Tag: radio

Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Turn The Radio Up This Summer

Each year the summer feels like it begins with the melodic ringing of a catchy light hearted pop song that will stay in our heads for the entire season of hot weather and barbeques. There seems to be a song that signifies summer for all of us. Let’s take a look at some reasons to turn the volume dial to max.

1. Madonna – Holiday. It’s cheesy, easy and often the bragging song for those lucky enough to have booked a beach holiday. It’s not uncommon to hear Madonna’s holiday ringing round the canteen at work as Dave from Sales rubs it in that you’ll be taking on his workload for 2 weeks while he’s off to Majorca.

Year: 1982 UK Chart Position: 2

2. Cliff Richard – Summer Holiday. If you’re under 40 you may not have heard this song ever, and if you do, it’s unlikely that you’ll be rushing out to buy it. Before CDs had been invented and no one knew iPods were even possible, the squeaky clean crooner Cliff Richard managed to string the song out in to an entire film and the album of the same named topped the album charts. Expect embarrassing parents and grandparents to sing this one prior to a trip to the seaside or a family picnic.

Year: 1963 UK Chart Position: 1

3. Fresh Prince & Jazzy Jeff – Summertime. Before Will Smith began chasing aliens around films sets he was making funky friendly rap music under the alias The Fresh Prince. This is a good song for cruising in the car with the top down.

Year: 1991 UK Chart Position: 8

4. The Beach Boys – Surfing USA. Released the same year as Cliff Richard’s summer holiday but much cooler, because it’s about surfing and surfing is cool. If you haven’t heard this summer song you clearly haven’t been to a beach bar, school disco or the USA.

Year: 1963 UK Chart Position: 34

5. Wham! – Club Tropicana. Club Tropicana drinks are free – well if you’re on an all-inclusive package holiday they are! George Michael dances round the pool in this popular eighties hit that takes the listener off to the topical cocktail pool party dream.

Year: 1983 UK Chart Position: 4

6. LMFAO – Party Rock Anthem. For modern pop fans this dance track signifies the start of summer, late nights in Ibiza and hot sweaty night clubs for of scantily clad youngsters. Hear it once and it will stay in your head. All summer.

Year: 2011 UK Chart Position: 1

7. Mungo Jerry – In the Summertime. This classic tune has been used for many TV adverts. It’s a feel good, low key track but yet has achieved the status of the biggest selling single of all time worldwide. A cover version from the 1990s by Shaggy got to number 5 in the UK charts too.

Year: 1970 UK Chart Position: 1

Summer tunes are the soundtrack to happy days and carefree relaxation, whether you take your holiday as a road trip, visiting the vineyards with a house exchange France, camping in the woods or jetting off to the Balearics. For luxury home swapping accommodation for holidays all around the world, visit Lovehomeswap.com who kindly provided us with these top summer songs.

May 26, 2012
7 Reasons To Watch The Rugby World Cup

Here we go then. After four years of waiting England are finally about to bring the Webb Ellis Trophy home again. Don’t worry though, if you are of another nationality, there are still reasons to watch.

1. The Perennials. Yes, I’m talking about New Zealand. Favourites for the fifth tournament in a row and justifiably so. The Kiwis are very good and every other team out there is quite frankly abysmal. Add into the mix that they are also hosts then the odds of 8/13 still seem quite generous. To an uneducated supporter that is. Everyone else knows that New Zealand will not win. They are chokers. Defeated in the 1995 final, the 1999 and 2003 semi-finals and the 2007 quarter-finals. They are the Netherlands of the rugby world. So much natural talent and yet so little mental toughness. The draw has been kind to them this year, they play their nemeses France in the group stage meaning they’ll win that one. A quarter-final against Argentina won’t provide too many difficulties, but then they come up against the Aussies – who, after losing to Ireland in the group stages, knock South Africa out in the quarters. And the Aussies win that one. Because they know how.

2. The Group Of Death. If there is such a thing as the group of death in this World Cup, it’s group D. Neither Wales nor South Africa will find it easy against Samoa or Fiji and while South Africa’s experience should help them through, Wales may be heading home early. Which is obviously a shame because New Zealand is full of sheep.

