Tag: seven reasons

7 Reasons to go to the Football Match

1. History. You get no sense of history watching a match on television. If you go to the Milton End at Fratton Park though, you can see an impressive recreation of the football experience in Victorian times. If it weren’t for the presence of “ladies” and the absence of flat-caps and rattles I would have believed I’d gone back in time. They even exhorted their team to “play up.” Nobody’s done that since colour was invented. I think I saw Dickens in the row behind me, sitting between a Muffin Man and an urchin.

2. Perspective. When you watch televised football, most of the footage is shot side-on from the main stand. This gives a good perspective on the game and gives you a tactical overview of events. You can get this at live football too, by sitting in the centre of one of the main stands. If you prefer excitement, however, nothing beats sitting behind the goal that your team is attacking. The spectacle of watching your strikers shooting at the space directly ahead of you is unsurpassable.*

*If your strike-force contains an Aliadiere or a Voronin you can replicate this experience by sitting near a corner-flag, the one furthest from the barn-door and the cows-arse.

3. Wit. There’s much wit and humour to be heard at live football. There are funny chants, heckles, pithy observations and bawdy asides. Wigan are considering signing Chilean defender Waldo Ponce in January. I may move to the North-West and buy a season ticket. It’s a name with enormous humour potential, the best since Celtic signed Rafael Scheidt.

4. Alan Green. Supercilious hectoring blabbermouth Alan Green might be at the match but don’t worry, it’s quite noisy there and you won’t be able to hear him. Also, he won’t be able to talk over everyone in the crowd whose opinion differs from his own, which is at least 97% of them – the ones with eyes in their heads and functioning brains.

5. Advise. You can’t help your team by watching the match at home. At the match you can, by shouting. If you’ve spotted something the players haven’t, or developed a new tactic that your manager hasn’t considered, you can let them know instantly. Who knows? You may even change the course of the match with your perceptive insights. Or you may not, like the man next to me three weeks ago who bellowed “Get the ball!” whenever his team weren’t in possession. He is presumably the man that warnings on coffee cups and rear-view-mirrors are for, I had wondered.

6. Pedestrians. Football matches are dangerous places for cars. Tannoy announcements often seem to consist of an endless stream of car-park calamity. “Can the owner of a silver Ford Focus (they’re all silver), registration number xxx xxxx please go to the car park as their car has its lights on/has its windows open/is parked in the way/is on fire/has rolled away/has the keys in the door/has been struck by the opposing team’s bus/is being vandalised/is playing Radio 2 at an immoderate volume. Militant pedestrians love hearing this litany of automotive adversity, it may be why they go.

7. Comedy. When you watch football on television, the cameras aren’t following the referee and often miss it when he does something funny, like falling over. I can’t think of anything that is funnier than a referee falling over, except for a referee falling over a dog…or a referee falling over a linesman…or a referee being chased by a rogue elephant…or a referee being satirised by Ian Hislop…or a referee slipping on a banana skin dropped by the fourth official…

There are many things funnier than the referee falling over. The ref falling over is still very funny though. If you go to the match, you may witness it.

December 17, 2009
007 Reasons to be a Bond Villain

James Bond: Suave, sophisticated, international jet-setting spy and cultural icon. Every boy wants to grow up to be like Bond. But isn’t he just a tad dull? Wouldn’t it be much more fun to be a Bond villain? Of course it would. Here are seven reasons why.

1. Clothes. James Bond dresses well. He usually wears smart-casual gear when he isn’t working, or a bespoke suit if he is. As nice as they are though, they’re still the clothes of an office worker. Bond villains can wear whatever they want – they’re the boss. Usually they eschew convention and go for a light-brown suit with a Nero-collar, a light-brown Mao-suit or a light-brown safari-suit. No one makes fun of them though, they might end up as anaconda food. Bond villains can wear whatever they like without criticism, even light-brown.

2. Pets. Bond villains often have pets. Usually it’s a cat, which is good, or sometimes it’s a shark, which is probably higher maintenance and less fun to stroke, but still good. James Bond has never had a pet, which is a bit weird.

