Tag: seven reasons

7 Reasons That This is the Worst Survey of All Time

Readers of 7 Reasons, I’m breathless with excitement. I’ve discovered something amazing. While reading this fine article to research something else, I found, in four short paragraphs in the middle, an account of an astonishingly inept survey.

The survey was conducted in the 1930s by the Mass Observation organisation and set out to quantify how many people were having sex on Blackpool beach during the month of August. They conducted their research – in a rather hapless manner – by hanging about on the beach at night looking for people having sex. During the research they managed to spectacularly and hilariously cock up their own figures. Here are seven reasons that it’s the worst survey of all time.

1. The Premise. You can call me suspicious (I won’t answer to it though) but isn’t the premise a bit fishy? I smell a rat; which is a rodent that smells of fish. It’s like someone at the Mass Observation unit suddenly said – possibly during a meeting at a pub – “I’ve got a great idea chaps, let’s all go to Blackpool and observe people having sex on the beach.” And everyone drunkenly agreed to it as a terrific idea and an utterly laudable use of their time and resources. What no one seems to have said is “But wait. Isn’t that dogging?” Because that’s what watching people having sex in a public place is. This makes their observation lack credibility. This makes it look less like a serious study and more like an excursion for perverts.

2. The Results. The results are also a little suspicious. During their study into how many people were having sex on the beach during August in Blackpool, they recorded a mere four couples having sex on the beach. Now, perhaps times have changed and things are a little more liberal in Blackpool these days but there are bus stops in Blackpool where more people are having sex than that in the middle of the afternoon. And on the beach at any given time, there are usually at least nine people attempting to have sex with a donkey. The results seem not to accurately reflect the environment that was being surveyed.

3. The Personnel. The credibility of this survey was further undermined because – and this makes it officially one of my favourite surveys ever – one of the people that the Mass Observation researchers observed having sex on the beach was another Mass Observation researcher. This brilliant incident of the hunter becoming the hunted; the ogler becoming the ogled and the peeper becoming the peepee has catapulted what was already the second least credible survey of all time (after my important research into how much tiramisu you can fit into a 6’2” man with an M in his name in a Yorkshire kitchen in December*) into first place in a race of its own.

4. The Results Are Skewed. The discovery of the researcher having sex means that, according to the Mass Observation survey, 12.5% of all people having sex on Blackpool beach during the month of August are Mass Observation researchers. Now I don’t wish to appear cynical, but if I was say…let me see…in charge of a rather unglamorous unit that generated statistics on everyday life and I was having a recruitment drive to swell the ranks of nerds that I needed to count things, what better way to glamourise it? Move over rock stars (whatever they are); move over Errol Flynn and Clark Gable; Mass Observation researchers are unabashed rampant sex beasts and brazen cocksmen and not the stammering bespectacled tweed-wearers that you previously supposed them to be. If you want to have relations with ladies in hats, join the Mass Observation unit and become a statistician. I’d imagine that brilliantined brown shoe wearers would be queuing round the block to join. On bicycles, probably.

5. The Results Are Confusing. But Wait! What if he was having sex alone? After all, if he’s the voyeuristic chap that suggested going to Blackpool in the first place, that’s entirely probable. That would make him 14% of all people having sex on Blackpool beach during the month of August! That would really be something to boast about. But that raises further questions. If you’re having sex alone while watching someone else are you having sex alone? Do you have to count the other person or people? What if he has some sort of weird fetish and is having sex alone while watching a tram or looking at a picture of Stanley Baldwin? Would that mean that former Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was 12.5% of all people having sex on Blackpool beach in August? Should you count all of the passengers on the tram? The computations are mind-boggling.

6. It Might Be Illegal. By and large, Mass Observation researchers were amateur volunteers (and deviants apparently), but the Mass Observation organisation accepted donations and funds from book advances, so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the researchers were being paid to do this and it’s highly likely that they were receiving money for expenses. This raises another question. What do you call someone that gets paid when having sex? That’s right, a prostitute. So, not only has this researcher royally messed up the statistics (and given me a headache) he’s committed an act of prostitution while he was working at the beach.

7. It Gets Worse. The Mass Observation organisation have – in the act of giving money to a prostitute – become a kerb crawler. That’s the sort of label that makes the organisation that have produced the least credible survey of all time look – incredibly – less credible than they already seemed (which was not at all). This survey looks like an excuse for voyeurism, depicts Blackpool in unbelievable terms, skews its own findings by engaging in a sexual act on a beach, raises statistical questions that caused me to consider sex with a tram and the organisation that made it might have sullied their reputation by giving money to a hooker. If there has been a less credible survey ever made I’d love to see it.

*The survey’s finding: Bloody loads.