3. The Minnows. That’s right, I’m talking about Scotland. They should be entertaining to watch. For a neutral anyway. For a Scot there’ll be a dispiriting draw against Romania, two horrendous defeats to Argentina and Georgia and then a two-point win against England. Just because that’s all the Scots care about. And because Hape will be playing for England instead of the suspended Tulagi – who head-butted one touch-judge, two cheerleaders and a supporters coach during the game against Argentina.

4. Sleep Deprivation. The time difference means all of us who fine-tuned the art of staying awake all night followed by a half-arsed day at work during The Ashes, get to do it all over again. The first game between the hosts and Tonga is really just a warm-up. The fun starts on Saturday morning. The first of four games kicks off at 2am. There are no forty-minute lunch breaks to sleep through. No rain-delays to give you an excuse to go to bed. Just rugby, rugby, rugby. But that’s great because being deprived of sleep is wonderful. It puts you in a trance-like state through which you do all the jobs you hate without even realising. It really should be available on the National Health.

5. Commentary. With no Ortis Deley presenting, we have to look to the commentators for tongue-twisters. And, in particular, the unlucky sole who pulled the short straw and will find themselves in Auckland on 25th September commentating on Fiji v Samoa. If you know your Waqaniburotu, Murimurivalu and Koyamaiboles from your Treviranus, Poluleuligaga and Tagicakibaus then I suggest you give ITV a call. You’ll almost certainly be put on stand-by. For the rest of us, this has drinking game written all over it. For every mispronunciation, it’s two fingers. You’ll be wrecked by 6am.

6. The Unexpected. Last year ITV performed quite a coup. They got Francois Pienaar to join their line-up for the Football World Cup. Yes, the rugby legend Francois Pienaar. One assumes this was because the World Cup was being hosted in South Africa. So this begs the question, which Kiwi football star have they lined up to offer expert analysis on the scrum? That’s right, it’s Blackburn defender and current Kiwi captain, Ryan Nelson. I expect.

Blackburn’s Ryan Nelson Will Be In ITV’s Analysis Truck For The Rugby World Cup

7. The Alternative. Well that would be to listen to it. On, wait for it, TalkSport. Yes, that’s right, TalkSport! They have exclusive rights which means no Ian Robertson this year. They do have a decent commentary team with John Taylor and Brian Moore in the ranks, but my problem is that they’ll keep interrupting the matches to tell us that Nick Barmby has rejoined Spurs on a free and some twat from a van-hire company will repeatedly tell they’re the best in Canvey Island. I don’t want to know! Then we’ll probably have Jon Gaunt doing a rugby phone-in with Nick Griffin. It’s not going to be pretty. Watch it on TV instead. Watch it on a real channel. Watch it on… oh… erm… it’s on ITV again.

September 8, 2011
7 Reasons That Peter Allen Should Be On Twitter
Hello 7 Reasons readers! I hadn’t intended to write about Peter Allen or Twitter today. I had originally intended to write about Hitler and the British plot to add oestrogen to his meals but then, in a fleetingly overheard snatch of BBC Radio 5Live’s Drive programme, I heard Anita Anand exhorting broadcasting legend and curmudgeon’s curmudgeon, Peter Allen to open a Twitter account. Amazing idea, I thought, as all notions of one charismatic pint-sized despot receded from my mind, to be replaced by thoughts of Peter Allen using Twitter. That would be amazing. Here are seven reasons why.

1. The Username Potential Is Great. Anita Anand is presenting Drive all week alongside Peter Allen. Her Twitter-name is @tweeter_anita. Peter Allen could take the name @tweeter_peter. Could anything be sweeter than @tweeter_anita helping @tweeter_peter take his first tentative steps on Twitter? Well, yes, kittens and just about all other things in the known world, but the matching names sound like fun. They’d be the Howard and Hilda of the Twitterverse.

