Tag: seven reasons

Russian Roulette Sunday: Celebrity Exclusive
At 7 Reasons we’ve never brought you exclusive celebrity news before, but now we have some. A letter has been erroneously delivered to one of us (the York based one) with exciting details about the private life of an icon of both the large and the small screen.

We don’t know why Bairstow Eves sent this letter to us, as it’s addressed to homeowners in Clifton, York, where neither of the 7 Reasons team live, but we’re jolly glad they did. Here it is:

Dear Home Owner,

BUYERS WAITING

CLIFTON

We urgently require more properties to sell in Clifton for the following clients who are registered with our office.
- Mr T is a first time buyer looking for a property with a minimum of two bedrooms. He will consider any style of house.
- Mr & Mrs H have their property on the market and are looking to purchase a two bedroom house in Clifton.
- Mrs H is looking for a semi or detached property with a minimum of four bedrooms.
I would stress that this is a genuine and urgent enquiry; we only take this time and effort for serious potential purchasers. Please contact our Sales Team on 01904 622 355 to arrange your free, no obligation Market Appraisal.

Assuring you of our best attention at all times.

Yours Faithfully,

*********************

Office Manager – Bairstow Eves York.

That’s right, 7 Reasons readers! This man. Mr T is looking to buy a house in York!

I pity the fool that sells me a home in the wrong area!

Now we don’t know why the star of the A-Team and Rocky III is looking to buy a property here. It seems unlikely that it’s going to be a second home for holidaying as the letter also reveals that (surprisingly) Mr T is a first time buyer. And it tells us that he will consider any style of house; though presumably he’ll want one with a garage full of odds and ends that he can spontaneously fashion into an armoured car or use to construct an impromptu gun turret.

The letter goes on to tell us that Mr and Mrs H (we don’t know who these people are, they’re not important celebrities like Mr T) are looking to purchase a two bedroom house in Clifton. But wait! Mrs H is also looking to buy a semi or detached property with a minimum of four bedrooms. We don’t know why. Perhaps she’s a brazen strumpet who’s looking for somewhere to house her army of lovers? We just don’t know. We do feel that Mr H should be worried, but mostly we’re excited about Mr T.*

Thank you, Bairstow Eves, for bringing this important celebrity news to our attention. 7 Reasons (.org) will return tomorrow with reasons (unless there is any more Mr T news).

*I have an A-Team duvet cover that needs signing.
November 14, 2010
Guest Post: 7 Reasons I Don’t Want a Kindle

It’s Saturday, and the 7 Reasons team are taking a well-deserved day off, but fear not: In charge of the 7 Reasons sofa today is Roger Williams; a Manchester-based writer, lyricist and owner of a full and luxuriant ginger beard. Here are seven reasons that he doesn’t want a Kindle.

1. Fahrenheit 451. The primary definition of Kindle in my whopping great Collins English Dictionary (a tome so weighty and downright bookish that while it would be impossible to swallow, it would be entirely feasible to use it to, say, smash a Kindle to smithereens) is ‘to set alight or start to burn.’ Mmm. You don’t need the Enigma machine to decode the sub-conscious desires of the Satanic device’s inventors here. They clearly want us to burn books. That’s right 7 Reasons readers. Biblioclasm! Libricide! Buying a Kindle is tantamount to supporting the book incinerating activities of the Spanish conquistadors, the worst McCarthyite zealots, the Nazis and the Dove World Outreach Centre church in Florida.

2. If it ain’t broke don’t e-fix it. Books are the perfect marriage of function and form. They have a quality of soul which an electronic device could never match. The volumes you gather as you travel through life are a story in themselves. The spine creases of the well-thumbed volume; the stain left by the coffee you spilt when you first saw her; the enthusiastic underlinings of well-loved sections and the page corner-foldings of inspiration; the sheer sentimental, colourful, characterful accumulation of books. You can’t furnish a room with a Kindle. Unless it’s a room for a hamster. That hates books.

3. Books smell good (musty second hand bookshops in Holmfirth don’t count.) I’ve never smelt a Kindle but I imagine it would smell of evil.

4. Books have done the job perfectly well for hundreds of years. The more complicated you make something the more likely it is that something will go wrong. At no point in the annals of history (beautifully preserved because they’ve been written down, on paper) has anyone ever complained “This book has crashed” or “I wish this book would go faster.” No one has ever advised you to turn a malfunctioning novel off and on again.