September 2, 2011
7 Reasons to be Glad That The Transfer Window Has Closed

Hurrah! It’s finally over! And here are seven reasons to be glad that it is.

1. There’ll Be More News. The 24 hour rolling football will finally stop and news stations and channels will carry actual news: Proper news; vital news; weighty news of great import, historical gravity and epoch-defining momentousness. For all we know, Beyonce could be pregnant and because of the transfer deadline day absolutely no one in the world will have heard about it. Also, Colonel Gaddafi could still be hiding in a tunnel somewhere, possibly in Libya. Literally anything could be happening out there and we wouldn’t know because of the seemingly endless saga of will he/won’t he buy him, will he/won’t he join them and David Ngog? Hahahahahahaha!!!! Let’s find out what’s happening in the world.

2. There’ll Be Less Bullshit, Rumour, Bullshit, Bullshit and Bullshit. There’s a saying in motor sport: When the flag drops, the bullshit stops, but there isn’t enough fabric in the world to make enough flags to stop all of the falsity, mendacity and unabashed calumny that makes up the speculation on transfer deadline day. And even if there were, there wouldn’t be enough seamstresses to sew them, poles to fly them from and this analogy stops here as it’s making the writing part of my head hurt. It seems that absolutely anyone can say absolutely anything and get it reported by ordinarily sensible yet temporarily scoop-frenzied news organisations (and Sky) on transfer deadline day. You would think there would be a limited number of Dan’s cousin’s osteopath’s brother’s friend Terrys that could possibly be at an airport terminal or a motorway service station to witness Sol Campbell (who by my reckoning is now at least eight thousand years old) heading off to one training ground or another, but apparently there aren’t. Dan’s cousin’s osteopath’s brother’s friend Terry achieves absolute omnipresence on transfer deadline day as does Yossi Benayoun who, according to Dan’s cousin’s osteopath’s brother’s friend Terry has now signed for at least six clubs and consumed twelve different flavours of Ginsters pasties at various motorway service stations across the land. And every word of this gets reported in every medium by every organisation reporting on the looming transfer deadline. Benjamin Disraeli said that there are“…lies, damned lies, and statistics”, but he never experienced a transfer deadline day. On transfer deadline day there are no statistics.

3. Arsenal Fans Will Seem Less Mad. If you’re of the opinion that Arsene Wenger has lost the plot in recent months with his bizarre refusal to sign any football player that is both over the age of twenty and has a spine, you could be seen to have a valid point. But Wenger’s reluctance to spend his football club’s money buying football players for their football team has made such blubbering wrecks of the supporters that Mr Wenger himself seems like the sanest man in the world (except David Dimbleby) in comparison to them. I’ve experienced this myself as, while I don’t support a Premier League club, I think that a strong and competitive Arsenal team is a lovely thing to watch and makes the Premier League competition far more exciting. Today I’ve frequently found myself foaming at the mouth and bellowing “Buy him! Buy him! Buy him!” This happens whenever Dan’s cousin’s osteopath’s brother’s friend Terry spots any footballer with at least one and a half working legs and the ability to grow even the sparsest of beards within a hundred mile radius of North London. The combination of Arsene Wenger’s parsimony and transfer deadline day have contrived to turn me into a babbling idiot (even more so than usual). It must be so much worse for those that actually care: Those poor people also have to bellow “Sell him! Sell him! Sell him!” whenever Nicklas Bendtner’s name is mentioned. It must be hell for them.

4. We’ll Rediscover Words. How often do you hear your own name said out loud? A couple of times a day? Ten times a day? It might be more if you’re gregarious or popular, I wouldn’t know. One thing I do know though, is that if your name is Scott Parker you’ll have heard it said out loud more often than anyone else in the entire history of humanity. Anyone that has watched a sport bulletin between May and September (that period we refer to ironically as “the summer”) this year will have heard the words Scott and Parker more times than they’ll have heard the words if, it, bit, but, the, a, dog and salamander combined. Oh, and and. Craig David has heard his name said out loud fewer times than Scott Parker has and he spends his entire life singing it at people.

5. We’ll Be Less Baffled. My wife knows less about football than I know about the female orgasm. Of the sea otter. And when she turned to me today and wearily asked “Why do they always leave it until the last minute?” I loftily dismissed her amateur enquiry and, in a knowledgeable and not un-patronising tone replied, “It’s because…”. That’s as far as I got. Because when the transfer window is open from the end of the previous season until the end of August, it’s absolutely barmy to be trying to buy a player (that the selling club usually need to replace) minutes before the window shuts. The buying club won’t find a bargain as the seller will be far more reluctant to sell them at that time and they won’t get a pre-season to help them settle into the squad. There is no level on which leaving buying a footballer until the last minute makes any sense. Unless it’s the same level on which Jedward are entertaining and Nando’s is a desirable place to go for dinner, in which case it makes all the sense in the world. More probably. All of the sense everywhere. Even the sense in the cupboard under the stairs and the sense that has dropped out of your trouser pockets and fallen down the back of the sofa. Am I still making sense? No? There, that’s how much sense leaving it until the last minute makes.

