Tag: the

7 Reasons That Ricky Ponting is the Second Coming of Christ

As I was walking yesterday, on the road to Sainsbury’s, a strange and life-changing event occurred. I strolled past a man carrying a newspaper and, upon the back of that newspaper there was a picture. An image of Ricky Ponting looking glum. Christ, I thought, doesn’t that miserable bastard ever look happy? And then, suddenly and without warning, there was a blinding flash of light and a sonorous and divine voice did appear from the sky and say, “Ah look, mate, why do you persecute me?”

I fell to the floor: “Who are you,” I stammered meekly.

“I am Punter, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now rise and get thee unto the supermarket, and you will be told what you must do.”

Blimey, that was weird, I thought, and went to the supermarket as I was bidden. And, to cut a very long story short, in the manner of Saul on the road to Damascus, I, Marc* on the road to Sainsbury’s, had had an epiphany. I realised that I had been wrong all along about Ricky Ponting and had done him many disservices over the years. And now I have truly seen the light and it is my divine mission to tell the world of his glory; here are the seven reasons why Punter is the true successor to our lord Jesus Christ.

Ricky, as he appeared to me on the road to Sainsbury's.

1. The Name. If things look right, and sound right, then they generally are. And when I tried to think of a way to link the names of Jesus and Ponting, I have to admit, I struggled. But then I realised that true struggle is the lot of a disciple, and that I’d just have to think harder. And, lo, I thought harder. But other than the names Ponting and Christ being interchangeable as profane expletives in my heathen life prior to my conversion, I could find very little to link them. Then it hit me: A portmanteau word. Ricky Ponting is no longer merely Punter the cricket captain. He now has a divine and biblical-sounding title. He will henceforth be known as…The Pontychrist.

Ah, look. It's the Pontychrist!

2. Miracles. Jesus was famed for his making of miracles. Specifically, for eking out very little, to make a lot. He turned water into wine, and he fed five-thousand people when equipped with a small quantity of bread and fish; a situation in which a lesser bearded-man – such as Captain Birdseye – merely invented the fish finger. And, in the manner of Jesus, Ponting (who, though not bearded of face, is bearded of arm), the new saviour, is attempting to win the Ashes with a mere nineteen runs from the first two tests. And when he pulls it off, it will be hailed as one of the greatest miracles ever seen. Greater, even, than when he takes a stroll across Sydney Harbour without using the bridge after the fifth test, and greater than when he turns Toohey’s into wine. Or Beer into a world-beating bowler.

3. Serendipity. This current Ashes series began in almost an exact word-for-word replay of one of Christ’s most famous quotes because Australia opened the bowling in the first test. And so it was that he, who is without spin, cast the first stone (or ball, as we call them these days). In fact, like his famous forebear, Ponting tries as much as possible to live a blameless life where lesser men (England) are happy to live a life of spin. In the grand tradition of divine saviours, The Pontychrist is more spinned against, than spinning.

4. The Devil. There would be no need for the coming of Ponting if it weren’t for the presence of darkness among man. Who then, is his nemesis, his bête noire, his archfiend, his foe, the Mephistopheles to his Good Shepherd? It can’t be Andrew Strauss; he’s too nice, he is a mere instrument of the devil. For Beelzebub himself is cunning, yet is vain, and so gives himself away through his choice of name. I ask you, what rhymes with horn? That’s right, many, many, many things but, specifically in this case, Vaughan. Behold The Antipontychrist! For though he has now been banished unto the commentary box for the duration of the series – which if the final test ends on day three will have lasted for forty days and forty nights – (which is both biblical and mathematical proof ), he is surely the puppet-master that the righteous Punter does battle against.

The name of the beast is The Antipontychrist and his number is 6-0-0 (and he doesn't look very well)

5. The Blood of the PontyChrist. In Christian religions, those arcane churches that we had before the birth of Pontianity, especially in Roman-Catholicism, (where the head of the church will, when Ponting is acknowledged as the second coming, be known as The Puntiff) the blood of Christ is important. Jesus, we are told, bled for our sins, and so, in the present day, has the Pontychrist. Here he is bleeding, so that our spirits may be lifted heavenward. And who amongst us can say that this image of his selflessness doesn’t fill their heart with joy?

We have redemption through his blood…in accordance with the riches of God's grace.

Yes, this one's just gratuitous.

6. Iconography. And, much like Christ, when so many of his teachings will be open to the whimsical and wilful interpretations of man, many years after he has passed, so the Pontychrist’s visage will be used, in the millennia to come by men warning others to follow his example and to live without sin. He’s omnipresent, they’ll say, he can see everything that you’re doing, they’ll say. And they’re right. In this portent of the future he seems to be staring into your very soul. And, now that you have seen this picture, you will know, that Ricky can see your every thought and deed. He will know if you think ill of the French. He will know when you’re masturbating. He will know when you’ve eaten Twiglets that you shouldn’t have touched. He knows everything: For he is omnipontent.