3. Girls. Most Bond girls are employed by the villain, not by Bond. So if you’re the villain, you can choose whichever Bond girls you like. We have chosen Jennifer Aniston.

Caress O’Hare regarded the tall, well dressed, unconscious newcomer as he was dragged into the sumptuous office. Her emotions a heady cocktail of disdain and desire, she leaned provocatively against the front of the large desk, her miniskirt displaying her lustrous, shapely legs to full advantage. The henchmen tied the man – still attired in formal evening wear, two small drops of blood visible on the front of his white shirt – to a chair facing the desk. The burlier of the henchmen took a soda syphon from atop a filing cabinet and began to spray water into the man’s face. Bond came-to suddenly, shaking his head to dispel the liquid and exhaling to clear it from his mouth, sending a fine spray in her direction. “You bitch!” he exclaimed angrily as the water cleared from his eyes. The henchman replaced the soda syphon. From the seat behind the desk a deep, clear voice spoke.

“You have meddled enough in our affairs, Mr Bond, and have now outlived your usefulness. However, we are gentlemen. We won’t kill you if you give us seven reasons that we should spare your life.”

“Seven!” Bond was incredulous. “You inhuman monster! That’s impossible!”

As the henchmen dragged Bond away to the tank of killer cows, Caress O’Hare turned to her employer, the man with the golden bicycle. “He was a fine figure of a man, you never let me have any fun.”

“Never mind that feeble-minded establishment thug,” he said brusquely, “I have decided that we shall be married.”

“That’s wonderful,” she replied, touching her hair, “I’ve always wanted to be more than Friends.”

4. Accommodation. Bond lives in a poky London flat and, when traveling, stays at a series of dull hotels. Bond villains get to live in bunkers where people in colourful boiler suits drive Mini Mokes, in futuristic houses that rise up from the sea, in space, in a volcano, in mansions, in a house full of ladies on top of a mountain, Bond villains dwell in all sorts of cool places. These homes are stacked to the rafters with shiny stuff and amazing gadgets. The best gadget in Bond’s flat is probably his electric tie-rack.

5. Exertion. Bond has to work out a lot. There’s always some sort of emergency that requires him to show off his chest or chase things. Bond villains, on the other hand, don’t have to strip to the waist for spurious reasons and they never, ever run. They sometimes even get a monorail that transports them around their own house. Bond villains can relax and eat a pie whenever they like. Bond villains can be lazy.

6. Imagination. Bond likes to keep his killing simple, preferring to shoot people or push them off cliffs. Bond villains take a far more creative approach to inflicting death on people. Their elaborate schemes involve lasers, computers, submarines, spaceships, missiles, satellites and command centres chock-full of machines that beep, flash, whir and spin. Bond is a dullard; Bond villains are imaginative.

7. Lines. James Bond can tell you his name, own name, and how he would like his vodka-martini prepared. That’s about as eloquent as he gets. Bond villains, in contrast, spout pithy lines of intelligence, malevolence and wit. Their lines are far superior to the semi-articulate drivel spouted by Bond.

Blofeld: I had heard that you were dead.
Bond: This is my second life.
Blofeld: You only live twice, Mr. Bond.

December 15, 2009
Guest Post: 7 reasons I feel at home in liberal towns

We love it when we find other 7 Reasons pieces on the internet, especially good ones. We found this one via Twitter. It’s written by Vince Marotte, who is the Internet Pastor at the Gateway Church in Austin, Texas. He’s kindly given us permission to use it. It was originally posted on his blog, where you can also read about his love of Radiohead and He-Man blankets (he’ll fit in quite well here then).

When I was laying the groundwork for planting a church last year, one important value I had was planting in a city where I fit in. Long story short; the profiles kept pointing to liberal towns. Which I could have told you prior to taking assessments and doing the interviews. On a side note, the church we’re planting is now going to be on the Internet…based in Austin.