6. We Will All Be Safe. It’s okay. Really, it’s alright now. We can all breathe a deep sigh of relief and relax as we’re all perfectly safe now. Though it does seem that their strategy is to buy absolutely everyone in the world, there are rules and regulations to deal with that sort of thing and if you haven’t already been purchased by Manchester City (something that is worth checking), you won’t have to worry until January. I’ve spent much of the last month absolutely terrified that I’m going to get signed and dragged off to Manchester to play football in the rain, but I seem to have escaped. My five month old son (who can nearly stand up unaided) seems to have slipped the net too. We got off lightly, as it seems that they’ve even resorted to raiding hospitals to find players to sign.

7. Football Will Be About Football. Remember when football was about football? That wondrous, gilded, golden-age when football wasn’t about finance, negotiation, and acquisition? When it was about sport and not business? Now that the window’s slammed firmly shut, those of us that want to see business (and who amongst us doesn’t find watching a meeting utterly thrilling?*) can watch Dragon’s Den or The Apprentice and those of us that like football can watch football which is a sport, not a bunch of self-centred prima-donnas making utter cocks of themselves for our entertainment. Oh, it turns out that it is. Still, it’ll be nice change from all of the business. Until it all starts again in three months. Bugger.

*Yes, it’s me.

August 31, 2011
7 Reasons To Play Croquet With A Flamingo

The other day a local magazine popped through the door. We get it every month. Usually it takes the small trip from the door mat to the recycling bin. This time though, for a reason I can’t describe, I felt compelled to flick through. It’s just adverts for businesses really. Hardly the stuff of legend. That is until I got to page twelve. When I was confronted by this:

Croquet without flamingos?! What?! How on earth can you play croquet without a flamingo? A flamingo makes croquet what it is. Need proof?

1. Alice. The first and obvious reason is that the flamingo itself makes a wonderful mallet – as so beautifully demonstrated by the the girl in Wonderland and the Queen of Hearts.

Of course, it could be argued that the hedgehogs and the cards help make a game of it, but the real challenge when using a flamingo as a mallet is making it have an erection. Of the neck obviously. What happens after this is really neither here nor there.

2. Smug. You may decide however that instead of playing with a flamingo, you want to play with a flamingo. Which, luckily, is something the RSPCA continually turn a blind eye at. The thing about playing against a flamingo is that they are just so damn smug. They’re so casual. They hit their shot then just stand on one leg watching as you line up your stroke. It’s enough to drive you mad. But, conversely, it makes you more determined. More focused. You will play like a legend. Has anyone ever told you they lost at croquet to a flamingo? Exactly.

3. Location. The chances of you borrowing a flamingo in the UK are fairly slim. They are nearly all in zoos or security patrolled wetlands. To check this I did call London Zoo and enquired as to whether it would be possible to borrow a flamingo, but upon telling them I intended to play croquet with it they lost any sort of interest I had earlier piqued. All this leads us to assume that we need to find a freelance flamingo. And our best chance of finding one of those is in South America, the Caribbean or the Galapagos Islands. Hardly bad places to go for a game are they?

4. Contacts. Flamingoes are one of the more social birds out there. Think Tara Palmer-Tomknison. They seem to know everyone. Usually when you play croquet you’ll end up being partnered with Dennis. He’s a nice guy, don’t misunderstand us. The thing is, he spent most of his life working in a signal box. It means he’s used to his own company. He has a few friends. You know, enough to keep him happy. But if you mentioned that you needed a plasterer he’d just raise his eyebrows and play his next shot. Tell a flamingo though and he’ll know bloody hundreds of them back at the colony. Your ceiling will be done in no time.

5. God. Be honest, who would like to play a round of croquet with God? Well, if you play with a flamingo that’s exactly what you’ll be doing. Sort of. Obviously it’s not actually God. It’s a living representation of Him. Sort of. It’s not actually that God. It’s the God, Ra. And Ancient Egyptians believed a flamingo to be the living representation of Him. But that’s still kind of cool isn’t it?

6. Pure Class. According to the Official Flamingo Database*, pink plastic flamingoes are popular lawn ornaments in the USA. And, if my trips through the town are anything to go by, Swindon. How utterly tacky. These people need to be shown up for the cheap, nasty, dirty beings that they are. Play croquet with a real life flamingo. Show these fools that there is more to a flamingo than decoration. I feel sick.

7. Entertainment. You just know that if you send out a few hundred Flamingo Croquet day invites, at least one person – probably not even the dyslexic one – will turn up dressed as a Flamenco dancer. Oh how you’ll laugh.

