Tag: seven reasons

7 Reasons Blue Peter 2010 Let Me Down

Hello, it’s me again. I’m still reliving my youth. I am sure it won’t come as much surprise to you, but instead of Grange Hill and Byker Grove, my childhood programme of choice was Blue Peter. Yesterday, I decided to watch it for the first time in twenty years.* I wish I hadn’t. What has happened to it?

Blue Peter Presenters: Joel (muppet), Andy (made to look a muppet) & Helen (female muppet)

1. The Opening Credits. What the bloody hell has happened to the Blue Peter theme? It sounds like the 1988 version has been put through a blender, drowned in the bath, driven over by a monster truck and spent a night in Jo Brand’s bed. Something like that. It isn’t good anyway.

2. The Presenters. I grew up with Caron Keating, Mark Curry and Yvette Fielding. Yesterday, I grew old with Helen, Andy and Joel. Muppets. All three of them. I remember Caron, Mark and Yvette being informative. The only thing Helen, Andy and Joel informed me was that they were idiots and that once upon a time some git had told them they were funny**.

3. Pronunciation. Within five minutes, Helen, has already baffled me with unfathomable English. “No rords with cors,” she said. If she hadn’t been reporting about a recent trip to Venice I will no doubt have been wondering why she felt it necessary to tell us that cows do not roar. As for telling me that there are no cars in Venice due to the lack of roads, yes, thanks for that.

4. Pets. In the good old days, a holiday for the tortoise was being put in a box with a load of straw and placed on a very high shelf. These days though, apparently she goes off to India, Paris and Egypt to get away from it all. Photoshop has a lot to answer for. I suspect when the tortoise finally snuffs it, instead of having Yvette solemnly breaking the news to us, Joel will try and convince us that he has gone on a round-the-world trip. The tortoise I mean, not Joel. Though that would be preferable.

5. Practical Demonstrations. What a shame that Helen has never heard of a ruler, that way she may have been able to demonstrate how high a three metre diving board is. Instead, she decided to use a balloon on a string. Outside. Where there’s quite a lot of wind. “Imagine if it was straight up,” she says, desperately trying to get the balloon above a 45 degree angle. Yes, Helen, I could have done that without the poxy balloons. Next time, why not just show us a picture of a diving board?

6. Vogue Bambini. Helen is in Milan. Which, while good news for us, isn’t good for the children of Italy. Especially as she has just encouraged everyone to pick up a copy of Vogue Bambini to look for the supermodels of the future. This I wouldn’t be so alarmed about, if Vogue Bambini wasn’t devoted to fashion for very young children. Unfortunately, it gets worse. Helen, Andy and Joel are going to photograph children. And, under the instruction of Vogue Bambini editor, Giuliana Parabiago, they have to be funny with the children. Joel’s face lights up. I don’t think I can bear to watch. Where are you Mark Curry?!

7. Joel. Yes, I know I have already talked about the presenters, but this clown needs a reason all to himself. Apart from annoying me with his unnecessarily silly antics throughout the show, he is now interviewing an eleven year-old male model. “I always thought modeling would be well hard.” No you didn’t Joel. You thought, ‘Modeling could be difficult at times’. “Come on Andy! Bring it like your mama gave it!” I despair. I really despair.

*Alright, fifteen.

**I have decided that Andy is actually quite good. He has just been brought down to the Joel/Helen level. My advice would be to get out before it’s too late.

September 15, 2010
7 Reasons That Revisiting My Childhood Has Been Difficult

At 7 Reasons (.org) this week, we’re reliving our childhoods. Jon, my friend, colleague and collaborator, suggested it as a theme for the week and it seemed like a good idea. I can do that, I thought, and I decided to spend last Sunday engaged in childish pursuits. But it wasn’t a brilliant success. In fact, reliving my childhood has been bloody difficult. Here are seven reasons why.

1. Cycling. I cycled a lot as a child and decided to relive my boyhood by going for a ride. I straddled my bicycle and began to pedal and, after a few pedal-strokes, I found the old technique beginning to return. As I cruised along the riverside, the wind tousled my hair and the sunlight dappled through the trees and caused me to squint, and it soon began to feel as if it were only yesterday when I had last ridden a bicycle. But it wasn’t yesterday. It was the day before yesterday. So I wasn’t really revisiting my childhood at all. I was revisiting Friday. And I didn’t enjoy Friday very much the first time around. And the spectre of having to eat the mushroom omelette for dinner again was ghastly. I realised I’d have to do something else to relive my childhood. Hmmm. What else did I do a lot of as a boy?

