hippo. And then the blurred hippo wasn’t a hippo at all. It was a fish. A fish in side-profile. A scary fish in side-profile. I mean this thing was ugly. It had a pair of lips Leslie Ash would have been proud of and a scaly body that reminded me of this. I am not sure this will work for you – in fact I am not sure I want it to work for you – but if you have a spare ten minutes just stare at the hippo above. If you’re unlucky the fish should appear across the lop of the hippo’s head. The lips appear in the hippo’s right eye if that helps.

4. Guilt. Having rid myself of visions of Piers Morgan and Leslie Ash’s illegitimate child, I then experienced severe pangs of guilt. The hippo was drowning. I had done that. I had paused the hippo and made him tread water. Twelve hours on I am pretty sure he wasn’t drowning at all. I am pretty sure this was pre-recorded footage and all I had done was paused its progress. But at the time, when you’ve been staring at a hippo for approximately thirteen minutes, that type of rational thought doesn’t enter your mind. You really do feel like a hippo murderer.

5. Terror. This is when you realise that the hippo is staring back at you. And he looks angry. Probably because you have made him tread-water for fifteen minutes. He also looks a bit like a crocodile with his nostrils protruding from the water. And that’s when you start panicking. Are you actually on BBC One? Are you sure you’re not watching – and recording – Animal Planet? Do you even have the Animal Planet channel? Is there even a channel called Animal Planet? So, yes. Staring at a hippo for too long makes you go mad. Really quite mad.

6. Visions. When Claire eventually arrived beside me on the sofa and gave me an opportunity to end my ordeal, I realised it wouldn’t be over for a little while longer. All the staring at a bright screen in an otherwise dark environment left me looking through those annoying colour blotches that you are only supposed to get when your eyes are closed. As one does in such circumstances I shut my eyes to try and get rid of them. This didn’t work. Instead I was faced with a vision of the hippo. In sort of a yellow and red mosaic. A mosaic that slowly began to disperse. Which is when I decided I was through and settled back to watch The Apprentice. With the occasional appearance from a fish.

7. Tea. I can barely bring myself to write the words. It went cold.

May 12, 2011
7 Reasons Blackout Blinds Are Surprisingly Effective

My wife and I are trying to train our child to recognise the difference between day and night at the moment and the latest weapon in our armoury is a blackout blind: a blind which prevents any light coming through the window. This, we not unreasonably thought, would prevent our six-week old son waking up at 5am when sunlight streams through our East facing bedroom window and would help him get into a settled routine of sleeping at night. So far, it has proved effective (after a fashion).

1. Fitting. As the member of the 7 Reasons team that is competent at DIY I envisaged that there would be no problems installing our blind, and I was almost correct. It was incredibly simple to fit, with only a bit of light drilling required. And it was simple right up until the moment – while I was balanced precariously atop a step-ladder – that everything went dark. Not just dim, you should understand, but dark. Preternaturally dark. Darker than spending a dark night in the darkest room of the Prince of Darkness wearing a sleeping mask. Darker than anything ever. There was no light. “Help!” “Help!” I called until my wife came up the stairs and opened the door, flooding the room with light from the hallway. “It all went dark”, I explained to a sceptical wife who couldn’t comprehend – or didn’t believe – that something as insubstantial as a piece of material could block out all light. I climbed down from the ladder with my reputation for DIY prowess, if not my dignity, intact.

2. Baby’s Bedtime. In the evening our son fell asleep before we expected him to and, rather than look a gift horse (or a sleeping baby, which is a very similar creature to a gift horse) in the mouth, we decided we would put him to bed right then. We gingerly carried him up the stairs and swaddled him in his cot. We began to sneak out of the room and paused to close the blind on the way. Everything went black. We couldn’t see a thing. We partially raised the blind again so that we could find the light switch and turned on the light so that we could see the door and find our way out. This woke the baby. Bugger.

3. Mummy’s Bedtime. Eventually, we were able to get our son back to sleep and, quite soon after, my wife snuck up to bed. I have little idea what happened, but after a couple of minutes, from my position in the room below, I heard a loud bang, followed about thirty seconds later by the noise of the baby crying. Then I heard the sound of my wife trying to placate the crying baby with a cuddly toy, before my parental selective deafness kicked in and I returned to what I was doing.

4. Daddy’s Bedtime. Eventually, the baby became quiet again and, having spent the remainder of a fascinating evening reconfiguring the 7 Reasons W3 Total Cache plugin and our email servers*, it was time for me to go to bed. I went up the stairs and changed in another room, so as not to disturb anyone. Then I snuck across the landing into the bedroom and closed the door noiselessly behind me. Where once there would have had been some residual light filtering through the blind to aid my navigation across the room, now there was none. I knew roughly where the bed was though, and I took several tentative steps toward it before stumbling over something and letting out an involuntary scream as I lost my balance and landed in a heap on the bed.

