Tag: internet

Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why Christmas Should Happen In June

We are sure many of you remember with great fondness our attempts at rebranding the 24th December as ‘The Day Of The Sausage’. Sadly – and wrongly – the idea never captured the imagine of the masses. As such we have long been looking for a new festive-based campaign to get behind. And we may have found it in today’s guest post. Over to Sam.

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I’ve had enough of Christmas in December and reckon it’d be far more fun if it were to occur in June. Here are seven reasons why!

1. Christmas Shopping Would Be Fun. I don’t, as a rule, dislike buying my family and friends Christmas gifts. However, I do dislike turning out onto busy, dark, weather-battered streets in search of the perfect pressie. The ensuing festive scrum is just unpleasant. Admittedly moving the event to June wouldn’t lessen the crowds, but I have a theory. Defending oneself from the elements with sweaters, jumpers, coats, scarfs and the rest increases ones size. I, for a while, owned an anorak that was large enough to warrant its own seat on the underground. If Christmas happened in June this wouldn’t be an issue, t-shirts, vest tops, shorts and skirts would give us room to breathe. And it is also worth mentioning it would negate the instant sauna effect every time you enter a store that occurs with our current date arrangement. Imagine the possibilities. It’d be a merry stroll on sunny streets and, when you were done, an ice cream in the park.

2. Online Christmas Shopping Would Be Less Fraught With Potential Pitfalls. I’ve not finished with Christmas shopping yet. A counter to point one would be the suggestion that the modern Christmas shopper notices that it’s December 1st and promptly makes a cup of coffee and a cheese toasty, before sitting down at their computer and surfing straight to various gift themed websites. A click here and a click there and your Crimbo shopping is done quicker than you can say, “I am a gift giving god!” And you are – as long as there is no adverse weather forecast. It’s December though, and adverse weather is what December really likes to do. Cue impenetrable blizzards and M5 stranded delivery drivers eating that hamper of chocolates you ordered.

3. Santa Would Become A Positive Role Model. Currently Santa is a heart attack waiting to happen. In a world of health awareness holding this fellow aloft as the most important person in a young person’s life alongside Pikachu is surely a bad idea. Christmas in summer would see Santa trim in no time. He’d sweat off those extra 200 pounds he’s carrying in a couple of years, especially having to scoot around the world in half the usual time due to shorter nights.

4. Cold Weather Is Rubbish! Having already mentioned the weather in points 1 and 2 does not negate the requirement for an entry on its own merit. Cold weather is miserable. Plus it’s not just the cold; it’s the sideways rain and hip-breaking conditions underfoot. Historically, aside from the Jesus’ birthday deal, it is reckoned the celebration took place in sync with the winter solstice to lift spirits because everyone was miserable due to the short days, crappy weather and that there was little agricultural work to be done. Sensible? Maybe, but sensible never went hand-in-hand with a cracking celebration. Let’s go outside and party like it’s Christmas in June and pushing 100 Fahrenheit. Oh hang on, it is!

5. No More Mulled Wine. “Hot wine?! No thanks, you’re mad.” This is the correct response when someone offers you mulled wine, except if it is Christmas when you smile and swallow it down as if hot wine if the norm. It isn’t, but seemingly it is only brought out due to the fact it’s December and we’re all freezing. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather sit outside in June’s summer sun and celebrate my Christmas by reaching in to a bucket of ice for a chilled beer.

6. I Wouldn’t Get Combined Birthday And Christmas Presents. I’m not an ungrateful sort, but for the best part of quarter of a century I’ve been the receiver of combined Christmas and birthday presents due to my parents bad planning. Yes, I have an early January birthday. Switching to June would give all those suffering the same fate a taste of two awesome gift receiving occasions that are nicely spaced throughout the year.

7. Why Not? Why not indeed? I can’t think of a reason. And as they say, a change is as good as rest. Besides when we switch we’ll be getting two Christmas celebrations within 12 months, how cool is that?! It’ll boost the economy and raise public moral. I know I’ve criticised certain elements of the December-based festivity, but it is the most wonderful time of the year. In fact, are there any negatives to just adding another Christmas in June? If we do that every one’s happy. What could be more Christmas spirited than that?!

Sam C campaigns by night for the redistribution of national holidays, whilst by day contributing to the e-commerce site, Find Me A Gift.

March 13, 2012
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why The Internet Can Save You Money

1. At Your Fingertips. If you need car or house insurance, or even a credit card or a loan, there are now lots of comparison sites out there that can help you find the cheapest option for you. So instead of having to call or even visit these places, you can now find the best options at the click of a button. You’ll save immediately. And not just money. Think of the time you’ve just saved. That can be put to good use straight away. There’s bound to be something good on ITV 3.