2. Reading. I knew that reading would go well. Obviously I had to select my book carefully; I couldn’t just pick up any old book. I had to find a book that I’d read and enjoyed during my childhood. I spent many minutes scouring my shelves and then, in the twentieth century military history section, I saw it: The well-worn creased black dustcover with the red gothic lettering and the prominent swastika. A book that I’d loved when I was fourteen: William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich. All 1245 pages of it. I settled down with a glass of ginger beer and began to read. It was all there: The spare, matter-of-fact prose style; the meticulous attention to detail; the sharp, insightful analysis. In fact, it took me back in time. Way, way back. Back to the autumn of 2009 when I had read William L. Shirer’s The Collapse of the Third Republic. But I didn’t want to relive October 2009 as I’d have to hear about Balloon Boy again. And I wasn’t trying to write 7 Reasons to Revisit 2009. I’d have to try something else. And then I had an idea. I would…

3. Play A Practical Joke. Barely a day went by during my childhood that I wasn’t tormenting my immediate family with practical japery and I decided to reprise my favourite ever practical joke. And it worked. The reaction of the tearful angry shouting woman to the joke transported me back to an earlier time. A time when, approximately a month earlier, I’d played a different practical joke on her and had substituted beer for tea in her mug. She’d shouted then too. I had to clean up the mess and get her more tea. It was slightly different with this joke – I had to mop the bathroom floor and buy a new roll of cling-film – but it wasn’t different enough to take me back to my childhood. So I put my thinking-cap on again and decided to…

4. Follow The Cat. When I was a very small boy we had an active, adventurous cat and, if I had risen before my parents, I used to let the cat in to the house and play Follow The Cat. The game is simple: Take one cat, and follow it wherever it goes. Always make sure that you’re about two feet behind it. Certain that playing Follow The Cat would help me to relive the early mornings of my childhood I went downstairs and stood behind our cat. After two hours he moved, and I followed. We walked down the hallway, through the kitchen and into the utility room. Then he exited the utility room through the cat-flap. This was a turn of events that I hadn’t anticipated: We didn’t have a cat-flap in my childhood home. It didn’t take me very long to conclude that I was too big to fit through the cat-flap and, looking down at the tiny portal, I felt very large indeed. In fact, I hadn’t felt as large as that since my ill-considered purchase of a lycra cycling jersey four months previously. I abandoned Follow The Cat and decided to do something else. Then I had the idea to top them all. It was time to unleash…

5. The Space-Hopper. I spent years bouncing around on them as a kid and a go on one would surely be the ideal way to relive my infancy. I went up into the loft to get my space-hopper and excitedly inflated it with my bicycle pump. Then, somewhat less excitedly, I deflated it and brought it down through the loft hatch. Once I had re-inflated it – though quite tired now – I decided to ride it down the hallway. I mounted the gaudy bulbous wind-sack and, with as much power as my legs could muster, propelled myself forward and upward. I achieved quite a height and, as my graceful arc turned to descent, I braced myself and prepared to bounce. And I did bounce. I bounced ninety degrees to the right. And, as I lay groaning on the hallway floor, having unexpectedly shoulder-charged the living room wall, I was reminded of an earlier, simpler time. Christmas. Christmas 2005, when my wife had brought me a space-hopper and I, having injured my shoulder bouncing in the hallway, had deflated it and put it into the loft. There was nothing for it. I’d have to try…

6. Music. I would listen to the first album I ever purchased. The Specials’ eponymous debut album. That would take me back. As I put the CD on, and the opening bars of A Message to You, Rudy began to emerge from the speakers, I was taken back to another time time. Back…to Wednesday evening when I’d heard A Message to You, Rudy on a bloody Next television advert and had become astonishingly cross about the commercial exploitation of a track that was very dear to me. In fact, just thinking about it annoyed me again and so, as I was tired and my shoulder hurt, and as my day of reliving my childhood had gone so abjectly wrong and recognising that I was, by now, in a foul mood that was unlikely to improve and would cause me to irritate others I…

7. Sent Myself To Bed Without Any Tea. And so it was that I finally discovered a way of reliving my childhood. By being quite grown-up, ironically.