*Yes, it was wikipedia.

August 26, 2011
7 Reasons That a Dream Bath is Better Than an Actual Bath

Hello 7 Reasons readers! I have a confession to make. I love baths, but it turns out that for years I’ve been bathing wrong. I know this because this morning I had an epiphany (or should that be a baptism as I’m writing about baths). I woke up, having dreamt that I’d had a bath, and that dream bath was better than an actual bath. Here are seven reasons why.

Fortunately not my bath.

1. It Saved Time. The major problem with taking a bath – and the reason that most people end up settling for showers – is the amount of time it takes. It takes time to fill them up and you tend to spend a lot of time in them. This takes a substantial chunk out of the day. Dream baths, however, are different. You can spend hours in a dream bath and it’ll only take seconds out of your life. That’s time that you would have been using to sleep anyway. It’s like being given the gift of time but there’s no wrapping paper to recycle, which saves further time. It probably makes time.

2. It Was The Right Temperature. My dream bath was the correct temperature, which is approximately halfway between “Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!” and “Gah!” Actual baths are always intemperate and usually end up turning that initial cautious toe either red or blue. Or brown, if the bath hasn’t been cleaned.

3. I Was Able To Share It. Sharing an actual bath is seldom the dreamy, romantic pastime it is popularly portrayed as. When sharing a dream bath though, your eyes will already be closed so you can share it with absolutely anyone. I shared mine with my wife who was a reluctant and water-shy cat named Marmalade. Eventually she settled down and enjoyed the bath, right up until the moment that she morphed into a roof-tile and sank without trace at the tap-end, forcing me to eat the rest of the yoghurt alone.

4. Finding The Soap. In your actual bath, you’ll probably find that you spend approximately 8.4% of your time trying to find the soap that you’ve just dropped (which is not as surprising an experience as trying to find it when in prison, but it is still rather an irksome chore). In the dream bath, however, there’s always soap, probably from Lush. And you can bathe safe in the knowledge that it will never, ever have a pubic hair stuck to it. Unless, of course, that’s what you dream about, in which case you’re making my dreams seem positively conventional. And you should never sleep again.

5. No Interruption. My dream bath – unlike my actual baths – wasn’t interrupted by anyone knocking on the bathroom door asking to use the toilet. It was interrupted by a pelican asking for directions to Mr Bobble’s House of Wobbles, but I got rid of him simply by clapping my hands together and shouting “Muffins!” He was far easier to deal with than the desperate and persistent aspiring toilet-users that blight actual baths. Sometimes it seems that pregnant women want to pee just to spite you, and during a long bath, when you’re sharing a house with a pregnant lady, you can find yourself being spited several times. Then that finishes and for the next eighteen years you’ll have a child that will interrupt you in the bath. In my dream bath that did not happen. Obviously, my sleep was interrupted by the child, but that’s a slightly different thing. Probably.

6. No Cleaning. Unlike your actual bath, you’ll never have to clean your dream bath – unless you actually dream about cleaning baths, in which case, thank you, mine was spotless when I got in and I really enjoyed the scented candles and the petals floating on the surface. The meticulously constructed wigwam of bath-towels might have been a step too far though, but you won’t find me complaining. Not least because I can hide in the wigwam while I’m doing so. For other people that don’t clean baths in their sleep, the good news is you won’t have to clean the bath in your sleep. That’s good news.

7. Wake Refreshed And Ready. Nothing prepares you for your day like a dream bath because – like nothing – having a dream bath is not actually having a bath. You will, however, wake feeling refreshed, invigorated and ready for your day; I know I did. You’ll have to spend a large part of that day dodging mirrors and people with a sense of smell, but surely that’s a small price to pay for the amazing time saving and great start to the day. And how close do you really want people to stand to you anyway? With a dream bath, you can keep them at armpit’s length. It’s all win.

August 25, 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
7 Reasons That Attacking A Train With A Bag Of Stones And Excrement Is A Bad Idea

It is said that everyone remembers where they were when they heard that JFK had been assassinated. Similarly, that everyone remembers where they were when Princess Diana died. I don’t know about that. One thing is for sure though, I will always remember where I was when I heard that a train had been attacked using a bag containing stones and excrement suspended from a wire. Here are seven reasons that it’s a bad idea.

1. It’s Unfriendly. I admit, sometimes we’ve had houseguests that have overstayed their welcome and I’ve wanted them to go and I’ve become fractious and my conversation has become terse and curt, and my wife has rebuked me for that by suggesting that I’m, “…not being very friendly”, but never, ever have I considered attacking a houseguest with a bag of stones and excrement. This would be the level of friendliness you could expect if your enemy’s enemy was Uday Hussein. On the Hitlerian scale of unfriendliness (which, having just thought of it, I’m going to begin work on right now), this will rate quite high.