You can still read a book that’s hundreds of years old. You can’t watch videos from the early 1990s. The written word is timeless, but technology moves so fast that by the time you’re two thirds of the way through A Suitable Boy your Kindle will be in museum for obsolete things. Being bullied by a Sinclair C5.

5. There’s a physicality to books, a reassuring heft, a presence, whereas Kindles by comparison are…spineless. Books are transferable. How many times do you read something you love then lend it to a friend you know is going to share your enthusiasm? There’s no room for that in Kindleland. You either have to loan out your Kindle, and all that it contains, or they have to buy the f-ing e-book themselves.

6. Bathing. I admit this isn’t really an issue for me because I’m male and therefore genetically unable to multitask, but word is you can’t read a Kindle in the bath. I plagiarised this point from a letter written to The Guardian by a woman. I wasn’t doing anything else at the time. She was probably cooking a three-course meal and reading the paper when she wrote it.

7. And alright, I admit it, I woke up one morning and realised I was a Luddite.

Now…I’ve heard a rumour they’ve just installed one of those new weaving machines at a mill along the turnpike road in Bolton. Anyone want to come and help me smash it up before the idea catches on?

November 13, 2010
7 Reasons I Ended Up Appearing Quite Mad Yesterday (Even Though I’m Not)

Sometimes, when you’re sitting around, minding your own business, an event occurs. An event to which you are compelled to react. And, while your reaction is brilliantly conceived and perfectly rational, a chain of events ensues that eventually makes you appear irredeemably, unutterably, stupendously mad. Like yesterday.

This is not my neighbour's cat, nor is it my cat, nor is it my wall. This cat on a wall is from the internet.

While I was writing, a cat appeared on the six foot high wall at the bottom of my garden. One of next door’s cats. Now, I don’t want any of next door’s cats in my garden, because it’s where my cat lives. I want him to be able spend his time in the garden sleeping, licking, and staring at the gate unmolested by other cats. So I had to let the other cat know that he wasn’t welcome in our garden. Now I know how to scare a cat; it’s easy. But going outside and hissing and shouting at this cat wasn’t going to convey the right message. I needed to let the interloper know he was in another cat’s territory, and that he should stay away.

1. Plan A. I went and fetched my dozing cat from the sofa. My cat didn’t want to know. I showed him the intruder through the dining room window. He saw the other cat and ignored him. This was disappointing. This isn’t going to scare anyone I thought, as my cat fell asleep on the windowsill. This wouldn’t even scare mice. Nervous mice.

2. Plan B. Right, I thought. If the sight of my cat asleep on the windowsill isn’t enough to strike the fear of god into the intruder, I’ll have to escalate things. I’ll have to send my cat out to deal with him. I woke him up, reminded him of the presence of the other cat and carried him into the utility room. I placed him on the floor, next to his cat-flap; I delivered a rousing speech to him and then opened it so that he could sally forth to dispatch his foe. He didn’t move. He sat and purred at me. I tried to usher him through his flap, but he clearly wasn’t going to go. My cat, I thought, is a disappointment.

3. Plan C. I know, I’ll open the back door really loudly. If I can’t scare him away with a cat, then at least opening the door loudly will make the intruder run; and my cat might conceivably think that he’s the one causing him to flee in terror and emerge with feline dignity intact and be that bit braver next time. As loudly as I could, I unlocked the door and, with as much speed and force as I could muster, I heaved the door open. I was rewarded with the sight of a terror-stricken cat, fleeing for its life. Bugger, I thought, as I went to retrieve him from behind the sofa. This isn’t going well.

4. Plan D. I picked him up, returned to the utility room and carried him through the back door. “Look”, I said to the other cat, “I have a cat here and I’m not afraid to use him”. The other cat was not as moved by our presence as I had hoped that he would be. Impassively, he licked his paw and turned his head away.

5. Plan E. Okay, I clearly wasn’t being terrifying enough. I raised our cat above my head so that he was higher up than the cat on our wall. This will do it, I thought, there are only two things that can possibly go through the other cat’s mind. One: “Blimey! What the hell is that hideous giant cat/man hybrid creature over there, I’d better run for it”. Or two: “ Blimey! Look what that man’s doing to that feckless fat-cat from next door. I’m probably next. I’d better run for it.” But if these things went through his mind, he didn’t show it; unless this cat instinctively displays abject terror by blinking slowly, that is. I was going to have to get nearer.