2. We’d Learn More About Him. What do we really know about Peter Allen’s life? Very little. I checked his Wikipedia entry and this is all of the information contained in the Personal Life section:

He follows Tottenham Hotspur, owns a barn and has a trademark grunt.

While every 5Live listener will be aware of the first and third things mentioned, that he owns a barn is a revelation that has piqued my interest and raises many, many questions:
- Why does Peter Allen own a barn?
- What colour is Peter Allen’s barn?
- What does Peter Allen keep in his barn?
- Where is Peter Allen’s barn?
- How long has Peter Allen owned a barn?
- Does Peter Allen allow other people into his barn or is it like a rural Essex-based version of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude where he goes to hone his opinions and polish his hair?
- Did Peter Allen wake up one morning and think, “You know, what I really need to complete my life is a barn”?
- Does Peter Allen actually live in the barn?
- Why can’t I stop thinking about Peter Allen’s barn?
I’ll try to contain my curiosity about Peter Allen’s barn for the moment. Essentially we’d get to know more about the man behind the microphone and the barn behind the man behind the microphone. That would be great.

3. He Would Bring Something Different To Twitter. According to people that spuriously concoct statistics on the internet* rather than researching things properly, the average age of a Twitter user is thirty-one. That isn’t high enough to make Twitter truly representative of society. Peter Allen is more than twice that age. He’d bring a rarely seen perspective of experience and the benefit of time-accrued wisdom to the social network. Twitter is – in my experience – also predominantly a happy and joyful medium. He’d soon sort that too.

4. He Would Be Better Informed. During Drive, he regularly solicits listener feedback via text and email. If he were on Twitter, he’d get feedback 24 hours a day, whether he’d asked for it or not. He’d get feedback about travel, he’d get feedback about news, he’d get feedback about sport, he’d get questions about the barn from me, he’d get tweets from his colleagues poking fun at him (which would stop Aasmah getting out of practice during her week off) and he’d get feedback about things that he didn’t even know he wanted feedback about. Peter Allen would be better informed than he’d ever been in his life. If you need an opinion on anything, it will find you on Twitter.

5. There Would Be Pictures. Radio is a non-visual medium, so the ability to post pictures on Twitter would probably be liberating for Peter Allen and enlightening for the rest of us. We’d get pictures of Essex, we’d get pictures of the studio, we’d get pictures of the most bountiful and luxuriant silver barnet in the known universe and – most importantly – we’d get pictures of the barn. Please.

6. He Would Be Good On Twitter. A lifetime spent in journalism and broadcasting is the ideal preparation for the successful use of Twitter. After all, the distillation of the essence of a news story down to a headline or the dogged pursuit of an insightful quote from a radio interviewee are pretty much the same skills that are involved in condensing a thought, experience or opinion down to 140 characters on Twitter. Peter Allen’s tweets are likely to be provocative, incisive and sharp. Or at the very least he’d be able to say “Go away!” with alacrity and authority when confronted with the ninth question of the day about the barn or the fifteenth about his hair. Probably by tweeting “Go away!”.

7. His Presence Would Provide Encouragement For Curmudgeons. Having such a high-profile, self-confessed Twitter-sceptic jump into the fray would be an interesting experience for the man himself, his listeners and Twitter users. What better way to introduce other sceptics, doubters, technophobes and the plain hostile to the medium than to hear someone with a similar mindset coming to terms with its use? He might even learn to love it or, at the very least, loathe it less; which possibly amounts to the same thing in his world. Peter Allen could blaze a trail for the timid, the wary and the sceptical to become late-adopters of Twitter and would probably entertain his listeners royally into the bargain. I’ve loved listening to him since Radio 5 (as was) started and I can’t help thinking I’d enjoy his presence on Twitter every bit as much. Anita Anand is right. #letsgetpeterallenontwitter as soon as possible. Then we can teach him what that hashtag means.