September 14, 2010
7 Reasons International Cricket Captain 2010 Let Me Down

This week, one half of the 7 Reasons team will be revisiting their childhood. (The other half may or may not join in. We like living on the edge). Today we start off by looking back to the summer of 1998. As a 15 year-old, I spent much of my summer holiday playing, watching and indulging in cricket. Part of this indulging was many hours spent on International Cricket Captain. A PC game that does for cricket what Championship Manager does for football. Except that Championship Manager was good. Anyway, International Cricket Captain 2010 is out these days. It’s bound to have got better. At least that’s what I thought.

1. Run The Bat In! As a young cricketer you are told to run the bat in. Usually, this involves running the bat along the ground. Whoever designed this game obviously thinks it’s okay to run the bat in, in mid-air. And because of that, Ricky Ponting was given not out on 23, 54, 73, 75, 89, 101, 108, 11o, 118 and 122. He went on to score a match-winning 133 and the Ashes were gone. Despite Andrew Strauss’ 13* in England’s second innings. The one where we were bowled out for 46. Chasing 467.

2. Slip Positions. I don’t know about you, but I like my slips close together. If the ball goes wide of third slip, well so be it. It’s better than it flying between first and second. International Cricket Captain 2010 evidently likes a slightly more spread field. So spread in fact that I could probably drive a combine harvester between keeper and slip. If only the game had that option.

3. Aggers. I would say Jonathan Agnew is back for another stint as commentator, but I actually think it’s exactly the same utterances as he recorded 12 years ago. The only reason I hesitate in stating this as fact is because he sounds slightly more bored than I remember. I didn’t even think that was possible at the time.

4. Geoffrey Boycott’s Grandmother. If anyone has ever wondered just how good she is, I can’t help you. If anyone has ever wondered what her stance looks like, buy International Cricket Captain 2010. The batsmen – and they all have exactly the same set up – are clearly based on little old ladies.

5. Lord’s Media Centre. It looks like a hedge. Probably because it is.

6. Training. One of the things that really annoyed me about the original International Cricket Captain was that you could only train eight players at anyone time. Supposedly the rest of the squad just arsed around in the changing room playing poker and watching Trisha. I would have hoped that in the twelve years that have passed, this would have changed to accurately portray the professional era. Has it? No. I am still only allowed to coach eight players. And quite frankly, I don’t think Ian Bell listened to a word I said.

7. Attack! When a batsmen is at the crease you are supposed to be able to influence his attacking mentality. Unfortunately, some of the players seem to have a mind of their own and do whatever they bloody well like. An uninjured Flintoff deciding to block out the 19th over of a T20 against Australia for instance. I initially thought this was because I hadn’t earned his respect. That would be a nice little addition to the game and give it a sense of realism. Ten minutes after trying to work out whether this was the case, I exited the game without saving. Why did I think it would be a good idea to relive my childhood again?

September 13, 2010
Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Make Sure You Renew Your Car Insurance

Another Saturday dawns and as it does a new writer appears on the 7 Reasons sofa. This week we welcome Chris Owens, who is probably just about the finest member of the Car Insurance team at MoneySupermarket.Com – the UK’s leading price comparison website. Right, that’s two sentences more than I should be writing on a Saturday, so without further deviation, I’ll hand you over to Chris.

Auto ©mxlanderos

I’m guessing most of you think you’re a reasonable enough driver – you’re pretty safe, tend to stick to the speed limit (most of the time), and have never had to make a claim in your life. But at the same time you’re sharing a road with a whole host of motoring mavericks and disaster-prone drivers that are a simply a car crash waiting to happen. Here are seven of the craziest (but true) car insurance claims ever made – and 7 Reasons you need to make sure you’re always covered:

1. Cars And Snow Aren’t A Good Combination. One cool customer thought it’d be easier and safer to take a taxi rather than risk venturing out on their own in heavy snowfall. Unfortunately, the clumsy cabbie skidded straight into the back of their parked car when he came to pick up his passenger.

2. Drivers Have Terrible Judgement. Anticipating traffic speed and giving yourself plenty of time to react are two of the first lessons you learn when you first start driving. It’s a shame that one unlucky bloke forgot these golden rules and caused a multi-car pile up because, in his own words, “I started to slow down but the traffic was more stationary than I thought”.