6. Plan F. With my arms fully outstretched, cat held aloft, above my head; I charged toward the other cat. It didn’t move. I was closing quickly and when I got to within eight feet it still hadn’t moved.

7. Plan G. Realising that my charge wasn’t unnerving enough, I decided that I needed a war cry, and I began to roar (at a volume which surprised even me) as I charged through the garden. But the other cat still hadn’t moved, and I was almost upon it. I realised it needed a little more time to realise the desperate situation it was in, so I pulled away at the last moment to run a lap of my garden, still roaring and, as my cat and I rounded the top of the garden and turned to face the enemy once more I saw him react, startled, jump down from the wall and run. My jubilation was short lived. I also saw…

…My neighbour emerge from her back door, the sound of which had presumably – unbeknownst to her, as she couldn’t possibly have seen it – scared the other cat away. I slowed to a halt and stopped roaring. “Hi”, I said, breezily, realising I still had the cat above my head, and that I probably looked quite foolish.

“Er…Hi”, she replied.

I felt self-conscious, and it occurred to me that some sort of explanation of my behaviour was required. “I was just scaring the cat”.

“I’m not surprised”, she replied.

November 11, 2010
7 Reasons You Know it’s Autumn (in Yorkshire)

As I walked down the street yesterday, something suddenly hit me: It’s Autumn; here in Yorkshire. Here’s how I can tell.

1. Leaves. The leaves turn brown and fall from the trees. This, you may be thinking, is not unique to Yorkshire, and you would be correct. But here, the leaves fall horizontally and, while I was walking down the street yesterday, a large wet leaf flew from a tree at incredible speed and slapped me in the face. Aha, I thought, it must be autumn again. And ouch. And several minutes later, I developed the traditional Yorkshire ruddy complexion, which will probably last me until March.

2. Water. You may also think that water isn’t unique to Yorkshire and once more, you would be correct. But the fact is that wherever you live – unless you live in the sea – we probably have more of it than you. Whenever there’s a drought in the UK we still have water, and it’s often transported to drier counties (usually Kent) via tanker. And you can tell it’s autumn here because (incredibly) the daily rainfall increases from monsoon to biblical and our rivers get restless and start to explore the surrounding areas. There’s one hanging around at the end of my street right now.

3. Mud. You probably have mud in your gardens that you put your geraniums in, but that doesn’t really prepare you to see Yorkshire autumn mud. I have no idea where it comes from, but our mud is epic. All through the autumn, it’s bloody everywhere, just oozing from things: From our riversides to our footpaths, it eventually covers our towns and cities in a sludgy goo. In fact, Yorkshire is brown until the winter comes, and then it becomes brown and cold.

4. Darkness. On some Autumn days in Yorkshire, it just doesn’t get light. At all. And, when you’re trying to do something in the kitchen at lunchtime (usually making lunch) and you have to switch the lights on, you know it’s autumn. Or you’ve forgotten to open the blinds, but no one would blame you for that, as your view for this quarter of the year is mud, water, flying leaves and darkness. If darkness is even a view.

5. Meanness. Yorkshire folk have quite a reputation for meanness. Some of this is undeserved: The rumour that branches of the Yorkshire Bank don’t have a safe but do, in fact, keep all of their money under a giant mattress is not true and was started by some horrible foreigner (or me, as I sometimes call myself). But in the autumn, people in Yorkshire become chronically mean. Only yesterday, as I walked through the wind and the rain, coat wrapped tightly around me, I saw a man being dragged along by a large umbrella step into a six-inch-deep puddle, soaking his leg. And I laughed. And that was when the leaf hit me. And he laughed back. We’re mean in the autumn.

6. Millinery. Now, it’s also a fanciful stereotype that Yorkshire men wear flat caps all the time. This is not true. Even Yorkshire men don’t wear flat caps in the summer. How do you think many of them get their red, peeling scalps? The flat cap is seldom donned until the autumn. And then it’s worn pushed firmly onto the head to keep it from blowing away. When you see flat caps you know it’s autumn in Yorkshire. Or winter. Or spring.