*Source: 7Reasons.org, 2011.
August 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 To Join A Cult

The story of how 7 Reasons formed is not your traditional one. We won’t go into great detail other than to say we met because we were both in a cult. But don’t worry, this cult didn’t involve righteous killing or licking frozen chickens. Anything but. This cult was a friendly one. A cult where American architects sent dragons to newsreaders and people across the land turned the ferret gold. I am sure you are now seeing the light, but if you are still slightly unsure here are seven more reasons to join that cult.

Richard Bacon Was A Cultish Leader

1. New People. A cult is different from exclusive clubs such as The Masons because it is open to all. As a result you will meet a rich and diverse group of individuals from all walks of life. Plumbers, writers, lawyers, singers, doctors, engineers, buskers, perverts. You’ll meet the lot. And because you leave all your prejudices at the door when you enter the cult, you’ll form a bond with each and everyone of them. The most hardened Tory will find joy in conversing with the most radical Socialist. Millwall supporters will appear fluffy and cute. Formerly disgraced Blue Peter presenters will be forgiven. And that sort of thing only ever happens in a cult.

2. Opportunity. Unlike your place of work, there is no hierarchy in a cult. Or, if there is, you can very easily destroy it. You can be anyone you want to be in a cult. You can be a wallflower if you wish, or you can be a leader of men. And women. No one minds. If you are the type of man who has access to both foil and a cat (Marc) you may wish to see if one will walk over the other. But what if you don’t? What if you don’t have foil? Or a cat? What if you are a person in one of those moods and fancies taking the mick out of your leader (Jon)? Well you can do that too. And whats-more, whichever route you choose, whatever you decide to do, you will be celebrated. You will be held in high esteem. You may well start a website.

3. Reward. When you have gone out of your way to entertain those amongst your cult, it is nice to be rewarded. And nothing rewards quite like a cult. Apart from the adulation and admiration from those around you, you may also receive a badge. Or a small motorbike. But it’s usually a badge. And when I say a badge, I don’t just mean a badge, well, obviously I do, because it is a badge, but it’s also more than that. It’s more than a badge. It’s what the badge stands for. It doesn’t just say, ‘Hey, I’m in a cult’, it says, ‘Hey, I’m part of a cult’. And that’s, you know, pretty damn special.

4. Help. Whether you are at school trying to write your Personal Statement or in lying in bed ill, the cult is there to help you. Admittedly, you might not get it right all the time. All your advice may just confuse the lad and mean he misses out on that place at Cambridge University, but no one can accuse you of not trying. For all your failures, you will have hundreds of successes. Like I said earlier, the cult we were in helped turn the ferret gold. But while that was great, it is more the fact that people were there to help turn the ferret gold than the actual turning. And it was the ferret himself who first shared these sentiments. He was right.

5. Meaning. It is very easy to wander along in life, working nine to five and waiting for the weekend. There is nothing wrong with that, but joining a cult will give your life purpose. It’ll mean something to you and, more importantly, you’ll mean something to the cult. It’ll give you direction and hope and love. And let’s face it, there is very little direction, hope and love out there at the moment. Your work isn’t going to give it to you, so why not give the cult a chance?

6. Outside. When you join a cult, you join in trepidation. This is only natural. A cult, after all, has a reputation for being dark and evil and thus it is perfectly understandable if you are initially nervous. No one enters thinking they may leave with a new life. But many do. Many leave with new friends. Some leave with new girlfriends or boyfriends or both. Others leave with ideas. The rest just go to sleep. No one thought this would happen when they joined. No one expected their life to change. But it can. It does. Sure, not all friendships and relationships last, that’s life, but for a moment in time they were very real. And it was the cult that gave you that happiness. Without it, it would never have happened. Obviously, some relationships do last. Like 7 Reasons. A monster that will never be slayed.

7. Death. Eventually, sometimes for reasons outside of your control, your cult will die. You will attend the funeral (or listen to it on the radio) and be filled with deep sadness. But when you come to reflect, you realise the cult hasn’t really died. You just can’t listen to it on BBC Radio 5 Live anymore. It still lives though. In your heart. And on YouTube. You still have the memories of your leader being portrayed as Hitler. You can still listen to the music of the cult’s house band and indeed of the one you may well call T He Digger. You still have the vision of chair legs being broken by that woman who stood on a plinth for a couple of weeks. You still remember that moment when you were denied from asking Chris Evans whether his gingerness had been a help or hindrance. And these thoughts will stay with you forever. No one can take them away from you. And you’ll always be thankful that you could never get to sleep before 00:30.