2. Free Delivery. Before the internet age, if you wanted something to eat, you’d usually have to cook it yourself. And although that probably is the cheapest option, it’s incredibly tiresome. It also makes a mess out of those pans. Which is why ordering your chicken jalfrezzi online seems like the perfect solution. No petrol costs to get you to the takeaway and no eating it on the bus on the way home before it gets cold.

3. Smaller Is Better. Internet and mobile technology has advanced. And so have coupons. You no longer need to stuff your bag full of paper when you’re shopping for a bargain. You can just use an internet code. If you’re a big coupon hunter, just think of all the space you’ll save. Fewer coupons, smaller handbag*. Smaller handbag**, cheaper price.

4. Get Social. More and more businesses are starting to take notice of social media. And with so many of us using the likes of Twitter and Facebook, so they should. A simple click of the ‘follow’ or ‘like’ button will open your feed up to discount codes, exclusive sales and ‘behind-the-scenes’ videos that no one wants to see. Well worth it then for a freebie. And if you don’t want your friends to know you ‘Like’ Lidl, BHS and Kerry Katona, well, just open up a new account.

5. Keeping The Love Alive. If you’re someone who likes a date or two, or if you’re newly single and ready to mingle, you can have dinner (or even drink) dates over the internet. Get a webcam, get some food, and enjoy each other’s company over Skype. You don’t have to worry about getting a taxi home and the food will cost a lot less than in Pizza Hut. The kissing might be a bit disappointing, but shut the curtains anyway. Don’t want the milkman thinking you’re weird.

6. Thinking Ahead. If you do want to venture out for dinner or drinks, whip out your smartphone and check out the reviews for all the local bars and restaurants. Look for the cheapest place, and you’ve saved a bit of money already. Yes, everywhere will have the odd bad review, but generally the person who said, ‘Don’t visit! The soup was cold!!! :-(‘ actually ordered a bowl of gazpacho.

7. Bargain Hunt. You can find pretty much everything you can think of online. Except hoverboards. Well, hoverboards that work anyway. Old DVDs, electrical items and clothes are in abundance on eBay, but it’s also worth checking local recycling groups on Facebook and Google. In some cases, like Freecycle in London, you can pick up someone’s unwanted tat for nothing. And as they say, one man’s tat is another man’s hat. Something like that.

* Or manbag.

** Or manbag.

February 7, 2012
7 Reasons To Refer To Ourselves In The Third Person

What’s the worst thing that you can do during a conversation with anyone? Well okay, there are probably many things that spring to mind, but up at the top of the list, somewhere between murder and suddenly removing your trousers is referring to yourself in the third person, which is an abominable thing to do. But is it? What if we all did it? It might not necessarily be the worst thing that could happen. Here are seven reasons why.

1. It Would Lessen The Impact. What’s your first reaction to hearing someone refer to himself in the third person? That’s right: Shock. On encountering anyone structuring a sentence in this manner the encountee is usually flabbergasted, dumbstruck, stupefied and not a little appalled. Self-doubt can even feature: Wait! Did he just refer to himself in the third person? Surely not. If we all referred to ourselves in the third person, it would come as less of a shock.

2. It Would De-stigmatise It. Once (or if) you recover from the resultant shock and self doubt that arises from an encounter with someone that refers to himself in the third person (Craig David Listener Syndrome, to use the correct medical term) there’s another reaction: He did! What a egomaniacal pillock! What a pompous pudding head! What an numb-skulled narcissistic nitwit! If we all referred to ourselves in the third person, we wouldn’t draw this unkind – though perfectly reasonable – conclusion about the few people that do this now.

3. It Would Be Useful. I have a deep-seated social flaw (other than the ability to make hostile idiots furious by writing about some meal deal). I can’t remember names. Well, actually, I can remember some names, though usually not the ones of anyone I’m conversing with at the time, or if I do it’s invariably the wrong one. For six years I referred to my nieces as Natalie and The Ginger One, but it turns out that I was wrong there too. It was Nadia, not Natalie. Imagine how brilliant it would be if everyone used their own name in conversation, as no one would ever forget another name again. It would be even better than name badges, which – to people that can’t remember names and feel uncomfortable about their inability to remember them – are just a cruel trick:

“Have you forgotten my name again, Marc?”

“No…er…Joanne, I was just…staring at your breast.”

If we all referred to ourselves in the third person, this would stop.

