Tag: PICTURE

7 Reasons I Shouldn’t Have Seen This Picture Of Russell Crowe

1. Lips. Well, Russell looks manly and scary as always. But there’s something strange about his lips. They look a little red, don’t they? They strike a feminine note in an otherwise masculine portrait. That’s what inspired me to do this:

2. Head. There, that’s better. But there’s something else bothering me. In the original photo, the top of his head’s missing. Now I could try to blend in some hair to make it appear that he has a complete head but that’s tricky and time-consuming, and I have a simpler idea:

3. Accessorise. Okay ladies, now I’m sure you’ve all noticed that the hat looks a little out of place as it doesn’t go with the rest of his outfit. What he needs is something else to compliment it. Don’t worry, I’ve sorted it.

4. Legs. Russell has no legs in the picture either. Now, there’s nothing wrong with having a missing limb – as these amazing guys are preparing to demonstrate – but we know that Crowe has two of them. Never mind, I can get some from the internet.

5. Background. So there you go, Russell’s finished. But what about that dreary background? I’ll put him somewhere else.

6. Words. Not quite finished yet, we need some words to complete the picture. I’m a little tired now, what with all of the photoshopping, so I’ll need some help with that. This is now officially a caption competition. Put them in the comments section and we’ll add the best entry to the picture.

7. Danger. You might think that it’s foolhardy to lampoon a notoriously angry and volatile man like Russell Crowe, but how hard can he be? My name’s Jonathan Lee, and I’m not scared in the slightest.

**********Update**********

We were inundated by both entries to the caption competition and it was hard to pick a winner. But there can only be one and the winner is…Robert A. Foot with this entry.

Sailor 1: There’s something not right about that woman over there. Sailor 2: Yeah, her accent keeps changing every 3 minutes.

Thanks very much, Rob and Daryl, for your entries. You’ve both won a place on our prestigious (though seldom updated) Links page.

May 18, 2010
7 Reasons We Love Propaganda Posters

At 7 Reasons, we’re quite into war and propaganda, and recently, we’ve been putting together some bits and pieces that we’ve used propaganda posters in. We’ve looked at an awful lot of them in the past couple of weeks, and we were astounded at the amount of brilliant posters that we’d never seen before. We thought we’d show you some of the more obscure ones today. We’re sure you’ll agree that each one of them is a reason to love propaganda posters.

1. Tell Her Nothing (1940). Produced quite early into World War II, this extremely rare British poster proved so popular that as soon as the posters were put up, they would disappear – presumably stolen by amorous servicemen. This woman was a more popular pin-up than Vera Lynn in the early war years. We would tell her everything. And give her the blueprints (whatever blueprints are).

2. He Volunteered For Sperm Donation (c. 1945). Used by the Americans after the end of World War II, this poster encouraged virile men to donate their little swimmers to the wives and partners of soldiers killed in action. It was believed that a baby boom would help the economy recover.

3. Syphilis (c. 1944). A poster used mainly in the Dorset area during the build-up to D-Day. It was used to highlight the dangers of fraternising with the allies.

4. Who Smells Of Fish? (c. 1916). In World War I, rationing meant that some foods such as fish were only able to be eaten on Friday. Many citizens ignored this order though and ate their fish on a Thursday. This campaign was created to scare those who cheated by implying that if you ate fish early you would smell.

5. For A Happy, Healthy Job…(c. 1940). While the Battle of Britain was raging in the South-East of England, these posters were everywhere. Women were encouraged to organise themselves and head out into the countryside to search for German airmen that had been shot down and gone into hiding.

6. Women Of Britain. Direct Our Planes! (c. 1943). Due to the sun, it was hard for Allied pilots to focus on incoming German Bombers and Messerschmitts. The British devised a simple solution. They asked women to go out into the streets and point in the direction of the bastards. Our brave boys were able to look down and follow the direction of where the women were pointing. This simple but effective solution proved vital in winning the Battle of Britain.

7. Tell No One (1939). In the early days of WWII, during the phoney war, it was easy to become overwhelmed by the media’s portrayal of the enemy. This poster was issued by the Ministry of Health, to instruct British men on how best to deal with any psychological issues resulting from the constant media bombardment of war-stories.