7. People. Yorkshire is a beautiful place that rightly attracts a lot of tourists. And in the summer, they’re everywhere. Walking slowly and pointing. In the autumn, however, they disappear. I don’t know where they go: Perhaps they drown, perhaps they blow away, perhaps we just don’t see them in the darkness, but they do disappear. Hopefully to somewhere nice as it’s bloody grim here right now.

November 9, 2010
We’ve Moved!

It’s Sunday, so no reasons today. Here’s something different. Last week we brought you a tale of horror and woe, and this week we bring you…a tale of horror and woe, because we have an announcement:

We’ve moved! You may not have noticed yet, but we have. We’ve moved from Gloucestershire to Kent. Strange, the website doesn’t look any different, you’re probably thinking; I can’t see any oast-houses or Dover Castle or France, but I promise you that we’ve moved. We’ve changed our web-hosts from Fasthosts to EZPZ hosting.

And we hope the new web-hosts that we’ve moved to will provide you, the reader and us, the men who have spent many, many, many of the hours that they should have spent writing in the last year trying to get answers from Fasthosts about why our website wasn’t being hosted effectively, with a more reliable experience. As our experience with Fasthosts has been appalling.

In fact, we started monitoring our site’s uptime over the past few weeks, and it turns out that with Fasthosts, our site was working less than 99% of the time. Imagine if you had a car that wasn’t there 1% of the time when you came to use it. Or your house wasn’t there for over three and a half days out of the year, but you didn’t know when that would be, or that the sun vanished intermittently.

And it’s not just that the site would disappear while we were trying to read it; it would also disappear while we were trying to write it, which resulted in an awful lot of lost work. In fact, I’ve found myself spending a lot of time that I should have spent creating stuff and writing for the website monitoring its performance and corresponding with the web hosts.

As a result of the many support tickets that we have raised and the many questions we have asked them in the past year, Fasthosts have properly investigated our downtime twice. And they’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t a problem at their end and that it must be our fault, which is strange as, since we’ve moved the website, it has been working for 100% of the time. Which rather undermines their claims.

It’s not just technical incompetence. A couple of days ago – we disabled the auto-renew facility some time ago – they tried to take money from my credit card to pay for web hosting for the coming year (something they didn’t have permission to do). Fortunately, they have the details of an old card and it didn’t go through.

Anyway, we’ve moved and we wanted our experiences with Fasthosts to have a home on the internet so that anyone thinking of using them and perhaps googling “Should I switch to Fasthosts”, “Are Fasthosts any good” or, “naked web hosting” (people search for almost everything pre-fixed by the word naked) would find this piece and would be forewarned.

Hopefully now, the 7 Reasons team will have less correspondence like this:

Jon,

I fully intended to forward any response on why we’re down to you. But, other than the initial automated (and pointless) response to our first email from Shithosts, there has been none. Nor have they replied to us via Twitter. This is on their webshite:

Websites hosted on 88.208.252.193 will currently be unavailable. Our engineers are investigating.

Update: 8:35: Our engineers have found the cause of the issue. However, it is likely that a resolution will require a server rebuild. We will restore all data from a recent backup and will update this page when further information and a completion time become available. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

This issue is presently under investigation:

Our ip address is 88.208.252.3:21so whether this applies to us is a mystery to me, I’ll update you as soon as I hear anything/they bother to reply/I turn up at their offices in Gloucester brandishing a weapon,

Marc.

P.S. Makes me really glad I spent 8 hours working on today’s post now.

P.P.S. Do you have backups of all of the posts that you uploaded yesterday?

P.P.P.S. We were on course to have one of our best Mondays ever yesterday. Before our site disappeared.

And more correspondence like this:

Jon,

The website is working fine. It’s nice here in Kent. Look, I can see deer strolling through the meadow next to the tiramisu farm. Would you like some beer from the perpetual fountain?

Marc.

In conclusion: If you are looking for web hosting. Never, ever use Fasthosts. They’re no good at web hosting, their customer service is woeful, they can’t be trusted with your credit card details and they’re expensive (our new hosting is almost two and a half times cheaper).