4. It Would Prick Pomposity. And pompous pricks need their pomposity pricked. It’s safe to say that if he had had to utter the sentence “Muammar bin Mohammad bin Abdussalam bi Humayd bin Abu Manyar bin Humayd bin Nayil al Fuhsi Gaddafi needs to visit the little boys room” every time he had needed to use the toilet he would have soon tired of it and renamed himself Kevin or something equally simple. Ever heard of a tyrant called Kevin? No. If we all referred to ourselves in the third person, there’d be less self-aggrandisement and egomania.

5. It Would Improve The Internet. One of the absolute best things about the internet is Youtube, where you can see or hear just about anything (so long as it doesn’t contain anything that Sony BMG have even breathed near). But what’s the worst thing about Youtube? Yes, the seemingly boundless trolling and abuse. The blinkered partisanship and casual racism. Having to refer to oneself in the third person would change all this. Comments like “Chad Thompson says that you should get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich” would soon put a stop to that odious meme. Or, if not, they would soon be followed by “Chad Thompson’s Mom says Chad Thompson is grounded and can’t use the internet for two weeks. Chad Thompson’s Mom says that Chad Thompson’s Mom won’t be going to the kitchen to make Chad Thompson a sandwich any time soon. Chad Thompson’s Mom says that Chad Thompson can go to the kitchen and make Chad Thompson’s Mom a sandwich.” If we all referred to ourselves in the third person, there’d be less nastiness. Or more sandwiches.

6. It Would Be A Guide To Pronunciation. Are you unable to pronounce simple names? Do you find it hard to enunciate even the simplest and most commonly-heard monikers? In that case, hello BBC Radio 5Live’s Stephen Nolan, welcome to 7 Reasons! Oh, and help is at hand. Now that your callers will have to pronounce their own names when proffering an opinion you’ll soon learn that Marc is not pronounced mork, Will is not pronounced well and Siobhan is actually pronounced…no…no one knows the answer to that, but if we all referred to ourselves in the third person we’d find out.

7. It Would Be Good For Me. I have a two syllable name. Or, to be quite clear, two names of one syllable each. This would mean that in any conversation I’d spend very little time saying my own name and more time saying the important, fascinating and scintillating things about…er…er…tiramisu and cats and stuff? Well, whatever, at least I’d know who I was saying them to. That would be a start.

October 24, 2011
7 Reasons Up The Stairs Is Amazing

Not so long ago I discovered a clip from a game-show on the internet. A game-show from Japan – home of everything utterly mad – called Up The Stairs. Knowing from having seen many other Japanese game-shows that this would probably be both awesome and impenetrable, I decided to concentrate hard on this clip and try to make some sense of it. I was right on both counts. Here are seven reasons that Up The Stairs Is Amazing.

1. It Looks Abominably Cruel. They’re sending a little old lady up the stairs. That’s what they’re doing, and the stairs look slippery. And there are men at the top wearing only pants; they don’t look very friendly. She looks particularly doddery, and the stairs look particularly slippery. What manner of fiendishness is this?

2. Oh My God! Now look what’s happened! The old lady’s fallen down the slippery stairs and has plummeted headlong into a pool. There’s an elderly lady drowning! Oh, the indignity! Oh, the horror! Oh, the humanity!

3. Help Is At Hand. But it’s not as cruel as I thought, because at least there are people helping her out. There’s a young woman, an old man, a baseball player, another old woman, a businessman and a dustman(?). What the hell are they all doing there? Is this the Japanese version of the Village People? And now the plucky old girl’s having another go! Now she’s running back up the stairs! No…she’s plummeting down the stairs and headlong into the pool again. But undeterred, she’s getting up again, a little breathlessly. But now something amazing’s happening. In a brilliant show of teamwork and solidarity, some other members of the Village People are going up the stairs with her. Now the old lady, the old man, the businessman and the baseball player are storming up the stairs. But the men in pants are hurling water-balloons at them! They score a direct hit on the old lady! She’s skidding down the stairs again. And oh, no! Her dress has come open. Aaaarrggghh!!!!

4. Wait! Thank God! That’s No Old Lady! That’s a younger man dressed as an old lady. I’ve seldom been this relieved to discover that a woman is, in fact, a man dressed as a woman. If ever. The charge up the stairs isn’t going well though. The businessman (who could well be an old lady dressed as a businessman. It’s that weird) soon follows the old lady in her descent down the slippery staircase, immediately followed by the old man (awesome direct hit by balloon to face)and the baseball player (hit on the hand, making him look like a bit of a banana). But then something truly amazing happens.