In conversations with people back in California and the various other places I have people, I often mention the fact that I really dig Austin because it’s a liberal town. When I say that, I mean it in the most broad sense and I’m not even thinking about politics; let’s face it, when it comes to the issues that actually make the world go around the difference between Democrats and Republicans is nominal at best. Not to mention the fact I don’t subscribe to either paradigm; I’m a Pro-Life Libertarian for what it’s worth, which means I’m more conservative than Republicans and more liberal than Democrats…if that’s possible.

7 reasons I feel at home in liberal towns:

1. Less Hummers. Historically I drive small cars and I can’t stand getting stuck behind monster trucks when I’m going down the freeway. Not to mention the taking up of two parking spots. I won’t say drivers are better in liberal towns…but they do less damage in their Volvos and hybrids.

2. Educated Population. I suck at small talk and I don’t watch much in the way of sports, college basketball being the one exception. In a highly educated liberal town I find it much easier to find people to talk with about things like the Large Hadron Collider, flaws in the federal reserve system and whatever was on NPR this morning. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with blue collar towns…it’s just not my thing.

3. Protestors. I’m someone that thinks the American population needs to take to the streets a little more often; it’s a great way to keep our government in check, because our power to vote doesn’t seem to be working. I can’t quite pinpoint the exact reasons why there seem to be more protesters in liberal towns, but my best guess is that most liberal towns have a generous surplus of college students and a larger single population in general. Married people with kids a far less likely to take the day off work to go protest the WTO, Monsanto, war or whatever.

4. Whole Foods. I love me some Whole Foods. I’m a foodie and a hack chef and I can always count on Whole Foods to have the goods. Not to mention the fact that my family eats organic, natural, grass fed…blah blah blah. It’s clear that Whole Foods targets liberal towns as their market.

5. Local Everything. Liberal towns are good to their local businesses. Educated liberals tend to care about stuff like that where as in conservative towns people have become dependent on Wal-Mart and Costco.

6. The Arts. I love music and art. Liberal towns are really the only place where music and art scenes flourish. Again, this has something to due with the population of single people, and they are willing and able to do the starving artist thing.

7. People Give You the Benefit of the Doubt. At the center of a conservative view of politics is the concept that mankind is inherently evil; whereas at the core of a liberal view is the opposite, that mankind is inherently good. These thoughts are quite often subconscious and not often completely understood by either side of the concepts and there are exceptions to the rule. All that to say the people in liberal towns general give everyone the benefit of the doubt and it creates good energy. I will say that a proper understanding of either view can lead you to think positive of everyone.

Maybe the sociologists out there can help me complete my thoughts?

December 13, 2009
7 Reasons to Hate Pigeons

1. Impudence. Pigeons poo on statues. This is disrespectful. They poo on Churchill, they poo on Nelson, they poo on Eros. Pigeons poo on all of the nice statues of people and gods that we like. Pigeons don’t poo on statues of Michael Winner or Margaret Thatcher. This may be because we don’t have any, but if we did, pigeons probably wouldn’t poo on them, because pigeons are horrid and annoying.

2. Freeloading. We regularly hear stories (some of us have even witnessed this) of pigeons using London Underground trains to get across London. Do they pay for this? No. These sponging vermin are using our transport system at our expense. They didn’t help build it and they don’t contribute anything to its maintenance or running costs. I have to carry an Oyster Card, so should they. Let’s staple Oyster Cards to them.

3. Imagery. Pigeons are oft described as “winged rats.” That’s “rats,” terrifying pointy-faced, sharp-toothed creatures. That’s “winged,” which is one of the scariest words in the English language when pronounced as a word of two syllables, “wing-ed.” “Wing-ed rats.” It makes me shudder.

4. Idiots. Pigeons attract idiots. Look at this American woman in the Piazza San Marco, Venice. She’s in one of the most beautiful parts of one of the world’s loveliest cities and she’s fascinated by the pigeons. She’s clearly an idiot. She could be looking at the Basilica, she could be looking at the Doge’s Palace, she could be looking at the Procuratie Vecchie but no, she’s looking at pigeons. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid bloody pigeon-woman.