7 Reasons (.org) will return tomorrow; I can state with utter confidence.

November 7, 2010
Guest Post: 7 Reasons You Should Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

A few weeks ago you may remember Sam Murray telling us to keep our doors shut in case Vampires wanted to get in. With that sort of insight, we just had to get Sam back on the sofa. And here he is. Wiping his dirty footmarks off the 7 Reasons carpet. Right, I’m off. There’s someone at the door. It only ever seems to happen when Sam’s on the sofa. Coincidentally, today’s guest post was written by Sam in association with Yale Door, who are committed to reducing the carbon footprint by supplying energy efficient front doors for homes .

We have all heard of it and some of you might have even tried doing it, and no, wearing smaller trainers doesn’t count. For those of you that don’t know and have been living in a cave for the past few years a carbon footprint is “the total set of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions caused by an organization, event, individual or product”. More importantly, it has a direct affect on climate change which, as we are told, will have a direct affect on us in the not too distant future (don’t worry not you, unless this post has been archived and is being read in 2080)

Anyway, if you needed further encouragement to reduce your carbon footprint then here are 7, naturally:

1. Otherwise You Will Be Having Breakfast With A Polar Bear. With the polar ice caps melting the increasing rise of water will open up a swimming lane direct to your door. Polar bears are strong swimmers; they often swim across bays or wide leads without hesitation and can swim for several hours at a time over long distances. They have actually been tracked swimming continuously for 100km. So make sure you pour enough cereal for two and put the kettle on.

2. To Make You All Smiley And Happy. Do you ever get the warm and fuzzy feeling when you have done a good deed? Start small by recycling and re-using items and by the time you go to bed tonight you will sleep well in the knowledge that the world is that little bit nicer than it was when you bought the paper this morning. Or if you are more of a ME man than an US, it has been proved that performing good deeds can boost your health and self-confidence.

3. No More Snow Fights. What is our fascination with the small white ice particles? We just can’t get enough of it. It remains the only time when you are allowed and even encouraged to throw things at people. So to cling onto this excuse, reduce your carbon footprint!

4. To Let Animals Get Their Full Quota Of Sleep. You know how bad you feel after a bad night’s sleep so can you imagine how grumpy a bear would feel after his hibernation is disturbed? After numerous studies Scientists believe that global warming is and will continue to affect hibernating animals, causing them to wake up earlier. The shortened hibernation period is affecting several species, including chipmunks and brown bears. If animals do reduce their hibernation period or refrain from hibernating at all it can cause quite a significant environmental problem as it can cause starvation and, possibly, increased numbers of some animals being eaten by predators.

5. Give Al Gore An Early Christmas Present. What better way to show one of the most well known environmental activists that you care by reducing your carbon footprint.

6. To Gain Membership Into Captain Planet’s Inner Circle. For all those that remember the cartoon series Captain Planet and dreamt of one day joining the gang, ‘The power is yours’. We have a duty and the ability to continue protecting the environment when Captain Planet is gone, and since the last show aired in 1996 I think it is about timer we stepped up. Sing along with me – “Captain Planet he’s our hero, gonna take pollution down to zero.”

7. The Prices Of Sunglasses And Sun Cream Will Rise. Yep, that‘s right, although you may rejoice in the warmer climate eventually shrewd suppliers will have to raise the prices of sunglasses and sun cream. Don’t blame me; it’s the pesky ‘supply versus demand’ theory.

November 6, 2010
7 Reasons Bonfire Night Is Traumatic For Adults

After the success of last week”s joint post (it was on Thursday if you missed it) we have decided to produce another. Once again we”ve gone for that topical/helpful format. Here it is:

Jon Didn’t Mean To Burn Down His Girlfriend’s Shed. It Was Just In The Way.

1. Anxiety. Because your neighbours let off fireworks. And your neighbours are idiots. They can’t be trusted to close their own garden gate properly, let alone to discharge pyrotechnics with any degree of responsibility. And, when their rockets are bouncing off your roof and crashing into your shed, you’ll find yourself thinking: “Where’s our bucket?”; “is the house insurance up to date?“; “I hope that the cat’s inside“;”I’m going to put a fish through their letter-box when they go away on holiday“.