5. A Hero Emerges. The businessman has gone berserk. He’s already bounded halfway up the stairs and has stopped to make gestures (he could be summoning a giant squid from the moon. He could be exhorting a man on a bicycle to ejaculate a pancake. It’s that mad). Then he strikes. A man-in-his-pants throws a huge water-balloon at him. He ducks it. A second man-in-his-pants throws a second huge water balloon at him. It hits him square on the face and he plummets down the stairs. Soon he is followed by the old man and a new man-in-his-pants (that may formerly have been the old lady). But he doesn’t give up hope. Now the businessman’s as mad as hell and he’s not going to take it any more (Ironically, a bit like the Michael Douglas character in Falling Down). Suddenly he’s back near the top again. A man-in-his-pants throws a bucket of water at him. Then another one does. Then they start throwing stuffed red cuboids at him. Then a man-in-his-pants hits him with one. Suddenly, the businessman grabs one of the men in pants and hurls him over his shoulder and down the stairs. Then he does the same to another one! Go, you crazy Japanese businessman! Then he hurls a man in a t-shirt and pants down the stairs. And two more men in pants with a stuffed red cuboid. Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee combined wouldn’t be doing this well, not least because one is 71 and the other is dead. Suddenly the businessman is alone at the top except for an old person (I’m not playing guess the sex again) lying on some pillows on the floor. He celebrates. He grabs the old person and tries to drag them down the stairs. Yes! This must be the point of the game! To help the infirm down the stairs. But no! Now there are loads of people at the top of the stairs. There are men in pants; there’s a man in trousers; there are more men in pants. And now they’re all sliding down the stairs with the businessman and the old person except for one man-in-his-pants ascending the stairs with a stuffed red cuboid. This. Is. Amazing. And just when I didn’t think it could get any better…

6. 3:41. Interrobang! An interrobang! IT’S AN INTERROBANG!

7. Wait! How Does It Work Then? The man-in-his-pants has reached the top with his red stuffed cuboid. He raises it above his head. He roars. Everyone applauds. He roars some more. He seems to like roaring. Then, with his red stuffed cuboid still held above his head, the apparently triumphant man-in-his-pants begins – cautiously – to descend the slippery stairs. Then – somewhat predictably – after a couple of wobbles he loses his footing and slides to the bottom, followed by his red stuffed cuboid. Then everyone laughs at him. Then the dustman makes some sort of pronouncement. Then everyone cheers and some men in pants wave. I don’t know what the hell just happened there, but it was amazing. Amazing. Seriously, any ideas?

October 18, 2011
7 Reasons That It’s Not As Bad As You Think

Okay! This is a humour site and my country’s been on fire for the last couple of days, so there’s only really one thing that I can write about today, so let’s be funny about the riots. Except, no. That isn’t really going to work, is it? There are people out there losing their homes and livelihoods as a result of them and I’m sure we all have friends and family that are affected, so writing a lot of nonsense about how good the coverage of the riots will look on a brand new (and free) HD television, or how phoning 999 to report themselves will be so much easier now that everyone with a hooded top has an iPhone would seem trite and foolish. Fortunately, though, while events may have saddened me and affected my sense of humour, they haven’t affected my spirit, my love of humanity and my wonderment at peoples’ innate capacity for good and their astonishing ingenuity. Accordingly, here are seven reasons that it’s not as bad as you think.

1. Innovative Brilliance. “Necessity is the mother of invention” said Plato (in Greek, probably) and our brave and hard-working police force need tea. These lovely people have taken the time out to make them some. They’ve also devised the absolute best way to use a riot shield. Is there an image that captures Britain’s spirit better than this?

2. Collective Brilliance. The riots have demonstrated the country’s capacity for collective brilliance. Many, many people decided that they weren’t going to let their (our) streets be wrecked by the mindless idiocy of a few. The Twitter account @riotcleanup was set up and it now has almost 80,000 followers. That’s more people than have been involved in rioting and looting. People have got together in overwhelming numbers for the power of good. This picture by @lawcol888 is wonderfully uplifting.

3. Individual Brilliance. Oscar Levant said that there was “a fine line between genius and insanity” and, from that very line, this woman bravely berates rioters and looters. That there are people in this country courageous and brilliant enough to stand up to a mob so eloquently is wonderful.

4. Expectation-Altering-Brilliance. Stan Collymore (What? Wait, he’s gone mad. He’s been lauding examples of brilliance and now he’s writing about Stan Collymore!?), former Premier League footballer and someone that I have occasionally thought of as a bit of an idiot over the years tweeted this earlier:

Now, professional footballers (and former professional footballers) are often pilloried – sometimes rightly – for behaving poorly and setting a bad example to people and this was unexpected, but it was a cheering and most welcome thing to see, even if he did make me feel like a git.