5. War. Pigeon excrement was the only known source of saltpetre (potassium nitrate) in 16^th century England. Saltpetre is an essential ingredient in gunpowder, so if your Tudor house was damaged by canon-balls or if your copotain hat was knocked from your head by musket-shot five-hundred years ago, you can blame pigeons.

6. Emasculation. Wood pigeons are the larger, nobler cousins of the urban pigeon. Historically these creatures, with their quite pleasant and distinctive call, have been content to live in trees far away from people (who do not live in trees). Recently though, a pair of these creatures have moved in near to a house belonging to a friend of mine. Their favourite game is to poo on the love of his life (his shiny, expensive German car) and then to sit on his garden fence cooing at him. They do this every day. Not unnaturally, this makes him very cross. If he could get hold of them, he would probably tear their heads off in a murderous rage, but every time he approaches, they casually retreat to a safe distance and continue taunting him. It is because of this that he is now known as The Pigeons’ Bitch. And because of me, obviously. He should never have told me.

7. Profiteering. The use of a fleet of trained carrier pigeons was instrumental in the allowing the Rothschild banking family to make vast fortunes during the Napoleonic wars. They were able to manipulate financial markets for their own gain, based on having exclusive access to early information about the results of battles. Pigeons filled the bankers’ wallet (the Reverend Spooner himself would have been proud of that one, and astonished by the mental image).

December 11, 2009
7 Reasons to Make Your Own Calendar

1. Dates (Women). You can put important dates on it so that your partner won’t forget them. Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, he’ll never forget them if you put them on a calendar.

2. Credit Crunch. As a result of the new-austerity, we’re all looking for gifts that are cheap and thoughtful. A personalised calendar is inexpensive and lets people know that you’re thinking of them. Also, if you haven’t been affected by the credit crunch and want to remind your friends of this, you can put your holiday pictures from The Maldives on it.

3. Skippy. You can give your friends and relatives a calendar with twelve pictures of your dog, Skippy, on it. It’s not like showing them a picture of Skippy, or posting it on Facebook, where they’ll only look at it once. If you give someone a calendar they can look at Skippy for a whole year. He’ll be there every time they look at their kitchen wall; chasing a ball, slavering, wearing a Santa hat, chasing a stick, poking his tongue out, chasing a Frisbee, drinking his water, sitting, standing, jumping, running, sleeping, lying on his side, Skippy’s there all year!

4. Dates (Men). You can put important dates on it so that your partner won’t forget them. Sporting events, beer festivals, Xbox 360 game release dates, she’ll never forget them if you put them on a calendar

5. Customisability. In your own calendar you can make the months as long or as short as you want. On my calendar, June is fifty days long and February is only six. This is a huge improvement as I loathe the cold, winter weather and I can spread my family’s many June birthdays over a longer time period, making the June glut of present-buying more financially manageable. I’m fairly certain that you can use this method to make a prison sentence shorter and make payday nearer too.

6. Revert. Tired of the Gregorian calendar? Feel that the implementation of the 1582 Papal decree was heavy-handed and had a poor consultation process? Never mind, if you make your own, you can revert to the Julian calendar and say “Up yours!” to Pope Gregory XIII.

7. Reasons. You can make your own 7 Reasons calendar with your favourite reasons on it. As long as it’s for personal use we don’t mind, cut and paste away. Send us an email if you want a copy of our logo and let us know how you got on. You can even send us a copy if you like. Then we won’t have to look at Skippy next year. Again.

December 9, 2009
7 Reasons to Shop Online

1. Queues. Sometimes, shops are busy and there are long queues. Having spent the previous ten minutes standing in a queue for the checkout, many people are taken by surprise when they are asked for money. Once they get over the shock of this unanticipated event, they proceed to spend an inordinate amount of time fumbling for cash, cards or vouchers in their pocket, wallet or handbag (sometimes all three), thus making everyone else’s wait in the queue even longer. Approximately 50% of the people in the queue will do this. When an online shop is busy, their servers are sometimes slow, which causes pages to load slowly. This gives you time to practice drumming on the desk or to sing show-tunes from Fiddler on the Roof which, on balance, is better than murdering idiots in Borders.