So, if there is one thing you should spread this Christmas season, it is the joy of the cult.

Thankyou. Jonathan Lee, in the lounge, with his badge.

December 22, 2010
7 Reasons That The New Duvet Is Awful

At 7 Reasons (.org) we like to think of ourselves as lifestyle writers; authors of a self-help guide to modern living. But occasionally, something so calamitous occurs in one of our personal lives that we can think of nothing other than that event and are compelled to write about it, even though we’d rather be thinking and writing about something (anything) else. Such an event has occurred. In the past week, my wife purchased a new duvet. It is one of the worst things that could have happened. Here are 7 reasons why.

1. Light. It’s dark under the new duvet. Whether it’s actually dark or not. It’s so dark that the exterior of the duvet could be next to the sun, or next to something as dark as the sun is light (the unsun? The un? ). It wouldn’t matter. Because underneath the duvet, it is always pitch black: Unless I was to take a torch under there. Though possibly even then. There is nothing darker than being under the duvet, except for being inside Piers Morgan’s soul wearing a black hat, a bin liner and a pair of sunglasses. Though how you would find yourself in such a situation, I don’t know. It would be quite unfortunate.

2. Weight. The duvet is heavy. It’s heavier than…well…everything; and it’s definitely the heaviest thing I’ve ever been pinned to a bed by. It’s like an enormous weight is pressing down on me all the time I’m beneath it (which may be slimming, who knows?). When I tried to complain, what I said came out as gibberish because of the heavy weight pressing down on my face. But that didn’t matter, because…

3. Under The Duvet, No One Can Hear You Scream. There is no sound under the duvet. This is bad, as I like to listen to the radio while in bed – it prevents me from thinking, which is what usually gets me into trouble, so it’s quite essential – but the moment I put my head under the duvet, all sound stops. All of it. Which would be handy if I were in a room with James Blunt, but I’m not, I’m trapped in a room with my own thoughts. Which is much like being back in Piers Morgan’s soul again but I can wear what I like and there’s tiramisu.

4. Heat. It’s hot under the duvet. Hotter than anything. I have no idea exactly how many togs the thing contains, but I know this: Togs are hot, and the new duvet has bloody loads of them. I have actually broken into a sweat just by lying under the thing, not moving, in a cold, draughty house in the winter, when the temperature outside was -13. It was then that I decided the remedy to my overheating would be to lift the duvet to let some air underneath.

5. AAaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhh!!!!! And that turned out to be a sensation like being punched in the solar-plexus by an angry ‘roid-enhanced snowman. Twice. It turns out that there was at least a thirty degree difference between the temperature in the room and the micro-climate beneath the duvet. Still, at least my screams didn’t wake my wife, as my head was beneath the duvet and her head was above it, so she couldn’t hear them.

6. Time. Under the duvet, you have no inkling of what time it is. None, whatsoever. There’s just no way of telling. I can’t hear the radio, and there’s no way of telling that it’s time to get up (alarms, bin-men, toasters, a hungry cat etc), nor is there any daylight or any climactic indicators (it’s just always the temperature of boiling stuff). I could take a timepiece with me, but who wants to roll over on a clock in the bed, or get the bracelet of their watch caught in their hair and have to cut it loose? I don’t want to make that mistake again, thank you very much. Because doing that for a third time would make me look foolish.

7. Air. It is impossible to breathe under the duvet, which is a shame, as it’s something of a hobby of mine. No air penetrates the dense, heavy material that the duvet is constructed from (some sort of downy molten concrete?) and all air that was originally there is forced out by the sheer weight of the thing pressing down on the bed. I’m not sure if this lack of air counts as a vacuum, but the new duvet certainly sucks.*

*7 Reasons (.org) will return tomorrow but may not be back the following day as I may die a hideous death under the duvet of doom.

