7 Reasons

Tag: @reply

  • 7 Reasons It’s At Times Like This I Wish I Was Spanish

    7 Reasons It’s At Times Like This I Wish I Was Spanish

    For as long as I can remember, 7 Reasons has been on the receiving end of the below email. It’s in Spanish. I speak English. And a little French. And basic business Latin. As a result this email goes straight in the recycle bin. But, just like a Boomerang or Jim Davidson, if you even dare think you’ve got rid of it, it comes back again. And again. And again. Yesterday, I snapped. No longer could I ignore it. I took the time and effort to translate it. Having done so though, I can’t help but think a lot has been lost in Google Translation.

    Spam Email From Spanish Company

    1.  Welcome. That is what Bienvenidos means. Or at least that is what Google Translate suggests it means. Is this a Spanish thing? Welcoming you into an email? I thought a welcome was reserved for when you entered a shop or a hotel. I have never once received a letter from Barclays welcoming me. Which is a shame really, I imagine I’d have taken out more loans had they done so. Anyway, from this point on, I am suspicious of this email. And the Spanish in general. Not that the latter takes much, I have been suspicious of the Spanish since the Armada.

    2.  We have new and updated database of Spanish companies. That’s nice. Shall I reply and tell them about my collection of Wisdens?

    3.  We invite you to our solutions for effective advertising campaigns. Where are your solutions based I ask myself. Admittedly, it would probably help more if I asked them. As with many things in life it comes down to location, location, location. Yes, all three of them. I dare say if it was Barcelona based, Marc and I would be only too happy to visit the solutions. Sadly though, I suspect Google Translate has missed out the word ‘view’ from between ‘to’ and ‘our’. But this is only guess work. If I could speak Spanish I may well have been supping the delights of various solutions on the Spanish Riviera some eighteen months ago.

    4.  Offer databases of companies active in the Spanish market would gladly be interested in your products to establish permanent cooperation lines. Oh dear, you’ve lost me again. Something about opening a Co-Op store? Weird people.

    5.  The effectiveness of our products is guaranteed by the evidence of a growing list of satisfied companies, quickly been able to reach with your offer to new customers. While this is obviously nonsense, I can’t help but applaud the rather brilliant thought process going on here. So brilliant is it that I wish to adopt it for 7 Reasons. From now on the daily brilliance of 7 Reasons is guaranteed by the number of readers we have. For those of you struggling to grasp this concept, don’t worry. I am just addressing the Spanish in their language.

    6.  The database is updated every three months. In addition, every customer purchasing our database of Companies provide free the first update. See, I told you there was something dodgy about this email. If I purchase the database I then have to give them an update for free. No chance, not on your nelly. Or, not on your Hernán Cortés as they say over there.

    7.  We will send the product in electronic format and on CD-ROM. I have long held the belief that a CD-ROM is an electronic format, but this news excites me. I’m going to whack my copy of Revolver in a bagel and listen to it on the train to Tunbridge Wells.

  • 7 Reasons to Follow @BenicioDToro on Twitter

    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.

    Benicio Del Toro in Black and White

    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.

    Benicio Del Toro's Twitter picture
    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.