Tag: shop

Russian Roulette Sunday: Competition Time

This isn’t the first time we have tried our hand at 7 Reasons competitions. We are sure you remember with great fondness our ‘Be the 8th Reasoner’ and ‘Pimp Our Sofa’ contests. Today sees us continue that great tradition. Only this time there is more at stake than just pride. Fresh from the Emporium, we have three sets of Propaganda Postcards to give away. To stand a chance of winning, just answer the questions below – ideally with the correct answers. Then send your entries to [email protected] with ‘Competitions’ as the subject. The closing date is 11:59:59pm on Tuesday, 14th June 2011. Good luck!

*HINT* All the answers will be found on this website. Do not rely on wikipedia.

1) When the 7 Reasons team successfully invades France, what do we plan to replace the Eiffel Tower with?

2) What colour should you paint your front door?

3) Which date should be known as the day of the sausage?

4) At what time should you not carry out bicycle maintenance?

5) What vehicle should you not drive up the M4?

6) How many sailors make up the 7 Reasons sponsored Mongolian Navy?

7) What type of dancer are at least 50% of the 7 Reasons team afraid of?

*Winners will be chosen at random from those who answer all questions correctly. No cash alternative. No t-shirt alternative. Sorry.

June 12, 2011
7 Reasons I Won’t Be Using The Self-Checkout Machines At My Local Supermarket

I’m not totally against self-checkout machines or progress, but the ones at my local supermarket have turned shopping into a living hell*. Here’s why I won’t be using them.

1. They’re Confusing. Now I’m not a man easily confused by technology. I can put together websites that almost work and look good; I can write HTML and CSS code and I can do things to the inside of PCs too. And given that the self-checkout systems are supposed to be a user-friendly interface that are accessible to people with little tech-savvy or confidence, you might expect that I’d be able to use them easily. But they’re bewildering. Not in and of themselves, but because they are located in a packed group of self-checkouts in a very small space going through different stages of the transaction but bellowing instructions at their customer in the same identical voice. “Please scan your first item”. Wait, what! I’m on my third. “Please replace the item in the bagging area”. What! I haven’t removed the item from the bagging area. “Please wait for assistance.” Assistance? To scan a jar of cloves? How daft do I look? Having a row of three machines with only one voice is idiotic. It’s like having a third member of Jedward.

2. Buying Alcohol Becomes Difficult. Occasionally** I like to buy some beer or wine. This is not a straightforward purchase at the self-checkout because a light suddenly flashes above your machine (sadly no klaxon) and a member of staff has to come over to approve your purchase. I have no problem with that whatsoever (except that I haven’t been asked for ID for about two years now); I hold a personal licence to sell alcohol myself. I have a problem with the amount of time it wastes when I’m shopping in a small store. Both mine, and that of the person who has to verify that I’m over eighteen. Because at my local shop…

3. When You Need Assistance Everything Comes To A Halt. In my local supermarket, no matter how busy it gets, the staff working at the manned tills are the ones that have to come over to verify age, remove security tags or deal with the halfwit that’s wondering where the barcode is on a lime, at the self-checkout. They have to abandon their tills – once they’ve finished dealing with their current customer – leaving you waiting for them to do that, and while they’re dealing with you, there’s a queue of people waiting for the staff member to come back to deal with them. This annoys everyone. This means that far from being an efficient system that eases the burden on the staff, they end up spending much of their time travelling between the checkout and the self-checkout and when they are dealing with customers, those customers are ill-tempered. Essentially their working lives are spent rushing around placating a mob. They aren’t even equipped with truncheons or tall hats.

4. The Machine Tells You Off If You Move Anything. This is annoying at any self-checkout but, when added to the other frustrations in a small store it becomes infuriating. The bagging area is tiny and the chances are that you’re probably buying more than one thing. But if – during your game of bagging area jenga – you move anything in the bagging area, the checkout (or possibly the one next to it, who knows?) bellows at you to replace it. I don’t go to a supermarket to play a game in which I am forced to balance an assortment of dissonantly shaped objects on a small space while being bellowed at by a robot. If I wanted to play that game, I’d go to a Japanese television studio.