2. Scary Man.

I saw this man at the shops.

3. Creativity. If you have too much beer, you can’t go shopping. You tend to stumble about, get distracted and forget things. You may even fall over or get asked to leave the shop. When shopping online though, drunkenness is a virtue, as it lowers our inhibitions and brings our creative tendencies to the fore. In the same way that all of the best ideas happen in the pub (and are sadly often forgotten), all the best shopping ideas occur when under the influence. Why buy your partner perfume or aftershave, lingerie or underpants in a shop when you can have a few beers and get them a pan in the shape of a fried egg, a map of New Zealand, an illuminated bust of Beethoven and a biography of Charles Lindbergh? You can also get yourself a new bicycle while you’re at it.

4. Happy cat. When you have to go to the shop for groceries, you tend to pick up a couple of tins of cat food at a time. When you shop online, you stock up. The monthly online grocery shop is like Christmas for cats.

5. Attire. When you visit the shops, you have to dress normally, or people will point at you and security guards may follow you around. When you’re shopping online, however, you can wear whatever you want. If you’re fond of hats, you can wear a pith helmet, a Davy Crockett hat, a top hat or a straw boater without feeling at all self-conscious. If you’re not fond of hats, you can wear whatever costume you like. You could dress up as a Louis XVI or a pirate – you could even dress up as a bear, though this might hamper your ability to use the keyboard and may cause you to order too much salmon.

6. Teenagers. The over-made-up 15 year girl at the Superdrug checkout who hates you for reasons that you don’t understand doesn’t scowl at you, and sigh when you tell her that you don’t require a bag, when you shop online. You may not recall treading on her puppy but at some point during a transaction with her, you will wonder if you have.

7. Christmas. When you shop online your senses aren’t assaulted by gaudy decorations, flashing lights, glittery stuff or baubles, unless that’s what your own home looks like, in which case you probably won’t mind. You will not bang your head on all of the decorations which were hung from the ceiling by an inconsiderate short-arse (for blind people this is a serious issue) and you will not have to listen to Stop The Cavalry once, let alone thirty times. I hate Stop The Cavalry so much that I’m tempted to write Stop The Stop The Cavalry. I probably will do, in a queue in a shop while waiting for people who’ve just discovered that they need to exchange money for goods.

December 7, 2009
7 Reasons not to Dance

1. Marital Disharmony. In the Edwardian era, dancing was a gentle affair and the worst thing that could happen while dancing with your wife was that you might tread on her foot. This may have led to some resentment, but nothing that would distract a man from guzzling brandy and smoking cigars in his library or waxing his moustache in the bathroom. Modern dancing, however, is less well structured and far more vigorous. These days, when dancing after a sherry or two, it’s all too easy to inadvertently stumble and face-plant your partner onto the dance-floor. This can lead to months of tutting, silences and chores that urgently need doing on a Saturday afternoon.

2. Deviance. George Bernard Shaw said that dancing is the “…vertical expression of a horizontal desire.” This is a fair statement. Salsa dancing and the Tango, for example, have a degree of eroticism that would seem to indicate carnal intent. What though, should we make of Riverdance? What could the stiff, immobile arms and motionless head, neck and upper torso in combination with the preposterous, maniacally-flailing leg movements of Riverdancers indicate that they want to do in the bedroom? Whatever it is, I don’t want any part of it, and I don’t want to hear it through the wall either.

3. Death. Ah, the Tango; that moody dance from Argentina; so sensual, so visually arresting and so beloved of film-makers. If you meet a lusty, long-limbed, raven-haired, wild-eyed beauty, under no circumstance should you dance the Tango with him/her because, as we have learned from Hollywood movies, you will die. It’s one of the rules of cinema that if you dance the Tango in a film you will be stabbed or shot by your partner’s jealous lover/former lover, usually in an alley outside a Buenos Aires dance hall.

4. Geography. This is a map of where your feet need to be when dancing. If you don’t understand this diagram (and I think that’s all of us) you shouldn’t be dancing. Who knows what could happen or where you might end up? If you do understand this diagram then your chances of meeting a dance partner are negligible, by the way.