2. It’s Mind-Boggling. What do you hope to accomplish by attacking a train with a bag of stones and excrement? If we consider it as an act of vandalism, I can understand the use of stones*. But excrement? Why would anyone do this? What is the point of this? It’s so mind-boggling that it defies both rational and irrational explanation (which is a shame, as that’s one of my “gifts”). My mind is officially boggled.

3. It Serves No Purpose. While, in major cities across the nation, there are people committing antisocial acts for personal gain and ending up owning iPhones and Tesco Value Basmati Rice, what happens in Yorkshire? A train is attacked with a bag of stones and excrement. But it’s hard to see the benefit of covering a train in poo. While Londoners are sitting back and watching their new, free HDTVs (or HD ready if they nicked the wrong one) what does the perpetrator of this act gain? The satisfaction of having got poo on a train? You could just visit the restaurant car for that sensation. There is no rational motive.

4. It Causes Temporary Homelessness. When I saw the headline Vandals attack train with bag of stones and excrement yesterday, I have to say that it caused me to laugh. Rather a lot. In fact, I laughed so long and so hard that I woke my wife from her afternoon nap and she banished my son and I from the house. It was raining so we had to go to the pub. This is not a complaint, by the way, it’s an observation.

5. Seriously, It’s More Mind-Boggling. PC Gary Shepherd of the British Transport Police said: “A lot of planning must have gone into this…”. He’s right. Where do you get a bag of excrement from? Is it something that the culprit found lying around? Did they have to shit into a bag for several weeks until they had enough? Did he** solicit the help of friends and family? Did he offer to buy the poo from strangers? Did he steal the poo from somewhere? Outside of a blaxploitation flick, where the hell do you get a bag of shit from?

6. Frustratingly, It Hints At Greatness. What begets greatness? Usually a fusion of innovation and endeavour. No one can deny that attacking a train with a bag of stones and excrement is innovative: Infinite monkey theorem suggests that, “a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare”, but could a monkey with a bag and some stones living near a railway line ever conceive of this act? I think not. It also shows dedication. Not only was the bag meticulously rigged, but the act of gathering (or producing and collecting) all that poo shows dedication, self-motivation and commitment to the cause. This person could probably produce work of greatness and real cultural and social worth. If they weren’t a vile and abhorrent weirdo that gets their jollies by spattering trains with a cocktail of turds, that is.

7. What If You Get Caught? It’s an oft-repeated maxim that “if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.” But what is the time in this case? It’s a life sentence, because anyone being convicted for attacking a train with a bag of stones and excrement would surely receive a massive amount of publicity. International publicity. Every last person in the world would know who this person was, and there’s only one nickname that would be bestowed on him. Shitbag. People will point in the street and shout “Shitbag”. People in the pub will greet him by saying, “Evening, Shitbag”. It will become so ingrained that his family will probably address him as Shitbag: “Can you pass the gravy, Shitbag?” “Don’t forget it’s the PTA meeting this evening, Shitbag.” “Oooh, look into my eyes and tell me I’m your little panda-bear again, Shitbag.” That’s a proper life sentence. Shitbag.

*I can’t really, it’s just a lot more conventional.

**It’s a he. While I’m a firm believer in equality, this is too weird for a woman to be involved in.

August 11, 2011
7 Reasons That It’s Not As Bad As You Think

Okay! This is a humour site and my country’s been on fire for the last couple of days, so there’s only really one thing that I can write about today, so let’s be funny about the riots. Except, no. That isn’t really going to work, is it? There are people out there losing their homes and livelihoods as a result of them and I’m sure we all have friends and family that are affected, so writing a lot of nonsense about how good the coverage of the riots will look on a brand new (and free) HD television, or how phoning 999 to report themselves will be so much easier now that everyone with a hooded top has an iPhone would seem trite and foolish. Fortunately, though, while events may have saddened me and affected my sense of humour, they haven’t affected my spirit, my love of humanity and my wonderment at peoples’ innate capacity for good and their astonishing ingenuity. Accordingly, here are seven reasons that it’s not as bad as you think.

1. Innovative Brilliance. “Necessity is the mother of invention” said Plato (in Greek, probably) and our brave and hard-working police force need tea. These lovely people have taken the time out to make them some. They’ve also devised the absolute best way to use a riot shield. Is there an image that captures Britain’s spirit better than this?

2. Collective Brilliance. The riots have demonstrated the country’s capacity for collective brilliance. Many, many people decided that they weren’t going to let their (our) streets be wrecked by the mindless idiocy of a few. The Twitter account @riotcleanup was set up and it now has almost 80,000 followers. That’s more people than have been involved in rioting and looting. People have got together in overwhelming numbers for the power of good. This picture by @lawcol888 is wonderfully uplifting.