********************UPDATE********************

Due to the popularity of this post, we have made this series of propaganda posters available for sale in postcard form in the 7 Reasons Emporium. There are also t-shirts.

March 27, 2010
7 Reasons I Don’t Care About Cheryl Bloody Cole

1. Thug. The nation loves Cheryl Cole, so we are told. Do we? I don’t. I’m quite sure that Sophie Amogbokpa doesn’t – that’s the toilet attendant and part-time law student that Cheryl Cole was convicted of assaulting in a nightclub toilet in 2003. The judge at the trial wasn’t particularly taken with her either, criticizing her for having “…showed no remorse whatsoever.” That’s at least three people who don’t love Cheryl Cole. I’m pretty sure my cat doesn’t like her either.

2. Heartbreak. We’ve spent the last two weeks reading about how heartbroken Cheryl Cole is over her husband’s dalliances and now newspapers are reporting that she has a new boyfriend. That’s not heartbreak, it’s not even heartslightlybent or heartatinyweenybitchipped. We can’t blame her for this though, we’ve got an insatiable media hungry for any new angle on this story – it’s selling a lot of newspapers, after all. Poor Cheryl is obviously being exploited by them. After all, if she knew that her every move was being scrutinized by the media, would she entertain a man in her hotel room until 4am? Of course not, unless she wanted to wring yet more publicity out of the story…oh, silly me.

3. America. After the Ashley Cole phone-text-photo story broke earlier this month, Cheryl Cole went off to America to spend some time away from the media spotlight, choosing as her destination the quiet, secluded backwater of Los Angeles. Purely coincidentally, this is where most US television executives are based. Did you know that Cheryl is being considered as a judge on the American X Factor, which Simon Cowell will be launching there next year? How propitious that she should find herself in a town full of television executives – who may not have heard of her previously – at the very moment she has an enormous press-pack following her every move.

4. Attractiveness. Another popular myth about Cheryl Cole is that everyone finds her attractive. This is not true, I don’t. I find her flawless face, small, perky nose and large, almond-shaped eyes a bit weird to be honest. She has the perfect, symmetrical, neotenous visage of a Disney character. Is this really something grown-ups find attractive? Not me. I don’t fancy Cheryl Cole and I don’t fancy Pocahontas. Nor do I lust after The Little Mermaid.

5. Ashley. Whatever you think of Ashley Cole and the way he conducts himself, it’s hard to fault him over the way he’s conducted himself since the story broke. He’s kept quiet about it. He’s just shut up and got on with trying to recover from his ankle injury in time for the World Cup. I’ll level with you, I can’t stand Ashley Cole. I think that the revelations that emerged a couple of years ago – that he cheated on his wife and paused during sex with a girl he’d met at a nightclub, so he could throw up on her bedroom floor, before resuming sex – show an appalling lack of respect for his wife, his marriage, women in general, and carpets. He is obviously a foul and abhorrent rotter. So when Ashley Cole is the one setting the example of how to behave decorously in the face of the media onslaught over the break-up, something is seriously wrong.

6. Cynicism. You can call me cynical but…actually, forget the but, you can call me cynical – I can live with that. I find the whole media obsession with the Coles a bore, and I find Cheryl’s manipulation of that interest exploitative and wholly self-serving. I may have a very cynical view of the whole thing, but it’s nothing when compared to the cynicism with which she is wringing every last bit of sympathy and publicity from the coverage.

7. Does anyone else care? Okay, I have just spent a good bit of time thinking about it, and a fair amount of time writing about it, but I don’t actually care about Cheryl Cole or Ashley Cole (except during England matches), I’m just annoyed by all of the media coverage that their break-up is generating. I’m sure that there are far more important events happening in the world than the break-up of a thug who can’t sing and a footballer who can’t keep his trousers on, I just don’t know what they are because the news agenda is dominated by this non-story. Perhaps something is happening in Haiti, the Falklands, Madeira, parliament, Afghanistan or Northern Ireland. Who knows?

