7 Reasons

Tag: Money Supermarket

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons The Holiday Season Sucks

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons The Holiday Season Sucks

    If you’re feeling really festive, we mean really festive, then today’s guest post from Louise Tillotson probably isn’t the kind of thing you wanted to read over your lunch break. On the other hand, though, if you bat for Team Scrooge this is the kind of thing you’ll want to read and share and read and share and read and share… (repeat to fade).

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons The Holiday Season Sucks

    I like Christmas as much as the next person. Provided that person is, in fact, Scrooge. Bah humbug and all that…

    But honestly, I do enjoy the festive period to an extent. The act of going out in the cold, wrapped up warmly, spending my hard-earned savings on things I don’t have to find space for in my already cluttered home is, to me, one of the joys of Christmas.

    When you’re a grown-up, Christmas does kind of lose its appeal. But when you have kids of your own and see it through their eyes, it seems magical all over again.

    Sadly, what those little eyes don’t see are the niggly little annoyances that now seem to ruin the season just that little bit more each year. I’m talking about…

    1.  Christmas Cards. Every year we send flimsy bits of cardboard with awful pictures on them to people we never see or speak to throughout the year. And every year we get flimsy bits of cardboard with awful pictures on them given to us which we then have to display in our homes in case the giver happens to drop by. Which is unlikely seeing as we haven’t seen or spoken to them all year…

    2.  The Weather. Do a Google image search for ‘Christmas’ and you immediately get thousands of pictures containing snow-covered cottages, trees festooned with lights, and jolly-looking snowmen made out of the purest white snow. Now look out of your window. See the grey slush laying forlornly in the gutter, the crumpled lump of grey and yellow matter with a single carrot poking out at an odd angle, the few dimly lit bulbs hanging on for dear life to a wilting bush…Doesn’t the sight just fill your heart with winter joy? No, I didn’t think so.

    3.  Strange Bearded Men. I am of course referring to Santa Claus, Father Christmas or whatever you call him in your family. There’s just something vaguely creepy about taking your beloved little one to sit on the knee of a strange man and confide in him all their secret wishes for the season. Or more realistically; start to cry hysterically, scream for mummy and wet themselves.

    4.  Cold Food. Maybe it was just the way my mother cooked it, but I always think of Christmas dinner as being a lot of cold stuff covered with thick gravy. There’s obviously an art to getting four types of vegetable, three types of potato, turkey and stuffing to the same hot temperature at the same time…and my mother never mastered it. Our turkey dinners always consisted of freezing cold meat, red hot gravy and tepid everything else. Which probably wouldn’t be so bad but the turkey is always far too large and you end up having it with every meal for a week afterwards.

    5.  Mandatory Alcohol. And when I say alcohol I don’t mean the tasty stuff that you’d choose to drink if you were at the pub. I’m talking about stuff like Babycham, the “wine” parents buy when they want to get their offspring amusingly drunk; and Advocaat, which looks like runny custard and smells like it’s been drunk already. And woe betide you if you don’t want to drink – you’ll have a glass of this cheap plonk out of a box and damn well enjoy it!

    6.  Decorations. I don’t mind what people have inside their homes, as I don’t have to look at it. I’m talking about the stuff people decorate the outside of their homes with. As far as I can tell, there are two rules every outside decorator thinks they must obey: the lights must be the brightest you can find, and if they don’t flash and/or cause a hazardous distraction to drivers, you’ve not used enough. For preference, you should also create your own Nativity/Farm/North Pole with brightly lit animal structures too, for that added tackiness.

    7.  Presents. Last but not least, we come to the gifts. Your granny is probably delegated to trot out the old adage “giving is better than receiving” but honestly, I think it’s true. Only by not receiving gifts can we avoid having to pretend to love the hideous pair of socks a lazy uncle has bought you, or the bath salts which you just know will make you smell like the inside of a pensioner’s handbag. There’s only so long you can wear a fake smile and feign delightedness so as not to offend your well-meaning but utterly clueless relatives.

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Lose Some Weight

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Lose Some Weight

    Today we are joined on the 7 Reasons sofa by Chris. Chris works as a financial blogger for moneysupermarket.com life insurance, and spends quite a lot of time writing about how losing weight and getting fit can help save you money on it. This year he decided to stop being such a hypocrite and sort his life out, and thought he’d go on about it endlessly both in real life and on people’s websites too. He’s also arguably funnier than we have ever been, which is a bit annoying.