5. The Machine Is Patronising. Once all the “fun” is over and you’ve paid for everything you were able to balance successfully in the bagging area and you’ve received your receipt (and twelve others), you start taking your items. And, at some point while you’re doing that, the machine will bellow “please take your items” at you. But you don’t need to be asked to do this because firstly, you’re already doing it and secondly – unless you’ve been kidnapped by a band of Gododdin tribesman and held prisoner for the past 1500 years or so – you’ll be aware of how the concept of a shopping transaction works and you’ll already know that once you’ve paid for your items you should take them with you. And that’s probably when you’ll snap.

6. Other Shoppers Will Look At You Strangely When You Argue With It. “I know! I bloody know! Of course I’m going to take my sodding items you authoritarian automaton! That’s what I came here for! I didn’t come here to give you money and then just leave my goods, that would be cretinous! I wholly understand that if I leave this lime here with you then when I get home there will be no lime in my gin and tonic. I get that! I want the lime!” It’s much like the modern tradition of arguing with the sat-nav in the car, except that in the car there isn’t a line of slack-jawed people backing away from you and shielding their children from Disproportionately-Angry-Man. Or if there is, you’re a bus driver.

7. Human interaction. I just like people. I want to deal with a person: Not an exhausted, defensive person whose shift has been spent in the service of an infernal machine and in placating the bewildered, the angry and the truculent but a person that is relaxed and at ease in their environs and with their customers. But I can’t because of the machines. I miss the happy people that the self-checkout machines have turned into the dejected and the unsmiling. After all, if I wanted to be scowled at and resented I could just stay at home.

*Okay, an unpleasant experience.

**On almost every occasion.

June 6, 2011
Two Posts On A Friday?! What’s Going On?!

My Lords, Ladies, gentlemen and uncategorised people that aren’t covered in the first three, prepare to be astonished! Prepare to be amazed! Prepare to gaze upon something new in wonderment and with awe! We have something to announce and it’s big news. Here we go.

When we opened the 7 Reasons Emporium, we got all the products designed and ready and then we realised that we had nowhere to sell them and the shop got put together as a bit of an afterthought. We tried to make it work as a part of our website’s theme (and failed) so we had to build a new site for it and we modified an existing theme to make it work. Neither of the team were thrilled with the look or functionality of this theme and, as people that pride themselves on their eye(s) for design and general web savviness, that hurt.

We realised that we had to redesign the Emporium for the sake of our own self-respect. It got to the stage that we didn’t like to look at even. We weren’t sure when we were going to be able to fit a redesign in (we’ve only just redone the main website) but then one of the team (we won’t mention which one) had a brilliant idea. “Jon”, he said, “I’ve found the time to redesign our emporium. I’ve calculated that we waste at least six hours every day just lying in the dark*. Let’s use those wasted hours to set up a new site and build a new emporium.” So that’s what we’ve been doing for the last ten days or so.

Now, the 7 Reasons Emporium 2.0 is here. It’s new, it’s shiny, it’s got stuff that moves, it looks absolutely bloody lovely and it’s got giant lemons. We’re so happy with it that we grin like idiots whenever we look at it and feel dizzy whenever we stand up**. We’d like to encourage you to visit it, to click on things and to generally gaze at it (and buy stuff). We’re even offering 10% off the price of all t-shirts this weekend to celebrate the relaunch. We’d love to hear your feedback and product ideas, which can be directed to this email address. We hope you enjoy the new emporium,

Marc and Jon.

*Separately.

**That may be fatigue.***

***Or gin.

June 3, 2011
7 Reasons to Shop With 7 Reasons

You’ve laughed with us, you’ve cried with us, you’ve watched us, you’ve read us, you’ve heard us, you’ve written for us, you’ve tweeted with us, you’ve got engaged with us, you’ve had a baby with us and probably other stuff too. And now, in a new and exciting development, you can shop with 7 Reasons. And here are seven reasons that you should.

1. Be Unique. Everyone wants to feel distinctive, unique and a bit special. And, if you purchase a 7 Reasons t-shirt, the chances are very high that it will actually be unique. After all, how many people are you likely to bump into in your local pub wearing the same Haystack Poking Patrol t-shirt as you? And even in the unlikely event that you did meet someone else in a pub wearing that same t-shirt, you could just say, “Hello Marc” and I’d probably buy you a beer. You’ll be unique or you’ll get beer. That sounds like a good deal.