December 13, 2010
7 Reasons Radio DJs Annoy

1. Singing Along. Why do some DJs seem to think they are also singers? I don’t mind them singing along to Phil Collins’ version of You Can’t Hurry Love – indeed I’ll be doing the same – but please switch the mic off first. Or at least get one of the funky little voice boxes that makes you sound like an alien. That would be cool.

2. Talking Over Tracks. Usually when the DJ has got bored with all the singing along, he or she will fade out the track so they can talk over it. And usually its not even a comment about the song. It’s to tell us that they have just been given a coffee. And a plain digestive. Thanks. That’s really interesting. Though next time perhaps you could just interupt Phil Collins if we are being invaded by the French or the traffic reporter has just whipped her bra off.

3. Inane Comments. Why do DJs feel the need to impart some sort of wisdom after every song? This morning I had the mispleasure of catching the last five minutes of Sarah Kennedy on Radio 2. (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher & Higher by Rod Stewart was just coming to the end which prompted Kennedy to say, ‘Be careful. You’ve ruffled my tutu.’ Not only did I not understand where this comment had come from, the thought of it made me feel quite ill.

4. Questions. Does anyone actually answer when the DJ says, ‘Hello. How are you?’ or ‘Have a good weekend?’ If you do I think you will be recaptured soon, so just sit tight.

5. Humour Bypass. Most DJs think they are funny. They are not. Steve Wright particularly annoys me. There was a time when I found him quite amusing. I think this must have gone to his head because these days he seems to think he is getting funnier by the hour. Someone should really tell him funnier and fatter are two very different things.

6. See You Tomorrow. No you won’t. That is a stupid thing to say. The only thing you will be seeing is a microphone and a set of headphones. The only thing I will be seeing is a radio. You don’t even know I exist. I mean nothing to you. You don’t even know my mother’s maiden name. So stop talking to me as if you do.

7. Responding To Lyrics. Note to DJs. It is not always necessary to try and improve a song by answering or pre-empting lyrics. When Brandon Flowers sings, Are we human or are we dancer? I really don’t need you to fade the music down a bit and say, ‘Can’t we be both?’ Nor do I like it when you play Take That and you feel the urge to say, ‘Sing up Robbie’. Just shut up, play your records and go to the news. That’s all you need to do.

March 8, 2010
7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Share a Bed With Me

Hi, I’m Marc. I’m half of the 7 Reasons team – the one with the feet. Some of you probably imagine that after a long day on the 7 Reasons sofa, in the manner of Laurel and Hardy or Morecambe and Wise, Jon and I put on our jim-jams and nightcaps and retire to the 7 Reasons bed for some hard-earned slumber. This is not true, please un-think it. The reality is, in fact, more bizarre than that.

I would just like to make it clear that today’s 7 Reasons post is not 7 reasons that you shouldn’t share a bed with our website, and it isn’t 7 reasons that you shouldn’t share a bed with Jon (you’ll probably have your own reasons for that), it’s 7 Reasons that you shouldn’t share a bed with me – sorry if that upsets any plans.

1. Reading. I read in bed. My bedtime reading matter of choice is often a large, heavy, hardback biography or a similarly weighty historical tome. Consequently, holding a book tires my arms – especially when I’m fidgeting (I do a lot of fidgeting) between positions. At some point I will use the nearest person as a book-rest – their head is the most practical place to rest my book as it is at my eye-level. I’m told that this is annoying.

2. Decapitation. I like to have two pillows to myself – one placed on top of the other. In my struggle to get comfortable/block out sound/block out light/keep my head warm/move into the night’s eighty-third position, I often place my head between the pillows. I find this position comfortable. If you wake up sharing a bed with me, you will briefly believe that you are sharing the bed with a headless man. This will startle you. Every time.