5. “AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” Shrieked a lump in the bed from beneath me as, in the pitch darkness, a screaming and unknown assailant pounced on her. I groped around for the switch to the bedside light and, finding it quickly, turned it on. I looked behind me to see what was on the floor. “Are you drunk?”, the now slightly calmer lump in the bed enquired. “I fell over an owl,” I replied.

6. “WWWWAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!” Said a tiny voice from the other side of the room reacting to the sudden light. Eventually we were able to get him back to sleep.

7. Sleep. I was unaware of what occurred during the remainder of the night. I have since been told that the usual cycle of the baby waking up and requiring feeding and changing carried on unaltered by the loss of the light. I was told that this morning when, after what I can only describe as the most blissfully tranquil sleep of my life, my rather tired looking wife shook me awake and informed me it was 11am and that we were going to be late for our lunch appointment. “But it can’t be”, I replied, “It’s still pitch black”.

So there you have it. Blackout blinds do work, and you can use them to lull the unsuspecting into sleeping longer and later. They just don’t work on babies.

*I had hoped to watch a couple of episodes of Bergerac. We sacrifice a lot for 7 Reasons.

May 11, 2011
7 Reasons The Samoans Really Haven’t Thought This Through

If you read the Weird & Wonderful section of the BBC website you may well have seen that Samoa is to set to jump forward by one day. You may also know this if you are Samoan. And live in Samoa. If you don’t, you need to read this next bit very carefully. At midnight on 28th December 2011 – Samoan time – it won’t be 28th December 2011. It will actually be midnight on 29th December 2011. The Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, says the twenty-four hour leap to the west side of the international data line will be good for the economy. It will enable them to do more business with Australia and New Zealand. But have they really thought it through? Our investigations show they may want to rethink.

Samoa Wants To Move To The Left Of The Dotted Line

1. 28th December 2011. That’s a Wednesday! Wednesday is a business day. Surely logic would have said jump forward in time at a weekend. Lose a Saturday or a Sunday. Not a Wednesday!

2. Tourism. Unsurprisingly, what with it being a small island with beautiful beaches, Samoa is a popular holiday destination for people like to lie around doing nothing while getting sunburnt. As a result the tourist industry is a major part of the Samoan economy. The problem is that went people book a ten day holiday they expect ten days. They don’t expect nine days. But that’s exactly what would happen if you go to Samoa for Christmas and New Year. Which is why you won’t. No one will. At the end of this year Samoa will be completely free of tourists. The Samoan economy will shudder to a worrying halt.

3. Natives. What happens if they have a birthday on 28th December? They are either going to stay in Samoa and not have a birthday which means no money being spent on presents, cake, balloons and Pin The Tail On The Donkey kits. Or they are going to go away to celebrate which means money will be spent on presents, cake, balloons, and Pin The Tail On The Donkey kits in Sydney. Either way, Samoa’s economy loses.

4. Productivity. So, without a 28th December, Samoa will be faced with a four day week. Only they won’t because the 26th and 27th are public holidays. So they’ll have a two day week. Thanks to the foresight of Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, Samoans are going to have to cram five days work into just two. It’s not going to happen. I guarantee you now that the entire Somoan workforce will be on strike on the 29th and 30th December. So basically, from 23rd December until 3rd January, nothing is going to happen in Samoa. Hardly the sort of attitude that is going to inspire New Zealand and Australia based companies to work with them is it?

5. Pressure. At the moment Samoa is the last place to see daylight. The pressure is off them really. Everyone else has done that day and are now either chilling, sleeping or preparing for a the next day. Samoans can pretty much do what they want safe in the knowledge that no one is watching. Come 2012 though, they are going to be leading the world into every new day. They have the responsibility to get us off to a good start. If they have a bad one, so do the rest of us. That is a lot of pressure and a lot of change. Really, they should have had a trial period first. Perhaps moving Samoa to just West of Ireland. This way they’d have experienced some pressure, but not potentially economy damaging pressure.