2. Guy Fawkes. It seems somewhat ironic to celebrate the failure of the mission to burn the House of Lords to the ground by creating a massive bonfire, but that’s how it is. And who would have it any other way? Well, probably adults. Especially those with children. Because as well as having a traditional bonfire, there is also the traditional Guy Fawkes effigy that is chucked atop the flames. The effigy is usually made by the children using old clothes. Unfortunately, the children also like dressing up in old clothes. So by the time the effigy is due to be burnt, adults are terrified. ”Is that definitely the Guy or is that my son?’‘ And, more importantly, ”Is that my Hugo Boss suit?”

3. The Inner Child. Once you’ve seen about five bonfire nights, you have seen them all. In theory, as adults, we should all find them terribly boring and treat the event as something for the children. The trauma begins though, because bonfire night is epic. Rockets banging and then flashing in the sky. Photographs of your wife’s ex on the bonfire. It’s really rather exciting. Admittedly the excitement is nearly always alcohol induced, but it is there. And this is when all adults look at the children pretending to be Red Indians running around the bonfire and wish they could join in. But you can’t. Because you are an adult. And adults must be adult-like. Oh, the agony

4. Food. On the one night when burning is the order of the day, it seems odd that, having been put in charge of the food, you are absolutely determined not to burn the baked potatoes. And this really is a mission. While preventing the potatoes becoming charcoal, you also have to drink, pay attention to the fireworks, check your son hasn’t crawled under the bonfire and pay an interest in your neighbour”s annoying five year-old daughter who has shoved yet another sparkler up your nose. Sometimes, you wonder why you bother.

5. Men. As a man you”re in charge of the fireworks. They’re your responsibility and it”s unmanly to get the launching of them wrong or show any fear of them. And you know it can go wrong, because you”ve seen Youtube. And you also know that any idiot can set them off, because you’ve seen Youtube. Even though you know it’s not compulsory to insert the rocket into your bottom before lighting it, being in charge of the fireworks is an onerous responsibility. You don’t want to be the one that lights the blue touch-paper and runs away screaming like a girl, do you? Unless you are a girl, in which case it would probably be quite fun; and a nice change from all those anxious men setting them off.

6. Firemen. This year – due to the strikes – there won’t be any available. That means you are going to have to douse the flames flying up from your garden shed yourself. And the only way you can do this is by dressing up in protective clothing. Sadly, the only protective clothing you have are your wife’s gardening gloves, your leaky wellington boots, waterproofs that aren’t actually waterproof and a pith helmet. It might be dark out there, but you’re still going to look like an idiot. Oh, and the sprinkler attachment on the hose is stuck too.

7. Hedgehogs. It”s the nagging doubt that near-paralyses every right-thinking person hosting an event: What if there’s a hedgehog in the bonfire? What if I accidentally burn one to death? What if the children attending the bonfire see me light it only for a phalanx of flaming hedgehogs to scuttle out of it squealing, half a minute later? They’ll probably need several years of therapy and I’ll be forever known as Uncle Marc the Hedgehog Killer. Bonfires are a minefield. But with blazing hedgehogs instead of mines. Seriously, check for hedgehogs.

November 5, 2010
7 Reasons the Anglo-Franco Defence Agreement is a Good Idea

Yesterday, at 7 Reasons (.org) we ran a post entitled 7 Reasons The Anglo-Franco Defence Agreement Is A Bad Idea. I discovered that we had done so while I was eating my breakfast, and it’s fair to say that I was quite stunned. In fact I, the Jacques Tati obsessed, Voltaire-reading, coffee-guzzling half of the 7 Reasons team (the one with the French name), almost choked on my croissant. “A bad idea?!” I exclaimed in a voice so high that it was only audible to very small dogs, “but it’s a brilliant idea!” And it is. Here are seven reasons why:

1. History. The most notable occasion on which we’ve had a defence agreement and a joint expeditionary force with France was the Second World War. And, as I’m sure you’re aware, we won that. Obviously it didn’t work out too well for France, what with Germany annihilating the French army and occupying most of their country, and Britain blowing up the French navy before going home to dine on powdered egg with the Americans. But we did win, so defence agreements with France are a proven success. And now that we have the Channel Tunnel, their government will be able to flee to London so much more quickly than last time. If that’s possible.

2. Cuisine. Working together will rid both nations of antiquated ideas about the other nation’s diet. They will come to realise that there’s more to British cuisine than roast beef – because we’ve had branches of McDonalds since at least the 1970s – and we will come to realise that there’s more to French cuisine than frogs legs. They’ll introduce us to soufflé: An insignificant, over-inflated tart that shrinks at the merest hint of a knife, and Quiche Lorraine: A dish that they readily share with Germans – usually as a starter – which is often followed by a generous helping of their speciality, crêpe à la guerre.