    7 Reasons To Lose Some Weight
    Disclaimer: Neither of these men is Chris.

    This year, I’ve lost just over 80 pounds in weight. No, no – don’t congratulate me. It’s nothing, really. However, if you really do want to do something for me, why not read my seven reasons why you should definitely lose weight?

    1.  No Longer Looking Like James Corden. This one is probably personal to me – I recently watched my friend’s wedding day video and it looks like he hired a really bad James Corden impersonator to be his best man. The best man’s speech looks like Smithy from Gavin and Bloody Stacey came barrelling in at the last moment and started taking the mick out of the poor groom while his mother looked on, aghast. I hate James Corden more than I probably should for exactly this reason.

    2.  Not Sweating Constantly From May To August. You know what’s really not attractive? Sweating. Especially when you can’t stop it from the moment the British weather goes a degree or two over its usual dank quagmire of about 10 degrees Celsius. I used to look like a Death Star with a leak; I’d take to hiding inside on warm days and peering out of the window like that guy from Rear Window – not exactly the best way to live your life, but arguably the best way to be near to your Pringles and the fridge.

    3.  Being Able To Look At Yourself In The Mirror. “Oh, hello there, me”, I quite often say now when I see myself in the mirror. “I didn’t see you there, what with you being so slender and lithe and flitting in and out through the trees like an ephemeral, gossamer thin slip of silk.”

    Yeah, it’s probably quite strange that I have trees in my bathroom, but don’t judge me, man. It’s better than what I used to say to myself in the mirror, which was usually something like “Hey! You! *noisy breath* do you have any sausages? I really want a sausage but we don’t seem to have any…”

    4.  Being Able To Buy ‘Normal People’ Clothes. Thankfully, I was never quite relegated to the dark depths of the “big and tall” shop, but upon reaching the outer limits of even Asda’s generously sized clothing range, you do start to wonder whether you might be getting a bit too portly. Losing weight means you no longer have to worry about clothes not fitting, and can join the rest of the world in despairing because shops don’t stock anywhere near enough of the average sized stuff so all they ever have is for dolls or Silverback Gorillas.

    5.  A Better Class Of Nicknames. Big Boy. Big Man. Shrek. A Poor Man’s James Corden. Two of those are things I’ve called myself; the nicer two are indicative of the sorts of things people would refer to me as, rather than going “And what about you, Tubbo the Lardy?” Oddly, people seem to think that names like this are acceptable because you’ve not used the word Fat. True enough, it still amazes me how many perfect strangers start conversations with me by saying “Cuh, you’ve lost some weight, haven’t you?”, but that’s nicer than a fat joke wrapped in a nice coating – like an easter egg.

    6.  The Looks You Get When You Buy Food. So myself and my girlfriend are in a restaurant together. It’s a nice day, it’s lunchtime, and I know I’ve got food at home for my tea – I order a salad, and whilst I’m saying the words, I watch.
    One…Two…Ping!
    There they are. The raised eyebrows of a waiter or waitress who expected me to heavily and slimily drool the word “Burger!” through my sticky, salty lips until they brought me one and I devoured it like an Amoeba absorbs plant cells. Every bloody time. This is usually followed by the assumption that the person bringing the food normally makes; the one where they look at me and then the salad, then assumes they’ve got something for a different table.
    This of course is very similar to that begging look the waiter would have if I did order a burger or similar; that look that says “Okay, but please don’t have a heart attack in here – at least not until 7 o’clock, when my shift finishes…”

    7.  Ego Inflation. When was the last time someone told you you looked fantastic, or said that they wish you could do what you do? Of course, if you’re Elle Macpherson’s identical twin who happens to do brain surgery, then it’s probably quite a lot, but for those of us normal human beings, a nice compliment probably doesn’t happen all that often. Lose a bit of weight though and they’ll come from all over the shop – lose enough and you’ll start doing what I do, where you deliberately don’t see someone for a few weeks, just so when you come strutting into the pub in your new jeans and crop top (shut up, I like showing off), they’re amazed. Losing weight doesn’t make you more confident, but everyone telling you how great you look sure as hell does!