6. The Americas. Samoa’s argument is that the majority of their business ties are with Australia and New Zealand and so by advancing by a day they get to work with them for five days instead of just three*. That’s putting an awful lot of eggs in just two baskets. There are thirty-five ~~countries~~ baskets in The Americas. Some baskets, like the basket of the USA, are so big that they contain sub-baskets. There’s a basket for New York. A basket for Chicago. A basket for Los Angeles. In other words, there is opportunity. If a Samoan finds a basket is full, well he can move on to another. This time-travelling is not only going to reduce the size of these America based baskets, but some will disappear all together.** Lots of Samoans will be looking to transfer their eggs to the baskets of New Zealand and Australia. And while these baskets are going to be slightly bigger, there are going to be a whole lot more eggs in them. And when you have too many eggs in a basket that leads to cracking. And, eventually, egg white saturation.

7. Warranties. Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, I purchased a freeview box in Apia on 29th December 2010. The warranty runs out on 28th December 2011. What happens if it breaks down on 28th December? A date that doesn’t exist. I foresee a lot of correspondence going back and forth. That’s a whole lot of stamps. And a whole lot of expense. It alarms me that Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has made the decision without even contemplating such eventualities. And let me assure you, by hook or by crook I will get my hands on a Samoan freeview box and I will be following this up. All for the love of reasoning.

*At present, when it’s Monday in New Zealand and Australia, it’s Sunday in Samoa. And when it’s Friday in Samoa, it’s Saturday in New Zealand and Australia.

**When it’s Monday in Samoa it will be Sunday in The Americas and when it’s Friday in the Americas it will be Saturday in Samoa.

May 10, 2011
7 Reasons That 7 Reasons Almost Didn’t Appear Today

Hello, it’s Monday, Marc here. There was confusion and something got lost in the confusion and other things didn’t happen and the confusion prevailed – and the confusion was all mine, by the way – and it was all my fault. Here are seven reasons that normal service was interrupted by the confusion today.

1. I Forgot. I just forgot. I was awoken by screaming at 5am and I remember thinking two things: Firstly, “Pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaasssssseeeee, shut the fuck up!” and secondly, “I definitely posted yesterday, it’s not my turn, I can go back to sleep if my (extraordinarily loud) child shuts up”. I was mistaken. There was no way that anyone was going back to sleep and it was my turn, though I was too sleep-deprived/terrorised by a tiny person to realise that.

2. I Got Distracted. Happy – in my own mind – that I had a day off, I dressed my son in traditional baby garb; a top with ships on it, blue bellbottoms, socks with anchors on them and a sailor’s hat. I outfitted myself in a checked shirt, boots and jeans (essentially, we looked like a sailor and a lumberjack) then, ten minutes later, he peed everywhere and we both had to get changed (not to a builder, a cop or an Indian), but to a less flashily dressed baby and a now slightly nautical – and still a tiny bit damp – grown up.

3. I Relaxed. I just sat about in the sun – it only appears very rarely in Yorkshire (so rarely that we point at it) and soaked up its rays. Not only was it an unusual experience, it also dried the urine-soaked shirt that I was wearing quite effectively, without too much of a smell. At that moment that seemed like something of a victory. It’s nice to be dry.

4. The Health Visitor Came. And she is lovely. So lovely in fact that she complemented our son something rotten on his development and gave us such helpful advice that we invited her back in a fortnight to discuss my son’s belly button. My wife and I actually got distracted by talk of the belly button. I am sorry. Please pity us for what I have become, we used to be interesting people. We could, however, have discussed the belly button all afternoon. Really! Perhaps we did. Well, at least for a couple of hours.

5. Eventually Our Health Visitor Escaped Talk Of The Belly Button. I still had no inkling that it was my day to write and, in the afternoon, we strolled into town en famile. We went to the Chinese supermarket. Well, for me it was a trip to the Chinese supermarket to pick up noodles and sauces and things; for my wife it was a trip to the aquarium, to see the fishes and the lobsters. Fortunately both are housed within the same establishment, so we both had a good time. So did our son, though we don’t know which aspect he preferred yet. Time will tell.

6. Then I Went To The Pub. It wasn’t bath night and, as I still can’t feed our child much, I wandered off and spent a lovely evening in the local with some friends. It was great. Free from the responsibility of parenthood and reasonerhood I just forgot myself and had a great time. I was even awake for most of it, which makes a nice change from my state at home at the moment.

7. Then I Arrived Home. I thought I’d check on how things had gone today, 7 Reasons-wise: I soon found that there wasn’t a post; I checked the archive; I counted stuff on fingers and toes, and suddenly – with horror – I realised that it was my turn. I can only apologise. I mistakenly thought it wasn’t my turn and that I could somnambulate nonchalantly through my day. I was wrong, it was, and I can only apologise dear readers.*

*7 Reasons will return tomorrow, with the competent one at the helm. Sorry.