3. Individual Brilliance. Oscar Levant said that there was “a fine line between genius and insanity” and, from that very line, this woman bravely berates rioters and looters. That there are people in this country courageous and brilliant enough to stand up to a mob so eloquently is wonderful.

4. Expectation-Altering-Brilliance. Stan Collymore (What? Wait, he’s gone mad. He’s been lauding examples of brilliance and now he’s writing about Stan Collymore!?), former Premier League footballer and someone that I have occasionally thought of as a bit of an idiot over the years tweeted this earlier:

Now, professional footballers (and former professional footballers) are often pilloried – sometimes rightly – for behaving poorly and setting a bad example to people and this was unexpected, but it was a cheering and most welcome thing to see, even if he did make me feel like a git.

5. Technological Brilliance. It’s been a while since Britain has seen rioting on this scale and there’ve been a lot of technological advances in the meantime, so it’s fair to say that any online response to it was going to be breaking new ground. The innovative use of social media as a response to events has been staggering. Almost as soon as disturbances began in Birmingham yesterday, the rather brilliant @caseyrain set up a Birmingham Riots Tumblr account to document events in the second city while the attention of the national media was focussed on London. There have been many, many other wonderful examples of innovative use of social media, with Facebook groups (,http://www.facebook.com/londoncleanup), Tumblr accounts (http://catchalooter.tumblr.com/) and websites (http://www.londonrioters.co.uk/identify/) used to promote various causes and to mobilise people into various types of action. That people have used the internet and social media so effectively to mobilize themselves into making our streets better and catching the looters is both marvellous and demonstrative of a laudable degree of collective will and creativity. Oh, and the looters are helping by using Facebook too.

6. Just Utter Brilliance. Don’t want the rioting and looting to ruin your evening? Simple. Just pretend it isn’t happening. “Riot, what riot? I say, could you pass the port, my good man?”

7. Historical Brilliance. The oft-cited high-water-mark of societal unity, sacrifice and collective accomplishment was the way that Britain dealt with the blitz during World War II. The blitz spirit is something that is often mentioned in articles that decry modern society to illustrate a decline in standards and unity, and many commentators on the current situation have spoken of the riots as being symptomatic of a breakdown in society. But rioting and looting are nothing new. During the blitz – that exalted time when our society is seen as having been at its strongest and most cohesive – with a war-depreciated police force and abundance of opportunity there was widespread looting and criminality too. The truth is that there has always been a sociopathic minority in our country ready to exploit any weakness (lack of police cover, evacuated streets etc) for their own personal gain, regardless of the consequences to others. That we don’t let the looting during the blitz affect the high regard in which we hold the selfless sacrifice of the majority during the second world war speaks volumes about us. History tells us that it’s possible to have a strong, dynamic and caring society despite having a minor element that riots and loots. And the way that the majority of Britain has reacted today to the events of the past few days suggests that little has changed. That is heartening.

August 9, 2011
7 Reasons That I Hate The Mayor Of Vilnius

Unless you have been on the moon for the past few days (and perhaps even if you have) you will have seen this video of the mayor of Vilnius keeping the cycle lanes clear in his city by crushing illegally parked vehicles with a tank. This video has been everywhere. And it’s annoyed me. A lot. Here are 7 Reasons that I hate the mayor of Vilnius.

1. The Mayor Of Vilnius Is A Liar. The message in the video is that if you park in the cycle lane, the mayor of Vilnius will crush your car with a tank. But he doesn’t have a tank. Look at it. Look at it! It’s got wheels and there’s a distinctive lack of a huge gun at the front to shoot things with, tracks and other tank-y accoutrements that are the universally acknowledged signifiers that the vehicle is a tank. That means that it’s not a tank. What it is, is an armoured personnel carrier. What it is not, is a tank. The mayor of Vilnius is fibbing.

2. The Mayor Of Vilnius Is In The Least Convincing Video Ever. I have seen theatre sets that look less staged than this video. I have seen ham actors less hammy than the acting in this video. In fact, I’ve seen entire pig farms less hammy than the acting this video. The man that gets “his” car crushed is the single worst actor that I have ever seen, and I’ve seen Piers Brosnan. The video wouldn’t be less believable if it was narrated by Jeffrey Archer. No it would. But still, it’s not a convincing video.