5. Strictly No Dancing. Ballroom dancing is a great reason not to dance. If you have no desire to paint yourself orange and dress in tight, sequinned, garishly-hued, puff-sleeved creations (the ladies outfits are even more preposterous) and twirl around with your teeth clenched then you should avoid ballroom dancing at all costs. Not ballroom dancing also minimises your risk of having to go to Blackpool.

6. Boycott. One of my local bars has a sign that says “Do not take lasses onto the dance floor”. There’s no way you should go and dance without taking your lass, so we boycott dancing at this venue.

7. Weddings. If there is an occasion that you shouldn’t dance at it’s a wedding. If you do anything freakish or memorable on the dance floor in front of the friends and family that you rarely see, you will forever be defined by it, as witnessing whatever it was that you did on the dance floor will be your extended family’s shared experience of you. They will bring it up at every social occasion you attend from that moment on, and if you don’t believe me, ask Sweaty Uncle Richard.

December 5, 2009
7 Reasons to use Photoshop

1. Spots. As surely as crumpets will land butter side down or jam will spill on your new tie, it is inevitable that on the morning you’re attending a wedding, you’ll wake up with a spot on your face. This always happens. The size and prominence of the spot is governed by the importance of your role at the wedding, ranging from a minor blemish (your second cousin’s wedding) through a noticeable carbuncle (your brother’s wedding), all the way up to a puss-filled second head (your own wedding). While there’s nothing you can do about the spot on the day, you can erase all record of it using Photoshop (fortunately).

2. Vanity. A recent survey discovered that 100% of internet humourists use Photoshop to adjust their eye colour.

3. Laughter. This picture is very funny, but Photoshop makes it hilarious.

These people made it

4. Revenge. Ever wanted to exact revenge upon someone for making fun of your spot at a wedding? With Photoshop you can. We have already seen that you can remove a spot from your face with Photoshop, you can also use it to move that spot to someone else’s face, and make it bigger and redder. You can put it on your tormentor’s face as many times as you like. She will then call you a “poo-head” and not speak to you for three days, in my experience.

5. Protest. Protestors often hold up really dull placards. You can use Photoshop to make them more interesting. I tried to do something about the stripy top too, but my computer melted.

6. Deception.The University of Wisconsin couldn’t find any group shots containing any black students so they just photoshopped one in (badly). If they hadn’t been sued by Diallo Shabazz (the photoshopped student), who knows what they might have done next. Removing stairs from pictures to demonstrate their wheelchair access perhaps, or removing images of staff pointing at tall buildings and aeroplanes, to make themselves appear a little more sophisticated.

7. Celebrities. Don’t you hate it when friends bump into Dan Akroyd at the train station and keep showing you the photo? With the aid of Photoshop, you can stop them, by manufacturing a picture of you having tea with the Dalai Lama or going for a jog with Ted Danson. Also, if you should ever bump into Michael Winner, you can remove him from any photographs.

December 3, 2009
7 Reasons to Cycle Naked

Police in London are currently hunting a naked cyclist. Harassing our womenfolk is not a good reason to cycle naked. Here are seven better ones.

1. Fine Tuning. Chafing can be a problem when cycling. Your clothing, posture, the angle and height of the handlebars and saddle are all factors that can cause chafing in places where you really don’t want to be chafed. It’s hard to tell, when riding, exactly where and how chafing is occurring. If you remove your clothes, however, you remove one of the variables and can more easily make the necessary adjustments to your bicycle. This will help you get to the bottom of the problem (the problem of the bottom) more quickly.

2. Accidents. Accidents happen to cyclists. The naked cyclist, however, will not tear his new jacket when falling off. If hospitalized, he will not have to worry about whether he is wearing clean underwear. If the hospitalized naked cyclist is a lady, she will also not have to worry about whether her bra and pants match.

3. Wide Berth. Studies have shown that motorists give less room to cyclists that wear helmets and high-visibility cycling gear. This is because motorists believe that correctly attired cyclists are competent and unlikely to make suddenly and erratic manoeuvres. People are generally wary and sometimes frightened of nudity (it gives them the willies). Imagine how much room they’ll give you if you cycle naked.