May 9, 2011
It’s That SPAM Again

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

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

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

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

May 8, 2011
7 Reasons That Having A Baby Can Be Hard On A Man
It’s Saturday. Or, as we call it around these parts, Richard O’Hagan Day. You see Richard, apart from being a fine writer, is on a mission. A mission to become the third permanent member of the 7 Reasons team. He may not have mentioned it out loud, he may not even realise it himself, but given the sheer number of O’Hagan works we have in the 7 Reasons ‘to be published’ vault, his sub-conscious wants it. Badly. Just take a look at these figures that show the origins of submissions and their associated percentages.
- USA – 28%
- UK – 23%
- Australia – 5%
- France – 3%
- Canada – 2%
- Pakistan – 2%
- India – 2%
- South Africa – 1%
- Muppetville – 1%
- Richard O’Hagan – 33%
Exactly. Incredible. And rather disturbing. Which is a shame really because the writer of The Memory Blog isn’t disturbing at all. He’s a great writer with lots of useful advice. Which he will now aptly demonstrate.

Three Men And A Byron

Oh, I know what you’re thinking. It is something along the lines of “He’s a man (allegedly). He knows nothing about how hard it is to have a baby. How DARE he try and offer an opinion on this.”

To which all I can say is, bear with me*, ladies. There’s a point to all of this. I am a father. Marc of this parish has just become father to The Legendary Byron Sebastian Fearns. And Jon has just got engaged, which means that fatherhood is marching towards him with the grim inevitability of a giant spider with a particularly juicy fly snared in its web. There are some serious points which he needs to be aware of, as do any men out there without issue. There’s a big temptation to think that the difficult bit comes around nine months before the birth, but that’s not the case. Once the baby arrives, life is hard for a man.

1. Being a Role Model. You’ve spend the last few decades of your life belching, breaking wind and yelling when you want to. Sorry, but there’s someone else in the house to do that now. Your role is now to be a positive role model for the child, which means an end to coming home bladdered at 3am and trying to make toast using the DVD player, no popping out to the shops and vanishing for three days, and absolutely no supporting Manchester United. (Unless your offspring will be Charlie Sheen’s grandson, in which case you’ve a family tradition to maintain. And even Charlie draws the line at the last thing).

2. Expense. Everyone says that babies are expensive. They’re not. It will be years before they crash your car, or you need to bail them out. People who look after babies, on the other hand, really are expensive. You will find yourself forking out hundreds of pounds a month just so that you can go to work to earn the money to pay the people who look after your child whilst you go to work. It is a cycle more vicious than the one that resulted in a baby in the first place.

3. Pain. Once your female partner has given birth, nothing on this earth is going to convince them that you are enduring any kind of pain whatsoever. The Black Knight in ‘Monty Python & The Holy Grail’ wasn’t brave, he just knew that he was never going to convince his Lady that having all of your limbs lopped off justified reaching for the Aspirin. Being a father means never being able to complain of a hangover again.

4. Language. Whilst we are at it, you might as well brace yourself for the fact that ladies in labour are not always the politest, and that you may be about to learn a few new words. All of them directed at you and several of them anatomically improbable.

5. Empathy. For many years, you and the prospective mother of your prospective child have lived in harmony, anticipating each other’s needs and desires. Having a baby will put an end to all of that. There are two questions that you should never ask a woman in labour, and one of them is “How does it feel?”** You should never ask this question, because you will receive an answer which puts you in the one situation in which you are unequipped to empathise. The answer is “Like the worst period pain ever”***

6. In-Laws. If you produce a baby, your in-laws will visit. Need I say more?

7. Space (Lack Thereof). You might be thinking that the saying that babies might be small but they need a lot of stuff is some sort of urban myth. There are certainly many urban myths about having a baby and you’d be right to disregard them**** but not this one. Work might expand to fill the time available, but nothing beats the rule which says that baby stuff expands to fill the space available. There’s a great temptation to think that you can get around this by moving to a bigger house, but it won’t work. There will still be stuff everywhere. And what is more, you’ll have to work more hours to pay the bigger mortgage, meaning you need more childcare, meaning that you need to work harder to pay for the childcare, and so on until death, really.

On the other hand, children are great fun and the hardship is well worth it. Yes, even the bits where she swears at you.

*I said bear WITH ME, not ‘bear down’. Stop it! Now! Think of the carpets!

**You’re not old enough to know the other one

***There’s actually a question on Facebook which says ‘Which hurts more, having a baby or a kick in the testicles’, which has only been answered by bigots and idiots. And the teenage daughter of a friend of mine, who has experience of neither.

****Disregard any books you might be given, too. The babies can’t read them and so have no idea what to do
May 7, 2011