3. The Mayor Of Vilnius Hates The Poor. During the video, there are three examples of illegal parking. In the first two, a Rolls-Royce and a Ferrari are illegally parked and are not run over by the mayor of Vilnius in an armoured personnel carrier. A third illegally parked car (a knackered old Mercedes worth almost nothing) is run over by the mayor of Vilnius in an armoured personnel carrier. What sort of message does this send? Poor people of Vilnius: The mayor of Vilnius is after your cars. Run (drive?) for your lives, he’s got a grudge against the impoverished and an armoured personnel carrier and he’s not afraid to use it! The message it sends out to the wealthy is somewhat different though. Rich people of Vilnius: Feel free to park wherever you like. Sit back, relax, and eat a diamond or two while you enjoy the spectacle of a man menacing the poor with a “tank”. This is not a nice message to send out.

4. The Mayor Of Vilnius Is The Wrong Man For The Job. People like to have sensible, solid, reliable citizens as their mayors. Qualities that they don’t like in a mayor are publicity-hunger and buffoonery. The evidence for that is clear: The population of the world is 7 billion people and the population of London is 7.7 million people. This means that by far the vast majority of the planet’s population choose to live in the world, which is outside London. If they wanted a buffoon for a mayor, they’d live in London where, incidentally, everything within in the cycle lane is mown down by taxis. The people have spoken and we don’t want buffoons.

5. The Mayor Of Vilnius Is Missing The Point. Why does it even matter if people are parking in the cycle lanes there? Judging by the film, it would appear that Vilnius is the world’s emptiest city. The mayor of Vilnius seems to be some sort of latter day Omega Man cruising the deserted streets in his armoured personnel carrier desperately searching for signs of life. The only person using the cycle lanes in Vilnius is the mayor of Vilnius. Why not use the empty road? No one will ever know.

6. The Mayor Of Vilnius Isn’t Even A Proper Mayor. He’s obviously the mayor by default because he’s the only citizen of Vilnius. Look what happens after he crushes the Mercedes: He has to stop and clean up the glass. He’s the parking enforcement officer, the military, the mayor and the street cleaner all rolled into one. If the mayor of Vilnius became embroiled in a corruption scandal – a quite common occurrence in local government – he’d end up having to arrest himself, but that would be okay, because he’d be able to pay himself a bribe and get the whole thing swept under the carpet. Then he’d be free to win the next mayoral election by a margin of one. Again. Doesn’t the man have any ambition? Why doesn’t he enact a constitutional monarchy and appoint himself King of Vilnius? Emperor? God of Vilnius! If you’re self-appointed, think big!

7. It All Boils Down To Envy. It looks like fun. I want a go.

August 5, 2011
7 Reasons That Men Shouldn’t Wrap Birthday Presents

Did I give this the title 7 Reasons That Men Shouldn’t Wrap Birthday Presents? I didn’t really mean that. I meant 7 Reasons That Me Shouldn’t Wrap Birthday Presents. Or I, to be correct about it. Because I’m sure that there are some men out there that are good at wrapping presents. Neat, methodical men that actually welcome the task; men that positively enjoy it, in fact. The thing is though, that I’m definitely not one of them. And I’m sure that somewhere there must be other people (most likely men) who are as ill-suited to wrapping gifts as I am. Possibly. Here are seven reasons I shouldn’t be allowed to wrap stuff.

Finished! At last!

1. Loathing. I fundamentally dislike wrapping gifts. I’m not good at it and I don’t enjoy it; much like dancing a ballet or sketching a bowl of fruit, I’m temperamentally unsuited to it and it’s much better when done by others. This affects my whole approach to the burden of having to wrap presents. I will procrastinate; I will obfuscate; I will participate in the most mundane or bizarre displacement activities to avoid it. I would literally rather do anything (photograph my belly-button fluff; listen to Jedward; fellate a baboon) than wrap a present. This leads to problems.

2. Delay. It means that I will leave performing the odious task until the last possible moment. And then, when that arrives, I’ll leave it for an hour or two more. Then I’ll have a beer or two, which I may follow with some gin or – as preceded one spectacularly disastrous present-wrapping session – absinthe. I will not wrap a single birthday present until I am so tired that I absolutely have to go to bed on the eve of the birthday. Only then is it time to start wrapping.

3. Practice Makes Perfect. It’s then of course, that I am reminded of how epically, stupendously, mind-bogglingly bad I am at wrapping presents. It’s something I get to do so rarely (thankfully) that I believe I may be getting worse at it with every passing year. I only do it rarely, not because I am ungenerous, but because I am forbidden to do so. My wife – having seen many examples of my wrapping – would rather allow Prince Phillip and Pete Doherty to mind our baby for a weekend than let me wrap a gift that anyone will see (feel, or even be within the same postcode as). This division of labour suits me fine as it leaves me in charge of hammering stuff and assembling things, but it leaves me ill-equipped for the four occasions per year on which I am called to wrap presents.