3. Radio. I listen to the radio in bed – BBC Radio 5Live’s Up All Night programme – it keeps me informed, educated and entertained while I am failing to sleep. This is fine until 2:40am on Wednesdays. That’s when Cash Peters is on. That’s when the sound of my (poorly) stifled laughter will wake you up. You will probably wonder why tears are streaming down my face; you’re likely to wonder why I’m biting the duvet (this is for your benefit, you’re welcome); you may wonder if I’m having a funny turn; you will definitely wonder if the spare bed is unoccupied.

4. Soft toys. If I should find a cuddly-toy in, or even near, the bed, I feel compelled to tuck it in. If you are not expecting to wake up flanked by a slumbering bear, a recumbent penguin, a sleepy elephant or a dozing handbag (I get confused in the dark), it can be quite disconcerting.

5. Curling. Not everything I do in bed is annoying. I often curl up into a tiny ball under the covers. This hampers my breathing somewhat, so I fashion myself a small air-hole in the side of the duvet and poke my nose out through it. This, I am told, is one of the cutest things in the world. And it probably is, right up until you try to move my painstakingly-positioned sheets. Then you’ll find yourself involved in a life-and-death tussle for control of the duvet. And I always win.

6. Experimentation. During the night many important questions will pop into my head, prompting me to experiment on the nearest sleeping person. What if I poke my finger in her ear? What if I blow in her eye? What if I drip water on her forehead? What if I tie her hair to the headboard and shout “Boo!?” What if I loudly mimic her breathing pattern for several minutes then stop abruptly? What if I coo like a pigeon and flap the top of the duvet around? The possibilities are limitless.

7. Sleep. Eventually, I will wear myself out and fall asleep. Don’t think that’s where the fun ends though. It’s then that I think up entire 7 Reasons posts that make no sense at all and get chased around the house by a horse. As I flee the dream-horse my legs will flail and I may emit noises – I might even say, “Crikey, a horse!” again. I have also been observed barking like a dog and trying to dig a hole in the mattress with my front paws…er…hands. I meant hands. By this stage, you may not know what time it is, but you’ll probably decide that it’s time to get up, which is great as I’d love a coffee.

March 4, 2010
7 Reasons AC Milan vs Manchester United was a Disappointment

1. Pancake Day. Who the hell schedules a match on Pancake Day? After all, no one plays on Christmas Day or on Easter Sunday. That’s because important holidays should, rightly, be observed. I had to listen to it on the radio while making the pancakes. Why couldn’t they have played it on Valentine’s Day instead? I love football, after all.

2. Hype. No mere football match could possibly live up to the preposterous hyperbole that preceded this game. For a week on BBC 5Live they trailed it as “David Beckham’s AC Milan vs Manchester United”. David Beckham’s AC Milan? Am I missing something? The LA Galaxy player who is on loan at AC Milan? That David Beckham? The David Beckham who isn’t the captain, manager or owner of AC Milan? The David Beckham who doesn’t usually start for AC Milan? Silvio Berlusconi owns AC Milan and he’s the President of Italy, so to describe the match as “Italy vs Manchester United” would have more accurate and less preposterous than “David Beckham’s AC Milan vs Manchester United”.

3. Palestine. Fergie’s tactics were odd to say the least. Both Graham Taylor and Alan Green remarked on it. He set Manchester United up with a five man midfield and had Park Ji-Sung marking the Palestine Liberation Organisation. I’m no tactical genius, but even I could see that Milan’s goal threat did not come from the P.L.O.

4. The Referee. Early in the first half, Ronaldinho went down on the edge of the opposition penalty area. The ref didn’t give Milan a free kick. Technically he was correct, there was no foul, but he obviously hadn’t read the script. Has he never seen a Hollywood movie? Of course he should have let Beckham have a free kick from the edge of the area. The occasion demanded it. Wayne Rooney obviously hadn’t read the script either.

5. Alan Green. He came back from some time off to resume his monomaniacal ranting about David Beckham. Among the first words Green said on taking over the microphone during the first half (after his customary dig at Sir Alex Ferguson) were, “Beckham, in 24 minutes, has taken two free kicks”, he went on to complain that he had been, “static in the midfield”. There were 21 other players he could have mentioned, but no, not Alan Green. The one occasion on which Alan Green didn’t mention Beckham, was when the Man United fans sang “One David Beckham” as he left the pitch. I don’t know what Beckham ever did to Alan Green, but I hope he does it again. Frequently and with vigour.