5. Technological Brilliance. It’s been a while since Britain has seen rioting on this scale and there’ve been a lot of technological advances in the meantime, so it’s fair to say that any online response to it was going to be breaking new ground. The innovative use of social media as a response to events has been staggering. Almost as soon as disturbances began in Birmingham yesterday, the rather brilliant @caseyrain set up a Birmingham Riots Tumblr account to document events in the second city while the attention of the national media was focussed on London. There have been many, many other wonderful examples of innovative use of social media, with Facebook groups (,http://www.facebook.com/londoncleanup), Tumblr accounts (http://catchalooter.tumblr.com/) and websites (http://www.londonrioters.co.uk/identify/) used to promote various causes and to mobilise people into various types of action. That people have used the internet and social media so effectively to mobilize themselves into making our streets better and catching the looters is both marvellous and demonstrative of a laudable degree of collective will and creativity. Oh, and the looters are helping by using Facebook too.

6. Just Utter Brilliance. Don’t want the rioting and looting to ruin your evening? Simple. Just pretend it isn’t happening. “Riot, what riot? I say, could you pass the port, my good man?”

7. Historical Brilliance. The oft-cited high-water-mark of societal unity, sacrifice and collective accomplishment was the way that Britain dealt with the blitz during World War II. The blitz spirit is something that is often mentioned in articles that decry modern society to illustrate a decline in standards and unity, and many commentators on the current situation have spoken of the riots as being symptomatic of a breakdown in society. But rioting and looting are nothing new. During the blitz – that exalted time when our society is seen as having been at its strongest and most cohesive – with a war-depreciated police force and abundance of opportunity there was widespread looting and criminality too. The truth is that there has always been a sociopathic minority in our country ready to exploit any weakness (lack of police cover, evacuated streets etc) for their own personal gain, regardless of the consequences to others. That we don’t let the looting during the blitz affect the high regard in which we hold the selfless sacrifice of the majority during the second world war speaks volumes about us. History tells us that it’s possible to have a strong, dynamic and caring society despite having a minor element that riots and loots. And the way that the majority of Britain has reacted today to the events of the past few days suggests that little has changed. That is heartening.

August 9, 2011
7 Reasons to Shop With 7 Reasons

You’ve laughed with us, you’ve cried with us, you’ve watched us, you’ve read us, you’ve heard us, you’ve written for us, you’ve tweeted with us, you’ve got engaged with us, you’ve had a baby with us and probably other stuff too. And now, in a new and exciting development, you can shop with 7 Reasons. And here are seven reasons that you should.

1. Be Unique. Everyone wants to feel distinctive, unique and a bit special. And, if you purchase a 7 Reasons t-shirt, the chances are very high that it will actually be unique. After all, how many people are you likely to bump into in your local pub wearing the same Haystack Poking Patrol t-shirt as you? And even in the unlikely event that you did meet someone else in a pub wearing that same t-shirt, you could just say, “Hello Marc” and I’d probably buy you a beer. You’ll be unique or you’ll get beer. That sounds like a good deal.

2. To Marvel At The Emporium. The 7 Reasons team have (amongst other things) expertise in web design and the retail sector. You might think that this would make putting together an online shop easy. But you’d be wrong. Because in typical 7 Reasons style, the one with the retail background did the web design and the one with the web design background is in charge of the retail side of things (and did everything else). So if it does crash or start randomly giving away free merchandise you’ll be there to witness/benefit.

3. Because Our Wares Are Really Jolly Good. I didn’t have anything to do with the design of the lemon t-shirt (God or Darwin, depending on your viewpoint, designed the lemon and Jonathan Lee did the rest), so I can say this. It’s bloody brilliant. Look at it! Just look at it! It’s really a beautiful piece of design. It’s a pop-art pie-chart in lemon. Who wouldn’t want to wear that, other than the abjectly wrong and gits? No one.

4. Innovation. Because the product range will grow as we think of more things to add. We’re already looking into producing 7 Reasons Inspirational Beer-Mats, calendars and fridge-magnets, so you’ll never know what you might find there: A 7 Reasons horse; a 7 Reasons handbag; a 7 Reasons his and his voodoo doll set; a replica 7 Reasons sofa. Anything. Or if you don’t find what you want, you might eventually, because…

5. We’re interactive. We can’t think of everything. We’ve tried and have gotten distracted by girls and tiramisu and things. But we love great ideas and, if you’ve thought of something you’d like to see in the 7 Reasons shop that isn’t there, you can email us and, if we think it’s a good idea, we’ll look into making it. And we’ll probably put your name on it too, unless it’s something really small – or embarrassing – in which case we won’t. Or if you have a really long name like Bartholomew Constantine Washington Penderghast the third, we might not. But if you’re called Jennifer Aniston we definitely will, and that’s a promise.

