7 Reasons

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  • 7 Reasons to Shop With 7 Reasons

    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.

    The online shop of the humour website, 7Reasons.org

    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.

    A t-shirt from 7 Reasons (.org)

    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.

  • Russian Roulette Sunday: It’s Cake!

    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.

    the fairtrade fortnight logo

     

  • Russian Roulette Sunday: How You Found Us: Part 2

    Russian Roulette Sunday: How You Found Us: Part 2

    Hello!  It’s Sunday again and here’s part two in an occasional series that takes you behind the scenes of 7 Reasons.  How You Found Us gives you, the reader, a glimpse into something usually only seen by us, the people who know the password, into the ways that this website has been discovered.  This time, we’ve split them into categories.  Seven categories (it felt weird experimenting with the number ten last week).  Enjoy.  And try not to have nightmares.

    1.  Phrases you used to find us that we found flattering:

    funny website

    VIRILE MEN

    good humour

    Epic Moustache

    I lust you

    Extra large penis

    lotharios

    2.  Phrases you used to find us that we found less flattering:

    scary man

    FAIL

    I dont care

    funny faced people

    KNOB END

    you dirty mind

    the scariest mask in the world

    3.  Phrases you used to find us that we’re sorry we couldn’t help with:

    cooking frozen sausages

    What time is Blue Peter on

    where do women urinate from?

    what to do with lemons

    who is the most beautiful naked woman in the world?

    are oranges gay?

    how to wear socks

    4.  Phrases you used to find us that we don’t know anything about and nor do we want to:

    horse sex tube

    The Pope naked

    PIRAHNA PORN

    Margaret Thatcher mask

    sex with house

    Naked Pocahontas

    pictures of socks

    5.  Phrases you used to find us that are just plain wrong:

    Sarah Jessica Parker looks like a foot

    reasons for Piers Morgan

    the queen paints front door

    The Daily Mail

    6.  Phrases you used to find us that there is no earthly explanation for and that we can’t help with:

    pin the sperm on the egg

    naked hunting

    syphilis fruit

    dead squirrels

    mermaid found in Haiti

    7.  Phrases you used to find us that there is no earthly explanation for but that we were able to help with:

    the network is down  (easy one, our website is hosted by Fasthosts)

    Ryan Giggs hiding cupboard (we don’t know why a friend of ours googled this but we do know who she is so we made her one).

    the stylish and functional Ryan Giggs hiding cupboard.  Also available in black.7 Reasons will return tomorrow.  With reasons and stuff.