Do you care about Cheryl and Ashley Cole’s break-up? If so, please tell me why via the comments section, as I’m beginning to wonder if there’s something I’m missing.

February 24, 2010
7 Reasons to Love The Snow

1. Crime. Snow aids crime detection. Foolish criminals often commit a winter burglary and, when fleeing the scene, leave a handy trail of footprints and tyre-tracks that lead straight to their own homes. The police even catch some of them.

2. Unmask the stupid. It’s easy to discover who the idiots are when it snows. The words essential and necessary are words that are used every winter to describe the sort of car journey you should undertake in snowy conditions. It’s always educational to find out what people, presumably without dictionaries, think that these words mean. Some people think that going to the sales at an out-of-town designer outlet is necessary, some people think that a trip to the cinema is essential, some people think that it’s a good idea to drive out to the countryside to look at the snow. These people make poor decisions behind the wheel too. They can usually be found stuck sideways across the road in a snowdrift causing a large queue of midwives, coastguards, heating engineers and off-licence workers to be stranded. If you want to know if your journey is essential, check here: http://www.ismyjourneyabsolutelynecessary.co.uk/

3. Sledging. The snow proves that we’re better at sledging than the Australians. They’ve never even seen snow. Upon encountering snow most Australians ascertain that it’s wet, very cold and flavourless, and quickly conclude that it’s beer. Australians think that you need a bat and ball to go sledging. Australians are wrong.

4. Japery. You can have a lot of fun in the snow. You can throw snowballs and build a snowman, these activities are fun. Even more fun is building a snowman on the roof of your friend’s car; this is fun and causes annoyance, which is a double win. Even better than that is building a snow penis in your next-door-neighbour’s front garden; this is fun, causes annoyance and great hilarity – not to mention ruddy-faced shouting and gesticulation.

5. Silence. The snow baffles sound, and while there’s snow on the ground, a lot of urban background noise is deadened. There are also fewer cars and people around. When snow has fallen, the world is not just bathed in white powder, it is also bathed in silence – which is something to consider while you’re walking along listening to your iPod or chatting on your mobile.

6. Mystery. When I left the house this morning there was one set of footprints on the front path – mine. When I came back, there were four other sets of footprints on the front path. The only evidence of any visitor was the single letter that the postman had delivered. Who were those extra footprints from? Why was one of them wearing Converse trainers in the snow? What sort of animal has both hooves and claws? Did the man with unfeasibly large shoes with a sensibly-gripped-sole really limp slightly with his left leg? It’s a snow mystery.

7. Beauty. Snow is beautiful; it conceals all eyesores and blemishes leaving everything steeped in an egalitarian white-powdered uniformity. This is great as it makes my horrid front garden, with its weeds and peeling paint, look no worse than the rest of the gardens on my street and, while the snow is here, I can relax and stop worrying that I should do something about it. The only thing that makes my front garden look bad in the snow is the large cock in it. He’s come to complain about the snow-penis I built in his garden. He seems quite cross.

January 7, 2010
7 Reasons Not to Upload a Facebook Profile Picture.

1. You look like this.

2. There are two photos of you in existence; one is of you paddling nude, aged two; the second is a blurred and poorly composed picture from your wedding in 1983, you are wearing maroon.

3. You are a troll who only uses Facebook to anger people in the group I Love Knitting. Your post stating that “Knitting is an inferior pastime for cack-handed simpletons who lack the dexterity and finesse required for the infinitely superior art of Crochet” has generated such fury amongst online knitters that you fear for your safety.

4. You look like this.

5. You are a besotted cat owner. No one wants to see posts on their wall that are apparently from a cat. Nobody wants to interact with a cat in a discussion forum, it makes them look a bit mad. Your friends don’t want to receive a message of condolence in response to their status update that apparently comes from Tiddles the cat. Don’t do it, madam.

6. You are a bald man with a beard. No one needs the fleeting moment of doubt that comes on first viewing a picture of a bald man with a beard. The thought “Is that picture upside-down?” followed by the closer scrutiny required to ascertain that it is not, is a waste of everyone’s time and energy.

7. You are Simon Cowell.

Go on…comment. You know you want to.

November 3, 2009