3. Buses Aren’t Reliable. You’ve pulled out of your driveway and set off for work first thing in the morning when you slam into the back of a bus picking up passengers. What’s your excuse, apart from you weren’t paying enough attention to the road? How about, “It’s not my fault, the bus is five minutes early” – strangely enough this motorist’s insurers didn’t see the funny side!

4. A Call Of Nature Can Cause Chaos. A driver was caught short and had to stop at the side of the road to relieve himself behind a row of bushes. When he had done his ‘business’, he returned only to find his car had gone. Just as he was telephoning the police to report the missing vehicle, he noticed some familiar looking tyre tracks heading down a hill. After running all the way down to the bottom of a grass bank, he found his car flipped on its roof and in need of some emergency repairs… someone had forgotten to put the handbrake on.

5. Life Is Full Of Tree-mendous Surprises. Many of us drive the same routes over and over again, so it’s no surprise we think we know our way home like the back of our hand. Sadly for one daydreaming driver, he reversed into the wrong house and crashed into what he charmingly described as, “a tree I don’t have”.

6. The Simple Law Of Gravity. It’s not too uncommon to see crazy pictures of cars crashing through the front window of a house, but what about when the roles are reversed? A house was being moved on a large lorry when it toppled over and fell off, straight onto the top a parked car. Only when the moving company finally owned up to its embarrassing mistake did the disbelieving insurance company actually pay up.

7. If All Else Fails, People Will Blame Absolutely Anything. And last but certainly not least, the black arts were the probable reason for an accident for one imaginative driver, who simply filled out an insurance claim form with the words: “Windscreen broken. Cause unknown. Probably voodoo.”

September 11, 2010
7 Reasons That Squirrels Shouldn’t Eat KitKats

Yesterday, A picture of a squirrel eating a KitKat was printed in the York Press. It struck us that squirrels eating KitKats was a bad thing. Here are seven reasons why.

1. Health. As humorists, we don’t know much about the internal workings of squirrels (or about the economy of Papua New Guinea for that matter, though that is less relevant here), but we’re fairly certain that chocolate is bad for squirrels. In fact, it could be deadly for them.

2. Corpses. And parks littered with the corpses of dead KitKat-eating squirrels aren’t fun places. In fact, they’re probably hazardous to park-goers; just try chasing a frisbee when there are many dead squirrels underfoot. Or get a dog, they chase frisbees for you. And probably eat squirrel corpses. But they poo everywhere – and chase writers – and no one wants that. Also, the park of dead squirrels would probably…

3. Upset The Girl. And no one wants to upset the girl.

4. Squirrel Obesity. Although grey squirrels are American, and we should expect them to be on the portly side, they will only be made fatter by the consumption of chocolate confections. And the spectre of obese squirrels lumbering around the nations’ parks is not a desirable one. In fact…

5. It Could Be Injurious To Flora. And this would upset the girl. And no one wants to upset the girl (she’s not called Flora, by the way).

6. The Unknown. We just don’t know what effect eating KitKats could have on squirrels. Partly because this is a new phenomena and there is insufficient data available to construct a meaningful hypothesis, and partly because we would rather do almost anything than conduct a scientific study. Or maths. Or whatever the hell it is. Anyway, our cursory investigations have led us to conclude that eating KitKats could cause the grey squirrel to mutate into a giant submarine-eating creature that would constitute a hazard to shipping.*

7. And This Would Upset The Girl. And no one wants to upset the girl.

*Our study mostly consisted of thinking hmm, what could we photoshop into the hands of the squirrel?

**7 Reasons (.org) would like to make it clear that we do not believe that Nestle are a large, evil corporation that are attempting to achieve world domination by causing squirrels to mutate into giant submarine-eating creatures that dwell at the North Pole.***

***Do not read that with a sarcastic tone, it totally undermines the important disclaimer.

****Picture “borrowed” from York Press. But if you check the original article, you can see that we’ve put it back exactly where we found it.

September 10, 2010
7 Reasons You Should Have A Music Festival In Your Garden

It’s Thursday! And to celebrate the day we present you with our third and final piece that was destined for the shelves inside Esquire, but didn’t quite make it.

1. Own Bed. No sleeping on the roughest terrain in history in a sleeping bag that is far too small for you. After the last act, you can just pop upstairs and collapse onto your dry, comfy mattress. And of course you won’t be woken by fifteen drunken idiots tripping over your guy-rope at 4am.