4. The Chain. No, not the Fleetwood Mac song. The bicycle chain is an oily, abrasive clothing magnet that excerpts a mysterious force on your trousers, unerringly drawing them toward the teeth of the chain-ring. This is messy and annoying. If you ride a fixed-gear cycle it’s very messy, very annoying and very dangerous. If you cycle naked you can’t get your clothes caught in the chain.

5. Helmets. At least 50% of naked cyclists always ride with a helmet.

6. Naked Bike Ride. Going on the Naked Bike Ride is a very good reason to cycle naked. You can draw attention to oil-dependency and body-painting is encouraged. Who wouldn’t want to cycle around in the all-together painted as Spiderman or a mermaid?

7. Annoy James Martin. “Celebrity” chef James Martin hates cyclists. Last September in his Fail On Sunday column, he spoke of his joy at inflicting “sheer terror” on cyclists, and boasted of having run a group of them off the road while testing the Tesla Roadster. These lycra-clad cyclists, “with their private parts alarmingly apparent” managed to annoy him quite a lot. If the private parts of clothed cyclists manage to irritate him that much, imagine how much we could annoy this vacuous dullard by cycling naked. Hopefully to the point of spontaneous combustion.

December 1, 2009
7 Reasons To Become An Artist

1. Name. You can change it. To anything you like. Banksy. Hotelsy. Police Stationsy. No one cares. They just think you are cool and will queue up for hours to see your latest graffiti on the toilet wall.

2. It’s A Con. You can do anything and call it art. Take Tracey Emin for instance. No, actually don’t bother. No one is quite sure where she has been. Instead take a look above. That’s Emin’s artwork. My Bed it’s called. The Saatchi Gallery describe it thus, ‘Tracey Emin shows us her own bed, in all its embarrassing glory. Empty booze bottles, fag butts, stained sheets, worn panties: the bloody aftermath of a nervous breakdown. By presenting her bed as art, Tracey Emin shares her most personal space, revealing she’s as insecure and imperfect as the rest of the world‘. This is how Jonathan Lee describes it, ‘Bollocks‘.

3. Entrepreneurship. We’re in a recession here in the UK. You aren’t going to find a job. So become an artist. All you have to do is pop down to the scrap heap and pick up a bit of metal. Whack it with a hammer a few times and suddenly you have something you can call ‘The Distressed Pigeon’. Then go on Dragon’s Den and wink at James Cann a few times. You’ll be a millionaire before you can say, ‘Gordon Brown won the election! What the…’

4. Nudes. Apparently you get to paint nudes if you are an artist. The only reason I know this is because I occasionally walk back from Hammersmith past an art school. Look through the window and all you can see are naked people covered in paint. Someone out there is making a killing on the sale of White Spirit.

5. Van Cough. Not to be mistaken with Van Gogh. Well, actually, yes he is. Rory Bremner makes a fortune spoofing Blair and Brown and the like, so why not become the first art spoofer? A spoofer is very different to a forger. You can get arrested for forging art. For spoofing it you could probably earn £1.56 a week by showcasing your work on a website. You just have to make the Sunflowers look ironic or something. You’ll be a cult leader in no time.

6. Vive la France. You may be French or you may just own a beret. Whichever it is, it is illegal to own a beret and not be an artist. If you are caught wearing a beret while not working in the arts, you will be sacked and forced to sell onions from tights.

7. Drugs. Now I am not advocating taking anything illegal here, I am really addressing those already addicted. There is no doubt that being high improves your creative output. Just look at The Beatles or Brian Wilson or Silvio Berlusconi. Though thinking about it, I guess the only reason Berlusconi got high was viagra. So ignore that example. Viagra doesn’t count. I’m taking about proper Class A drugs. If you are on something, as by the law of averages at least one of our readers surely must be, then maybe think about paying for your habit by drawing what you see in the twilight zone? It’s not like anyone is going to try and find out if you are portraying the truth or not, is it?

November 30, 2009