6. Behaviour. As I write this it is over eleven hours since the match ended. There have been no reports of players drunkenly cruising the autostrada in golf carts or capsizing pedalos in Lake Como. Why can’t footballers act more like the gentlemen that play cricket and rugby? Football players are over-hyped, over-paid and over-behaved.

7. Excitement. There were five goals and a last minute sending off, Rooney was brilliant – it was an enthralling and exciting match. You might wonder how this is disappointing. Let me assure you, it’s bloody disappointing when you’ve got a piece of paper in front of you with the heading “7 Reasons That AC Milan vs Manchester United was a Disappointment”, which is just as well, really.

February 17, 2010
7 Reasons We Shouldn’t Try To Contact Aliens

This year is the fiftieth anniversary of SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). For half a century mankind has been broadcasting into space, trying to contact extraterrestrial life forms. Is it really a good idea to get in touch with aliens though? Here are seven reasons that we shouldn’t.

1. Size. Jimi Hendrix once said that he believed that aliens could be enormous, and that we would be like ants to them. As he put it, “You wouldn’t go miles out of your way to step on an ant-hill”. What if our communications are annoying them though? You wouldn’t go miles to tread on ants, but you might cross the living room to swat a buzzing fly.

2. Evolution. What if the aliens have evolved differently to us? What if they’ve evolved from insects or snakes? What if they have feelers on top of their bulbous heads? What if they’re descended from ear-wax? We’d find them repellent, that’s what. What if they came to visit us and they turned out to be 15 feet high spiders? Half of the world’s population would scream “Kill it! Kill it!” and the other half would take one look at them and think “Not bloody likely”. Do we even have a giant shoe?

3. Disease. Aliens are…well, alien. Humans would have no immunity to any diseases or infections that they would bring, and they would have none to ours. We won’t be able to cope with Venusian Flu of the eye and they won’t be able to cope with Herpes of the tentacle. Meeting aliens would be a bad idea for all concerned.

4. Dullness. What if the aliens are uncharismatic? Really boring? Catatonically, mind-numbingly, vapidly, monotonously Daily Mail dull? Do we really want to have an unimaginative dialogue with dreary spacemen? What if they’re like Vogons?

5. Defeat. What if the aliens are more powerful and more advanced than us? We can’t know that they’re not war-like and intent on universal domination. By trying to contact the aliens we could be guaranteeing ourselves a new world order. We could only hope that our new alien masters would be benevolent. Perhaps they’d be a bit subtler than going for out-and-out enslavement, preferring to conquer and rule us – they might even settle for a puppet-government. To head this, they would need to find someone innocuous and popular, with a good grasp of modern communication, whose covetousness and vanity would leave him open to their manipulation. Our new alien-overlords would probably install Richard Bacon as Earth’s puppet-leader. No one wants that – even him.

6. Beggars. Why would aliens want anything to do with us anyway? If they’re in any way more advanced than us we’d drive them round the bend. Whether It’s pestering them for technology to save our ailing planet, pestering them for accommodation when we realise that we can’t or pestering them to take David Gest back, we’ll be, at best, a nuisance, and at worst, a burden. We’re like the annoying neighbour that you try to avoid by pretending to be out. The aliens – if they have any sense – are hiding from us.

7. Madness. What if there are no aliens? Then the whole SETI programme will have been in vain. If there are no aliens out there then essentially we’re talking to ourselves. I’ve seen people that do that out on the street. They look a bit foolish and they say the silliest things – often about spacemen, ironically.

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

Since we wrote this article, Stephen Hawking has come out and stated his opinion on this subject. He agrees with us. We don’t know if he read this piece first or eventually – after considering these issues for a good while longer than we did – came to a similar conclusion by himself. We like to think that it’s the former.

January 29, 2010