2. Bad Weather. If the British Summer decides to stick with tradition and deposit large amounts of water upon us each weekend, you can just move your festival indoors. No one gets wet, your girlfriend won’t moan that her make-up is running and you won’t spend the rest of the evening warning off blokes who have just noticed she isn’t wearing a bra.

3. Lost Belongings. There is nothing more sickening than waking up in your tent and realising that you lost your wallet and wedding ring last night. If you have your own festival though, there is no need to panic. Your wallet will be in the flower bed and your ring will be in next door’s cat. Your ring never ends up in next door’s cat at Glastonbury. Never. Though sometimes it is in next door’s cow.

4. Toilets. A customary hazard at festivals. You’re going to drink large quantities of lager – even if you don’t like the bloody stuff – and that means ending up in queue for the temple of bacteria that is the portaloo. What’s the point when at home you can use your clean bathroom? A bathroom that smells of your partner’s potpourri and doesn’t have 100 people waiting ahead of you. Unless you accidentally left your front door open, of course.

5. Prices. Let’s be honest, the admission price to stand in a field for three days is excessive. You could have driven to Estonia on a small motorbike for the cost of a burger and chips. And you always end up spending £10 on a novelty blow-up dolphin that has a slow-puncture. All in all, a waste of money. Have your festival at home and you can charge yourself sensible prices. And there’s more chance of having a puncture repair kit to hand too.

6. Better Yourself. Music festivals – despite the name – aren’t just about the music. There are workshops and craft stalls and clowns and people trying to get you to take part in yoga classes. Have a festival at home and you can do all these yourself. You can have a woodwork workshop that will involve you putting up those shelves that you have been meaning to do for six months. You can set up a stall and try to flog all your rubbish from the attic to unsuspecting neighbours. And you can take part in your own yoga class. Which will involve bending down to pick up another beer. And relax.

7. Dreadlocks. Most of the people at your home-festival won’t be pierced and be-dreadlocked. Unless, that is, you have dreadlocks and a piercing. In which case, what are you doing reading this bit? Go to the Fashion & Grooming section at once! In fact, did you steal this magazine?

September 9, 2010
7 Reasons You Should Choose Your Holiday Read Carefully

There’s so much to think about when choosing your holiday read and so much can go wrong. Here are seven reasons that you should do it carefully.

1. The Cover. People say you should never judge a book by its cover. But they do. Which is why everyone who sees your choice of book will automatically form an opinion of you. And it will probably be the wrong opinion. Take Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange for example. The Penguin Modern Classic version depicts a glass of milk. If I see someone reading a book that has a cover featuring milk I immediately think, ‘Cows. The reader likes cows’. They probably don’t. In fact, had I asked them, they would have probably shrugged with indifference. But that’s the peril of the book cover. To me, that person will always be a cow lover.

2. Trilogies. These are a big no-no. No one reads more than one book on holiday, so never start on a series that is going to take you a further two holidays to finish. By the time the second holiday comes around you’ll have forgotten what happened in the first book. This means you’ll have to read it again, only for the process to repeat itself on the next holiday. Basically, you’ll spend the rest of your life holidaying with the same book. And you’ll never find out who kills who or what the wizard said to the pixie or why the girl next door is so addicted to sex with vampires.

3. Love. Lots of people meet the love of their lives (or their night) on holiday. The last thing you need – having plucked up the courage and charmed a beautiful lady at the bar – is for her to come back to your suite and see your copy of How To Talk Women Into Bed resting on your pillow. That kind of behaviour is strictly frowned upon by the fairer sex. Apparently.

4. Language. When you take a book abroad, it’s disrespectful to your hosts to read an English translation of a book originally written in their language. In Barcelona, several people were upset to see me reading a translation of Lorca’s Yerma, but that was nothing compared to the reaction of Berliners to my English version of Mein Kampf. Never read a translated work. They were livid.

5. Practicality. The Da Vinci Code is the ideal book to take on holiday. If the weather takes a turn for the worse you can use it as kindling; if you spill your drink on the table, it’s quite absorbent; if you need to hold a door in your villa open, you can fashion a papier-mache doorstop from it; if you find that people are trying to engage you in conversation, you can pretend to read it (they’ll soon leave you alone). There’s almost nothing that this versatile book can’t be used for. Except as reading material, obviously. That would be stupid.

6. The Lord Of The Flies. If you have teenage children, do not take this book on your island-break with you. Okay, so it’s pretty unlikely that they’ll put down their iPods and PSPs for long enough to read it, but if they do, they may descend into savagery before you know it. And savages do not make relaxing holiday companions. As anyone that has vacationed in Ayia Napa will testify.