6. Incentive. Has any other website ever encouraged you to invade a country? Yes, probably, but only evil ones. We’re nice chaps though, and we’d like to encourage a more benign, civilised, conquest: So the first five readers that are photographed standing atop the Eiffel Tower waving a Union Flag and wearing one of our France Invasion t-shirts will get the money they spent on the t-shirt refunded.*

7. Because We’re Very Excited. So excited, in fact, that we spent a couple of hours putting this post together about our shop and forgot to include a link to it. So here it is (this is the link). Now go and shop till you drop! Or at least until your arms are very full and you feel a little faint.**

*We can sometimes tell the difference between the Blackpool and Eiffel towers and we’re also quite good at spotting things that have been photoshopped so no tomfoolery, please.

**I – Marc – would like to thank my colleague Jonathan Lee for all of the effort that he put into the shop and the merchandise (and for fielding slightly ranty emails about World War Two font styles and spacing without ever losing his cool). Never let it be said that he doesn’t work very, very hard indeed.

April 8, 2011
7 Reasons That RoboEarth is a Bad Idea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 10, 2011
7 Reasons to Follow @BenicioDToro on Twitter

Hello! It’s Groundhog Day today and, to commemorate that event, we’re going to be doing the same thing that we did on this day last year: Not writing about Groundhog Day. Instead, we’re going to be writing about Benicio Del Toro because, as you may or may not be aware, he’s recently joined Twitter. Here are seven reasons that you should follow him.

1. It Might Be Him. Given the level of interaction that he has with his followers it seems unlikely that @BenicioDToro is the real Benicio Del Toro; after all, most celebrity tweeters have little or no interaction with their followers, with some choosing to interact only with other celebs and some not even tweeting their own stuff at all, leaving it to PR minions. Still, given that it’s Benicio Del Toro that we’re discussing, you might expect him to behave a little differently than say, Paris Hilton or Newt Gingrich. You’d probably expect the unexpected from him. So perhaps it is him.

2. It Might Not Be Him. Fake celebrity tweeters are all over Twitter. Some of them are sad, deluded individuals who contribute nothing of interest to proceedings, and some are brilliant, witty, insightful and passionate about spoofing the people they purport to be, or – for fear of litigation – don’t purport to be. I will say this; if it isn’t Benicio del Toro then, whoever it is, they’re doing a damned fine job. Such a good job, in fact, that they probably deserve to be Benicio Del Toro, replacing the real version. After all, pretending to be someone else is, fundamentally, acting, and if Del Toro is being spoofed then the spoofter clearly deserves the promotion. We should still follow though, because if it turns out that it isn’t really him, British followers will be able to sigh, grumble and rant, and American followers will be able to concoct bizarre law-suits for emotional distress suffered or for mail fraud (whatever the hell that is). Essentially we all win.

3. Interaction. He retweets lots of nice things that people say about him (we’re hopeful that he will retweet this). Hmm, you might be thinking, that sounds a little self-serving, but since I’ve been following Benicio Del Toro, my timeline’s been full of people saying nice things, which is a genuine change from the norm. Usually my Twitter feed consists of “Piers Morgan’s a cock” and “the Daily Mail want to shovel us all into ovens” endlessly tweeted and retweeted. So perhaps positivity and kindness will make Twitter a better place. Or maybe they won’t. He also responds to people. Not just glib, cursory responses, but actual considered, thoughtful ones about acting, upcoming projects and the roles he chooses. He just seems really, genuinely nice.*

4. Be An Early Adopter. If you follow Benicio Del Toro now, you’ll be seen as an early adopter and that’s always cool. Well, unless you’re an HD-DVD-9 user (the HD-DVD-9 user?) or a clog-revivalist in which case it isn’t. And if you’re both of those things you’re really in trouble. Anyway, if you follow him now, you can impress people by saying “I was in the first couple of thousand people to follow Benicio Del Toro on Twitter” or, if you’re not talking to an audience of geeks, you could should keep that quiet.

5. He Follows People Back. This might not sound intrinsically interesting, but for a celebrity tweeter, it’s unusual. It’s also a brilliant spectator sport, because every time he returns to Twitter – and we’re probably not helping here – Benicio Del Toro has many, many new followers to follow back. As this snowballs (and it will), how will he cope? Will he have to give up acting, meals or sleep to spend his time following everyone back? Will he be reduced from a fine actor to a haggard, pallid man sitting in a darkened room dressed only in his underpants endlessly clicking the Follow button as he desperately struggles to catch up? This is more exciting than a soap opera.

It's The Beard!