2. To Marvel At The Emporium. The 7 Reasons team have (amongst other things) expertise in web design and the retail sector. You might think that this would make putting together an online shop easy. But you’d be wrong. Because in typical 7 Reasons style, the one with the retail background did the web design and the one with the web design background is in charge of the retail side of things (and did everything else). So if it does crash or start randomly giving away free merchandise you’ll be there to witness/benefit.

3. Because Our Wares Are Really Jolly Good. I didn’t have anything to do with the design of the lemon t-shirt (God or Darwin, depending on your viewpoint, designed the lemon and Jonathan Lee did the rest), so I can say this. It’s bloody brilliant. Look at it! Just look at it! It’s really a beautiful piece of design. It’s a pop-art pie-chart in lemon. Who wouldn’t want to wear that, other than the abjectly wrong and gits? No one.

4. Innovation. Because the product range will grow as we think of more things to add. We’re already looking into producing 7 Reasons Inspirational Beer-Mats, calendars and fridge-magnets, so you’ll never know what you might find there: A 7 Reasons horse; a 7 Reasons handbag; a 7 Reasons his and his voodoo doll set; a replica 7 Reasons sofa. Anything. Or if you don’t find what you want, you might eventually, because…

5. We’re interactive. We can’t think of everything. We’ve tried and have gotten distracted by girls and tiramisu and things. But we love great ideas and, if you’ve thought of something you’d like to see in the 7 Reasons shop that isn’t there, you can email us and, if we think it’s a good idea, we’ll look into making it. And we’ll probably put your name on it too, unless it’s something really small – or embarrassing – in which case we won’t. Or if you have a really long name like Bartholomew Constantine Washington Penderghast the third, we might not. But if you’re called Jennifer Aniston we definitely will, and that’s a promise.

6. Incentive. Has any other website ever encouraged you to invade a country? Yes, probably, but only evil ones. We’re nice chaps though, and we’d like to encourage a more benign, civilised, conquest: So the first five readers that are photographed standing atop the Eiffel Tower waving a Union Flag and wearing one of our France Invasion t-shirts will get the money they spent on the t-shirt refunded.*

7. Because We’re Very Excited. So excited, in fact, that we spent a couple of hours putting this post together about our shop and forgot to include a link to it. So here it is (this is the link). Now go and shop till you drop! Or at least until your arms are very full and you feel a little faint.**

*We can sometimes tell the difference between the Blackpool and Eiffel towers and we’re also quite good at spotting things that have been photoshopped so no tomfoolery, please.

**I – Marc – would like to thank my colleague Jonathan Lee for all of the effort that he put into the shop and the merchandise (and for fielding slightly ranty emails about World War Two font styles and spacing without ever losing his cool). Never let it be said that he doesn’t work very, very hard indeed.

April 8, 2011
Russian Roulette Sunday: Excitement Has Arrived

When you look at the above, what do you think? I’ll tell you what I think. I think I’d like that on my wall as a poster. In a frame. A wooden frame. What a great talking point it would be. And an even better way of getting people you don’t really want in your house out of it. I am sure you feel the same. And, because we feel the same, Marc and I have done something to accommodate our needs.

Launching this week – after seven days, four hours and eleven minutes (approximately) of planning – is the 7 Reasons store. That’s right, a whole store dedicated to selling 7 Reasons branded goods. How marvelous. So whether it’s a t-shirt or a postcard or a… erm… another t-shirt, this is the place for you.

Now, because we are nice and because we want to see someone walk around Brixton in a 7 Reasons tank top, we are offering you the chance to get 15% off your first order. All you have to do is send an email to [email protected] before 11:59pm tomorrow – (that’s 11:59pm on Monday 4th April 2011 for the easily confused among you). In return we’ll send you your coupon code which you can use at the checkout. Make sure you are following us on Twitter or Facebook to find out when the store opens. The links are up there. On your right.

Okay, that’s enough for today. Someone wise once said too much excitement on a Sunday was bad for the heart. And they were right. See you in store soon.