7. Airports. A copy of Frank Barnaby’s How to Build A Nuclear Bomb and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction would be a particularly poor choice of holiday read. It’s sobering, serious and thought-provoking; none of the things that are conducive to the holiday mood as you attempt to relax and get away from it all in your detention cell at Heathrow Airport.

September 8, 2010
7 Reasons August Is Too Early For The Football Season To Start

If you think that’s a slightly odd title – hopefully only for timing reasons – then we certainly understand why. This post was one of three that were originally going to appear in Esquire magazine. Due to space and content issues though, it wasn’t meant to be. We’re delighted to say however, that we can now show you what you would have read on the newsstands. If it makes you feel better, please buy a copy of Esquire, print this page and stick it in. If that wouldn’t make you feel better, just read as you normally would. The two other Esquire pieces will appear over the next two days. Exciting, huh? So here are, 7 Reasons August Is Too Early For The Football Season To Start.

1. Food & Merchandise. In August, the sales of these will just about be non-existent. No one wants a hot-dog or a pie in thirty degree heat. Neither does anyone want to buy a scarf. With clubs fighting for their financial lives at the moment, you’d have thought they’d want to cram December full of fixtures. It’s simple economics.

2. Sir Alex Ferguson. He’s red enough at the best of times. Making him watch football in August is just cruel. Both to him and to viewers of Match Of The Day.

3. Transfer Rumours. With the season starting in August, July will be full of unsubstantiated rumour. Such and such a player was just spotted at the services on the M1. This must mean he’s going off to sign for Manchester United. Yes, or more likely, he’s off visiting his best friend’s wife and needed petrol. And condoms.

4. Too Hot. August is predominantly a hot, sunny month in the UK. Hot, sunny weather affects the way football is played. Either we’ll develop a slower-paced continental game to cope with the conditions or we’ll carry on playing the traditional full-tilt English game and risk killing ginger people. Surely we could just wait for September? That would be the humane thing to do.

5. Rain. As a consequence of being hot and sunny, August is also one of the driest months of the year. At least during the week, when we are at work. At the weekend though, when we have things to do, the rain comes and plans are ruined. Cricket, barbecues, days at the beach. Whatever it is, they are ruined. And quite rightly too. That is what summer is all about. What can’t rain ruin? Football. Logic dictates, therefore, that it’s out of place in August.

6. Weddings. The school holidays run through August, as does the wedding season. And weddings are planned by women who do not care – or possibly even know – that you have something better to do at 3pm on Saturday afternoons in August; something that doesn’t involve dancing around the vol-au-vents. Basically, football ruins what should be the best day of people’s lives because the groom is sulking.

7. The World Cup. It’s just finished. The World Cup Final was on July 11th. And, England won and I still need time to let it sink in/England lost on penalties and I haven’t finished being depressed yet/England went out in the group stage and the sight of a football just makes me angry. (Delete as appropriate). It’s just too soon! I need more time!

September 7, 2010
Russian Roulette Sunday: 7 Other Magazines We’re Not In This Month

Happy Sunday to you. Now, regular readers will no doubt be aware that we were hoping to make our debut in Esquire Magazine this month. Sadly, we haven’t. However, we are optimistic that we will make our bow in November. The delay got us thinking though. Which other magazines have we failed to make an appearance in this month? As it goes, all of them. Thankfully, in what will come as both a relief to you and our keyboards, we aren’t going to explain why we are not in every single magazine out there. That would take years. And quite frankly none of us have that much time to waste. Instead, we are just going to pick seven. Because seven is the correct number. So, here are seven other magazines we didn’t get in this month. And why. If you’ve spotted a magazine we’re not in, please do let us know in the comments section. And if you find a magazine we are in, we’d appreciate you let us know that too.

1. Beano. The 7 Reasons comic-strip promised so much. Two humorists, two cats* and a psychedelic penguin invade France. Who wouldn’t want to read that? Apart from Beano readers obviously. And the French.

2. Vanity Fair. Well, half the 7 Reasons team brought the vanity, sadly the other half forgot the dodgems. We’ll let you decide whom is who.

3. Wisden Cricketer. Despite Jon scoring a solid fifteen during his parent’s anniversary cricket match last Saturday, he still failed to make the current issue. Which is probably just as well considering it was his girlfriend that finally dismissed him.