6. The Beard. Benicio Del Toro’s beard is one of the most awesome, luxuriant, manly examples of facial fuzz there is and we should all see that in our timeline every now and again. For men, it would be inspirational, a paragon of masculine virtue that, if we look at it long enough, might just rub off on us. For women, it would be aspirational, a paragon of masculine virtue that, if they look at it long enough, might just rub on them. Let’s face it, a proper beard is something we all love and if you follow Benicio you’ll see it a lot in your timeline.

7. Quantity. The most surprising thing is not that Benicio Del Toro is tweeting, retweeting and responding to people (after all, that’s how most of us non-celebrities use Twitter), it’s that he’s responding in such quantity to people. He’s tweeting hundreds of times a day. Yes. Hundreds. It must be quite a Herculean task to tweet that often (@7Reasons manages to tweet four or five times a day and there are two of us). And it’s not just the sheer dedication to tweeting that’s amazing, it’s the potential consequences. After all, he’s retweeting things that people are saying about him, and then they’re retweeting his retweets of the things they said about him, and then their friends are replying to the retweet of the retweet – and probably retweeting it themselves – and then they’re following him and saying nice things about him which he’ll retweet and the whole process starts again (but bigger because there’s now a wider circle of people involved). Essentially, BDT (How I wish he had a shorter name) is going to break Twitter and probably the internet as well. And if you follow him, you’ll be the first to know when that happens.**

*The bastard!

**Probably.

February 2, 2011
7 Reasons Being Back At Work Is Great

The maverick tendencies amongst the 7 Reasons team have meant that we are returning to work two days later than the majority. Well, why not? We work weekends too. It dawned on us though that instead of being a bad thing, going back to work is actually awesome. Really, really awesome.

1. Internet. A glorious invention full of all kinds of the weird and wonderful. Mainly on YouTube. And it’s these weird and wonderful things that you just don’t have time to read, watch, play and look at during the holiday. When you are at work though, time is aplenty. And as the saying goes, ‘when at work, everyone is interested in a video of a dancing dustman’.

2. Daydreaming. When you are on holiday, you are always doing something. Even if you are doing nothing you are still doing something. As such it’s not a conducive environment in which to daydream. Work though? Well that is an entirely different situation. When you are doing nothing at work you really are doing nothing. And this is when you start drifting off. What will happen in Eastenders tonight? Could I jump from the top of that building on to the top of that one? I wonder what they are playing on Aada FM at the moment?

3. Ideas. When you are daydreaming you may invent something. Or you might realise something. Or you might decide you need to visit somewhere. Or contact someone. You never have these thoughts when you are on holiday. You never have great ideas when you are on holiday. That would be too convenient. No, you’ll only invent a squirrel powered washing machine when you are stuck at work, unable to do anything about it. Which, when you think about it, is something of a relief. Not just to the squirrel population, but also your partner who quite likes the kitchen in it’s current state.

4. Mindset. Have you noticed we are in our most optimistic and happy moods when at work? Think about it. When you are at work you spend your days looking forward to your next holiday. Yet, when you are on holiday, you spend the days dreading going back to work. Which just proves holidays are twisted individuals.

5. Pressure. Being on holiday is hard. The pressure to actually enjoy your time off is so great that many people crack and spend all their time in bed watching ITV. Deciding what to do with your day takes hours and by the time you have decided it’s too late in the day. So you agree to spend the day relaxing in bed and get up early the next day to do whatever it is you are now too late to do. But when you wake up the next day it is raining. So the whole process starts again. Compiling that report in two hours seems a doddle compared to this.

6. Exaggeration. Your holiday is always so much better when you are back at work than it was when you were actually in the middle of it. When talking to colleagues, that week in a camper-van in a lay-by outside Swansea becomes a walking holiday in the Welsh valleys. Four rainy days in Paris becomes a week in the Parisian sun sampling great wine, food and berets. Two weeks with food poisoning in Egypt becomes a life-changing trip in amongst the pyramids and the camels. Which makes you wonder why people go on holiday in the first place? You may as well stay at work and read the Thomas Cook website.

7. Guilt. If you spend your holiday watching repeats of Friends you feel terribly guilty. Do it at work though and you feel incredibly proud. That’s why work rules.

January 6, 2011
7 Reasons That Twitter Will Alter All Human Existence

Twitter: Fun? Yes. Useful? Yes. A culture-changing behemoth that will fundamentally alter all human existence? Yes. Here are seven reasons why.

1. Opinion. Twitter is a hotbed of instant opinion and, thanks to the medium, our ability to express opinion will remain undiminished. Unfortunately, also thanks to Twitter, all human opinion will eventually come to be expressed in 140 characters or less. Thus Machiavelli’s view of history as a tool for learning will change from:

“Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.”