3. Wisdom. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer: A line from The Godfather – often wrongly attributed to Sun Tzu – that’s a very wise strategy indeed. And who is the enemy in this case? Well, it’s France: The nation we’ve spent more time at war with than any other. They are l’ennemi traditionnel, and by being on board the same ships with them we’ll be able to keep a very close eye on them. Also, should a war break out between the nations, civilian casualties will be minimised as the theatre of war will be far smaller than usual; sometimes it will even be confined to the same engine room or bridge. And remember, should the enemy sink one of our aircraft carriers, they will bear half the cost.

4. Finance. Even if you’re not au fait with the minutiae of military funding it’s bleeding obvious that we’re going to save lots of money by sharing spending with France. Look at paint. All armed forces need lots of paint and, by getting together we’ll have greater purchasing power when it comes to procuring it. We’ll make substantial savings on grey paint for navy use, and camouflage paint for army use. And we’ll make even bigger savings on red, white and blue paint as we’ll need bloody loads of that now that we’ll need to paint a French flag on one side of things and a British flag on the other. The savings will be enormous. Énorme.

5. Efficacy. The measure by which all branches of the armed services are judged is their strike-capability. And by entering into an agreement with the French, we’ll increase the strike-capability of our military substantially. In fact, with the French on board, our strike capability will be the highest of any force in the world; our strike-capability will be infinity, which is greater even than the combined forces of China, North Korea, Iran, Christmas Island, Easter Island, Chuck Norris and Malta.

6. Co-operation. When Britain and France work together, the two nations have been able to affect profound and lasting positive sociological change. The channel tunnel, for example, which was first proposed in 1802 and was completed a mere 192 years later, allowed refugees of many nationalities to complete the final leg of their epic journeys of migration; fleeing hardship and squalor from across the four corners of Northern France, to civilisation in Southern England; where they were able to escape the tyranny of boules, cycling and listening to Johnny Hallyday and were introduced to the more civilised British pastimes of cricket, morris dancing, and the Daily-Mail-witch-hunt.

7. Culture. Our nations have much to learn from each other and the accord will doubtless be a civilising influence. As we get to know each other as individuals there will be a significant breakdown of prejudice and an increase in cultural exchange. We will teach the French to drink copious quantities of beer and fight with bald men in shirts at the weekend, and they will teach the British to drink copious quantities of wine and run from bald men in shirts at le weekend. We will teach the French to make popular music that will be cherished the world over, and they will teach the British how to sneer at the X-Factor. We will teach them that France is the ideal holiday destination, and they will teach us that France is the ideal holiday destination. It’s a match made in heaven. The Anglo-French defence agreement is going to be great.

November 3, 2010
7 Reasons That Staying in for Halloween was Disappointing

We never stay in on Halloween and this year we were due to go out for a meal and to see a film. But my wife decided at the last-minute that she didn’t want to go out; she wanted to stay in and watch Downton Abbey. So, we braced ourselves for the inevitable throng of trick-or-treaters and settled in for the night. But none came. And, though by any normal measure, I should be pleased about that. It was disappointing. Here are seven reasons why.

We don’t really live in a spooky mansion, this is just for illustration. We live in a spooky town-house.

1. Ouch. Evening came and it became dark. We had decided on the timeless strategy of pretending-to-be-out, so we didn’t put the lights on. And, after several minutes of darkness, I fell over the cat in the hallway. This clearly wasn’t going to work, so we had to limp to the shops.

2. Money. In order to stay in – in our own home – we spent £4 on sweets. To give to the children that would surely be round coming round in droves demanding them. Because trick-or-treating isn’t nice. It’s an old-fashioned mafia style shakedown. But unlike the mafia, they often come round with their parents, so you can’t tell them to sod off. Because that would make them cry (the children that is, the parents probably have their own reasons for crying). So we spent money on sweets for them so that we didn’t have to sit in the dark and pretend to be out. But they didn’t come. And that’s £4 wasted. We could have bought over twenty-four litres of sparkling mineral water for that. Or two-thirds of a sandwich at a petrol station.