4. Men’s Fudge. Notwithstanding the fact that at least 50% of the 7 Reasons team are strong advocates of fudge, this Japanese magazine still overlooked us. Probably because 100% of the 7 Reasons team are 100% interested in women. Two women. One each. No more. None. Let’s move on.

5. White Dwarf. For the uninitiated, this magazine solely deals with anything you might find in Games Workshop, i.e.: models of the wargaming genre. If you do happen to find a white dwarf in Games Workshop, well that’s just…erm…coincidence. He/she still won’t be featured. Or at least I assume they wouldn’t. That’s really the editors choice. And I’m not the editor. Anyway, I digress. We’re not in White Dwarf this week because we prefer making things out of paper.

6. Forbes. It’s their Celebrity 100 issue. The richest 100 celebrities. Given that 7 Reasons brings in approximately $2 in advertising revenue per day, we should be in this issue in circa July 43,676. Unless we have a spike, in which case we might make it into the January issue. That’s the aim anyway.

7. Motor Home. Marc and Jon in a campervan. I know what you’re thinking. And that’s why we’re not in this magazine either.

*One owned. The other, random.

September 5, 2010
Guest Post: 7 Reasons That Recycling Is Rubbish

It’s fair to say that the 7 Reasons Sofa Tour of The United States (Manchester, Scotland and rainy streets) is well and truly over now. While we have enjoyed our foray over the Atlantic (Pennines, border and road) in the past month or so, there is nothing quite like being at home. Taking over sofa duties today is Richard O’Hagan, who, apart from being a fanatical environmentalist (if this post is to be believed) writes about stuff for The Memory Blog, the Daily Mail and Cricket With Balls. You can follow him on Twitter and get directions to his house here. Over to you Richard.

Don’t get me wrong here, recycling is a good thing. At least for the next couple of generations. After which time we’ll have recycled everything so many times that no-one will really care any more, because everyone will have forgotten how to make anything new anyway. No, what I really object to is my local council saying that I have to recycle stuff, then only collecting half of the stuff they tell you to recycle.

1. Rubbish In Car. The council have dustcarts to take the rubbish away. Recycling is still rubbish. Why the hell am I having to put it in my car and drive it to the recycling point. It’s bad enough that you are using me to do the job you should be doing, do you have to take my vehicle as well?

2. Colour Blindness. They insist that I divide my glass into clear, green and brown. Apparently you can never cross the streams and mix green with brown. But I am colour blind. I can no more tell green from brown than I can give birth. Which means that 2/3 of my trip is entirely pointless. No, more than that, because where’s the bin for this blue vodka bottle? Or this yellow lemon juice one?

3. Wasps. What do wasps like most? Sticky, sweet stuff? Like, maybe, the fermenting dregs of booze in a bottle bank? Yes, at this time of year, going to the bottle bank – if you can work out which bin to put which bottle in – is like visiting a giant wasps nest. So now I have a smelly car, am worried that I might be putting stuff in the wrong bins, and am now risking death by wasp sting.

4. Foil. The council also insist that I recycle foil. But only clean foil. Which is completely useless, because I need the clean foil I have to put over stuff that I am cooking with. The whole point of foil, in fact, is that it gets dirty. And have you every tried to wash the stuff? It is like trying to wash custard skin. So now I have to choose the lesser of two evils and recycle less-than-clean-foil. Which leads to

5. Dirty Hands. Dustmen get given gloves. If the council want me to do their job, surely they should give me gloves. So not only do I get confused and stung by doing the recycling, I also have dirty hands. Although my car is also dirty.

6. Boxes. And then there is the cardboard box problem. To get the cardboard boxes to the recycling, you need to put them in something. Such as a bigger cardboard box. Which you then put into a bigger cardboard box. And then a bigger cardboard box. Until you end up with a box so big, it won’t go through the stupidly small, letterbox-like, slot they have put in the cardboard container. So you leave it on the ground, along with the boxes left by everyone else who had the same problem, because

7. Mountains. The council don’t believe in emptying the recycling until there is a mountain of cardboard that even Sir Chris Bonington would baulk at. Which means I’ve got dirty, my car has got dirty, and I have been stung and confused, simply to create a small version of the very big rubbish tip I still suspect the council of carting the whole lot off to anyway. Pah. Recycling is rubbish.

September 4, 2010