To:

“He’s just like his dad. Men are all the same. LOL.

And Albert Einstein’s,

“The population of the civilized countries is extremely dense as compared with former times; Europe today contains about three times as many people as it did a hundred years ago. But the number of leading personalities has decreased out of all proportion. Only a few people are known to the masses as individuals, through their creative achievements. Organisation has to some extent taken the place of leading personalities, particularly in the technical sphere, but also to a very perceptible extent in the scientific.”

Will become:

“People are becoming more stoopid. LOL”

And where we would once have had wordy treatises extolling considered opinion on the omniscient nature of the supreme being, we will have:

“God knows. LOL.”

2. Mimicry. And it’s not just that opinion will be condensed to insubstantial gibberish. Some people will eventually be reduced to saying nothing at all. Thanks to the retweet button, the lazy and unoriginal will find it possible to maintain discourse with others without ever stating any of their own thoughts or opinions at all. This will be familiar to anyone who has ever conversed with a Daily Mail reader or a viewer of Fox News but, the spectre of it escalating further is worrying indeed. Perhaps thanks to the constant retweeting, the world will be reduced to having just one opinion on any given subject. Rupert Murdoch’s, probably.

3. Courage. And it’s not just that we’ll lack opinions and the capability for extended expression. Humanity will eventually develop to lack courage. Because when we disagree with the opinion that someone has just retweeted: “Pink is for sissies. LOL”, we won’t reply, “No it isn’t. Chuck Norris wears pink underpants. LOL”, we’ll send a direct message to someone else saying, “Did you see what @RupertMurdoch1874 just said? Where does he get off saying that? LOL.” Because as people fear losing followers or public ridicule they become more and more timid and secretive and would rather whisper things to their friends in the corner. Sadly, however, they don’t become any less stupid.

4. Shame. Shame will disappear completely as a human emotion. As we increasingly rely on Twitter for information that we would previously have acquired through knowing stuff and learning and having a modicum of sense and whatnot – or even just old-fashioned googling things – we will eventually attempt to acquire all of our important life information from Twitter.

“Is Twitter down? LOL”

“Can I eat lamb that’s been in the fridge for over a day? LOL”

“Is it weird that my period’s six weeks late? LOL”

“Why am I getting so fat? LOL”

Seriously, if our dead ancestors came back from the grave and saw the things that people tweet, they’d…er…die again, of shame. And spin too. (Okay, I really didn’t think that metaphor through but at least I’m not brazenly parading my stupidity on Twitter full-time. No. I’m busy writing this. I’m saving my Twitter-stupidity for later).

5. Emotions. Human expression of emotion will also come to be affected by Twitter. People will no longer smile, cry, or frown, they will merely write “*smiles”, “*cries”, “*frowns”, “*throws self under a bus. LOL”, to denote emotion. Whether this will extend to mainstream media is a matter of conjecture (which is fortunate as that’s what I’m doing. I’m conjecting. I’m a conjector), but it’s easy to imagine rolling news channels with banners stating “M6 Traffic Jam Reaches Sixth Day *sticks bottom lip out”, “Man Found Guilty Of Sex Act With Goat *eeuuggghhh” and “Osama Bin Laden Captured *punches air with fist”. Well, actually the last one is hard to imagine. But at least emoting by using the asterisk is some progress from using smileys and emoticons, which is just abusing perfectly good punctuation-marks in order to make a stupid bloody sideways face.

6. Internationalism. As cultures interact on Twitter, entire national traits will disappear as the world becomes a more homogenous place. After all, anyone who is aware of the Twitter phenomenon that has been @theashes, will have noted that, after 234 years of trying, an American has been finally converted to following the glorious sport of cricket. This means that, in a mere 71,839,532,700 years, the entire population of the United States will be cricket lovers, and the world will be all the better for that. And then we can start converting China. Seriously, Cricket will be the world sport in…(Nope, my computer isn’t powerful enough to compute that. Probably at about the time when people return to the sea and the dinosaurs come back in their meteor).

7. LOL. As the phrase “LOL” becomes so ubiquitous that every last feckless bastard ends their tweets with it (this will probably happen in about six days time) and we come not to notice that we’re doing it altogether and forget its original meaning, there will come a moment when someone actually wants to write “laughing out loud” which, as it takes up too many characters, they will abbreviate to LOL. And as all tweets will already be suffixed “LOL”, the tweet “LOL. LOL.” will eventually occur. And that will be the moment that Twitter, or humanity (or both) will implode. Or explode. Either way, there will definitely be a plosion of some sort. LOL.

December 7, 2010