3. Money. But then I realised that it isn’t just £4 that we’ve wasted. Because we go out every year to avoid the inevitable plague of trick-or-treaters. But this is expensive and, over the years, we must have spent many hundreds of pounds avoiding trick-or-treaters. Obviously we’ve had lots of fun, consumed many nice meals and enjoyable beers, and seen many good films; but that isn’t the point. We were there for Halloween avoidance. What if the children haven’t come every year? We’ve spent all that money needlessly, and had all that pointless fun. For nothing.

4. Argument. We’ve never argued on Halloween before, but this time we did. We argued about who would go out and give sweets to the trick-or-treaters when they came to the door. “It’s Halloween”, my wife said, “you could go out there and scare the children with your mask”.

“Yes, but you could go out there and scare them with your dressing gown”, I replied. And I seem to have won the argument, because she didn’t argue with me further or, in fact, say anything much at all after that. But the argument was moot, because of the absence of trick-or-treaters.

5. Sweets. Because no children came to our house, we now have a huge bowl of sweets and no children to give it to. This means that we’ll have to eat them. But we’re grown-ups, and when grown-ups eat sweets they don’t run around in a sugar-frenzy, they sit still. And get fat. And we don’t want to become hideously fat. We want the neighbour’s children to become hideously fat. And then they won’t run around playing football in the alley behind our house. Our plan’s in tatters.

6. Rejection. As we’re usually out for Halloween, we have no idea of how it works. We sat waiting for trick-or-treaters until gone midnight. But surely they’ll come, we thought. Where are they? We felt unloved and rejected. We checked our armpits and speculated on why no children had come. And then, the only possible explanation occurred to us.

7. Spooky. I don’t believe in the supernatural or the sort of strange phenomena that is celebrated on Halloween because frankly, it’s a big load of guff. But I’m quite happy being a sneering sceptic; in fact, I’m quite well suited to it. But the non-arrival of the children was a genuinely spooky event. Because the last time we’d been in on Halloween – six years ago – we’d forgotten about it, didn’t have any sweets in the house, and had resorted to giving the children fruit and telling them that it was much better for them. And somehow, despite six years having elapsed and despite many children having come and gone from our street, the children somehow knew that we were the house of the fruit and they avoided us. The children knew. Creepy.

November 1, 2010
Russian Roulette Sunday: Halloween Special

Hi, Marc here. Happy Halloween. Jon and I thought long and hard about what to bring you on el Día de los Muertos and, having considered it for some time we began working on a project early last week. Then things went a bit awry, and we ended up postponing it until next year. So it was left to me to write the Halloween special alone. And, looking into the dark recesses of my soul for inspiration, I came up with a horror-filled tale of woe and dread. Do not read on if you are of a nervous disposition. Or if you are a lover of poetry.

1

‘Twas a crisp, moonlit night, and all was still,

yet into the house came a terrible chill,

the creak of a door, an inrush of air,

the muffled report of a foot on the stair.

2

The woman awoke, and sat with a start,

with trembling hands, and a racing heart,

was it her husband, returned from the bar?

Was it a spectre, or a burglar?

3

A rustling sound rose up from the kitchen,

and this resolved her to spring into action,

Shrilly, she called, in a faltering voice,

“Who is that down there, that’s causing the noise?”

4

No answer was given, to her nervous query,

she listened and listened, the silence was eerie,

and so it was, with a palpable dread,

she resolved to get up and stepped out of the bed.

5

She crossed the room swiftly, donning her gown,

tiptoed through the door and prepared to go down,

to discover who-knew-what was down there.

She stifled a whimper and went down the stairs.

6

Breathlessly she crept, along the hallway,

and when she arrived at the kitchen doorway,

she flung open the door, and switched on the light,

and then she received the most terrible fright.

7

She recoiled in horror, and let out a shriek,

she fell to the floor unable to speak,

she covered her eyes and continued to scream,

‘twas quite the most horrible thing that she’d seen.

8

So what was this horror, this terror, this sight?

That haunted the kitchen in the dead of night?

The most hideous thing she ever will see,

‘twas the bone-chilling mask of Jonathan Lee.

Have a great Halloween! Oh, and if you haven’t read it yet, this comes highly recommended: 7 Reasons we Should Trick-or-Treat Ourselves out of the Deficit

October 31, 2010