April 3, 2011
Russian Roulette Sunday: It’s Cake!
Hello 7 Reasons readers! It’s Marc here and today, dear readers, we would like you to make a cake. This cake.

It’s Oxfam’s Easy Lime and Ginger Cheesecake, the recipe for which comes from my local Oxfam Bookshop’s brilliant blog . The recipe calls for the use of Fairtrade Stem Ginger Cookies and, when you go to your nearest Oxfam shop to buy them, you’ll be giving money to a worthwhile cause. That’s right readers, by making and eating an ethically sourced cheesecake (unless you buy mascarpone sourced from warmongering cheesemongers) you’ll be helping a good cause in an ethical way. In fact, if we can all make and eat enough cheesecake, we can probably save the world, and I’ll be trying very hard. Here’s the achingly simple recipe as published by Oxfam Books, Petergate York:

Easy Lime and Ginger Cheesecake
- Serves 4
- Prep time: 15 min
- Chilling time: 30 min
- Basically, in 45 minutes you’re in business.
Ingredients
- 200g pack of Fairtrade stem ginger cookies, crushed
- 50g butter, melted
- 500g mascarpone cheese (they usually come in 250g tubs, so get two of these)
- 40g icing sugar, sifted
- Finely grated zest and juice of two limes
Method

1. Mix together the crushed biscuits and melted butter (I also like to add a bit of sugar to my cheesecake bases to make them a bit jazzier) and press into the bottom of an 18cm (7inch) spring-sided or loose-bottomed cake tin.

2. Place the mascarpone cheese, icing sugar, lime zest and juice in a bowl and beat together. Spread this mixture over the biscuit base.

3. Put it in the fridge and chill for 30 min! That’s really it.

That’s the entire recipe. It’s basically spreading cheese on biscuits and it’s so simple that absolutelyanyone should be able to make it. And now we’re going to demonstrate that even people with no food preparation skills, knowledge or aptitude can follow this recipe. I’m going to hand you over to my writing partner: A man whose culinary education began and ended with learning how to boil water for tea: A man who – before he moved to Kent – was known as The Fulham Poisoner: A man whose litany of culinary disasters includes failing at defrosting a chicken and the hospitalisation of a flatmate*. He’s going to make a cheesecake himself and feed it to his fiancé Claire – a renowned and accomplished maker of cakes – who will judge it on appearance, texture and taste (should she survive). Here’s Jon.

“It was only when I was standing in the queue that I realised I had been well and truly duped. The idea of making a cheesecake and then eating it had originally sounded like a good idea, which is why I had agreed. Marc had, after all, said all it required was a spare half hour. In my book, that’s a fair exchange for cake. But as I stood there I realised it had already been twenty-five since I had left home and I hadn’t even purchased the ingredients. There was no way I could make a cheesecake in five minutes. Not there. And then I got to the till. Which is when I realised this idea was also going to cost me money. Just short of £5 in fact. That’s a lot to spend just to have something to write about. I couldn’t help but think if I had managed the past year and a half writing without having to pay for the privilege, why did this have to change? I trudged home.

Having spread the ingredients in front of me and read the recipe, I realised this was the exact same cheesecake that Claire makes. And she makes it very well. Brilliant. So I’ve had to walk all the way the shops, spend the best part of a fiver on ingredients and now I am challenging my future wife by making one of her specialities. Perturbed, I carried on. Twenty minutes later I was left staring at the following creation:

Making it was something of a doddle. What was not a doddle was the washing up. I don’t know how often you zest a lime, but cleaning the zesting part of the grater is quite possibly a harder job than watching England play cricket. Still, an hour later I was done. I also had lime poisoning from licking the bowl.

The next part of this project – and that is very much what it had become – was to get Claire to profer her opinion. These are the results of the Claire survey.

On Appearance: “That looks nice.”

On Texture: “It’s nice.”

On Taste: “That was very nice”.

So there we have it. I make nice cheesecakes. I am sure your Sunday just got a whole lot better with that news.”

*Which he denies.**

**Falsely.

***As Oxfam Books, Petergate York would (and actually did) tell you themselves, remember the whole point of this recipe is that it is a Fairtrade recipe. So help the global community during this Fairtrade Fortnight (and after) by buying Fairtrade goods as much as you can.
March 6, 2011
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