4. Wrapping Is Dull. There are few tasks duller than wrapping presents. Probably. I’ve been trying to think about something duller than wrapping a present for several minutes now and have so far failed to come up with anything that tops the unremitting tediousness that is covering things for other people in paper. So I would be better off if I had a distraction from the wrapping. But I can’t watch television or listen to music while I’m wrapping because of the hour and because rustling wrapping paper is the loudest sound known to humankind outside of Muse and Vanessa Feltz being sucked into a jet engine. When you are wrapping presents, you are wrapping presents. There. Are. No. Distractions.

5. Sellotape. But there is Sellotape. There’s a fundamental flaw with Sellotape; one that renders it almost all but unusable to me. It has two sides; one of which is smooth and presents me with no problem, and then there’s the other side, which is sticky. The sticky side adheres to everything: It sticks to me, it sticks to itself, it sticks to the table, it sticks to the floor, it sticks to anything that has fallen from the table to floor and retains it in the form of a visible mass of crumbs, dust, fluff and (always) a single pubic hair stuck between the Sellotape and the wrapping paper. The only thing that Sellotape does not do – in my hands – is affix neatly and evenly to the edges of wrapping paper. One birthday, I got this reaction: “Thank you for the present, Darling. Why is there a tortilla chip stuck to it?”

6. Paper. Because I am emphatically not in charge of wrapping anything ever, I am often presented with a problem when it comes to paper. I buy wrapping paper all the time. Lots of paper. Because of this, I always expect to find an abundance of wrapping paper when I – with heavy heart – am obliged to wrap a present. But because my wife spends her entire year wrapping presents in my absence, by the time I need wrapping paper, there’s none left. Things I have been forced to resort to using in the past include: tissue paper, newspaper, plain brown paper, white A4 paper and lined A4 paper. I have also given the gift of a small and delicate bracelet presented in a large metallic red bottle bag. Last night I had to resort to using Christmas wrapping paper to wrap my wife’s birthday presents. Fortunately I was able to talk my way out of the situation this morning: “Those? Those are birthday trees, Darling…Merry Birthday!”

7. Apology. There are also many apologies involved in wrapping presents: Apologies for waking the household up by bellowing obscenities at an odd-shaped overnight bag (or Sellotape, we can’t be certain) at 0330 in the morning; apologies for affixing a dead woodlouse to the wrapping of a tub of handcream that bore the words “Be My Valentine”; apologies for the (unaccountably) ginger pubic hair that was stuck to the tube of Pringles; apologies for the “Birthday” trees line that seemed certain to work and apologies for arriving in bed with a ball of Sellotape stuck to my arm which eventually transferred to my wife’s back when she rolled over. It turns out that wrapping birthday presents is a sorry affair, as well as a messy one.

*I would, of course, like to wish my wife a very happy birthday (if not a well wrapped one). Happy Birthday, Darling.

August 1, 2011
7 Reasons to buy an Austin Seven

What’s this? You’re doubtless thinking. A 7 Reasons post on a Sunday? That’s never happened before. And you’d be right (probably). But today, history has provided us with one, in the form of an Austin Seven advert from 1933. And it’s brilliant; I’m so convinced by the arguments contained within it that I want one. So here, for your entertainment, amusement and personal betterment, is the amazing advert and also a bit of an analysis.

1. “It provides the cheapest form of road travel-a penny a mile for four, all in.” This is astonishing. If you (or I) were to purchase one of these and operate it as a taxi the profits would be so vast that we’d soon be richer than Croesus. And conveniently, less dead. Less than a penny a mile!

2. “It is extremely easy to drive, easy to park.” That’s brilliant. That will save me spending ten minutes reversing and going forward in a car before saying “fuck it” and abandoning it in the middle of the road. It will also make it easy to train others to drive it (of which more later).

3. “It needs no mechanical knowledge; it is trouble-free.” It’s an everlasting car that never needs to be tinkered with. Fantastic.

4. “It is good for five, six or even more years of hard use.” Oh, so it isn’t then. Still, that’s quite a lot of use. Especially hard use. After all, it’s hard for cars to float on the sea, so for it to last five, six or even more years when being used to drive to and from France would be a good performance.

5. “It is as fully equipped and finely finished as cars three times its size.” Superb. It’s every bit as good as the Austin Twenty-One then.

6. “It is free from superfluous weight, being the lightest saloon car made-hence its unburdened power and light running costs.” Unburdened power: I like the sound of that and, even if there are costs involved in running the lights, I don’t care. I’m sold on it. I want one.

7. “It is the only baby car proved by the public for over twelve years. No other car can give you equal results.” Wait! Baby car? That’s amazing. I have a baby. I won’t even have to drive it myself! I’m going train him to drive (it’s easy to drive, remember) and put him to work as a taxi driver. Then I can sit back and wait for all of the money to come flooding in. This is going to be amazing.

*7 Reasons will return tomorrow, probably in diamond-encrusted form, with gold taps.

July 31, 2011