He can see into your soul, you bad, bad person.

7. Reflection. And later, on reflection at my conversion to Pontianity, I had a moment of doubt, the sort that afflicted people 2000 years ago in Jesus’s time. I wrote this piece yesterday, but when I woke this morning, I found myself questioning things. In short, I had a crisis of faith. I might have taken too much of my flu medication yesterday, I thought. What if I’d dreamt it? I’d look a fool. I’d be mocked and cast asunder by my peers. I decided that, on reflection, I may have got carried away and resolved to discard what I had written and start afresh with a new piece, after I’d had my breakfast. And then I saw a sign:

It's a sign! (a tasty one, too).

So, in summary, I’m buying myself a ute and I’m going to fill it with corrugated iron and tambourines and head off to the hills to build the first (of many) Puntecostal churches. Who’s with me?

*Henceforth to be known as Parc.

December 15, 2010
7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Watch The American

The new Anton Corbijn film – The American – starring George Clooney is out in the UK right now. I saw it on Saturday, here are seven reasons that you shouldn’t. (and don’t worry, there are no spoilers)

1. The Unconcious. The pace of the first half of The American is slow. It’s so slow, in fact, that if anyone had said “so slow”, it would have come out as, “sssssssssssssssssssssssssssooooooooooooooooooooooooo sssssssssssssssssssssssllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww”. Someone may even have said it, but I’m not sure, as I was dozing. Not a deep and satisfying slumber, but the fitful sort where you find yourself alternating between brief bouts of consciousness and unconsciousness, with occasional forays into semi-consciousness and thoughts of what the hell is happening to me, is this what old age is like (ness). So, I’ll sum up what I saw in the first half of the film (without spoilers). I saw George Clooney living the soporifically mundane daily life of a hit-man. In a series of slowly cut shots with no dialogue I watched him: Counting his bullets, drilling a series of small holes in some tips, oiling his mechanism (not a euphemism), polishing his barrel (nope, nor this), adjusting his sights, rearranging his small change on a table, lining up his fish fingers in size order, adding up all of the telephone numbers on his mobile and dividing them by four, testing the accuracy of his oven timer against his wristwatch (an Omega Speedmaster Professional with a black dial and black leather strap: model number 3870.50.31, I had time to note), comparing the shapes of his fingernails with his toenails, dusting his light bulbs, and staring into an empty fridge while over his head a strip-light buzzed (I may be wrong on some of these, but if they weren’t there, it felt like they were).

2. The Conscious. That’s not fair, you’re probably thinking, if you’d been awake, it probably wouldn’t have seemed that dull. But I wasn’t the only person that was sleeping during the first half. Because when I was in the toilet after the film, a man standing behind me said, “You were asleep during the first half” and, as I prepared to answer him, the man at the urinal next to me replied, “I know, it was really slow”. It turned out that they were friends and that I wasn’t being addressed at all. So there you have it. Based on the available evidence, there are two distinct types of human-behaviour that occur during the first half of The American. There are the Sleepers, who sleep, and then there are the Sleeper-Watchers who, while they have remained conscious, aren’t watching the film either; they’re watching people sleep so they can tell them about how they slept later, in great detail; “You kept leaning forward, and then you fell back, and then you leant forward, and then you fell back, and then you leant forward, and then you fell back, and then you said “chopsticks”, and then you fell back…” was my personal Sleeper-Watcher’s epic account of my movements. So, during the first half of the film, 50% of the audience are sleeping and the other 50% are watching them sleep and compiling a dossier on their movements, their utterances and their dribbling. Which means that 100% of the audience are not watching the first part of the film. That’s how dull it is.

3. Lust. And then the second half of the film begins. It begins with Violante Placido in bed with no clothes on and, in the words of my personal Sleeper-Watcher, “…you sat bolt upright and stared at the screen while breathing rapidly, remaining in that position for the rest of the scene, before you settled back in your seat and stayed awake for the rest of the film”. So not only do you get a full report on how weird you are in your sleep, you get a full report on how lecherous you are when you’re wide-awake too.

4. Clooney. And then there’s Clooney. Now I understand that George Clooney’s playing an emotionless, calculating and reserved man. But we see his bottom in The American, and I can state categorically, that his arse has a greater number of expressions than his face in this film. Here is his full range of facial expressions in The American (sorry if you were hoping for an arse montage, though we do have one of those on the About Us page):

7 Emotions : 1 Face

5. References. During the film, in a scene where Clooney is counting the grains of salt contained in a salt cellar before he thinks about Switzerland for five minutes in a bar with formica tables, something distracting happens in the background. There’s a film on the television. It’s Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West. God, I love that film, I thought. It’s in my top ten films of all time. Why aren’t I watching that? Why in God’s name would you taunt the viewer by placing an iconic piece of cinematic brilliance within your own, not brilliant, movie. So, he’s made me fall asleep, he’s made me appear lecherous, he’s made me watch a man iron his vast collection of handkerchiefs with a lukewarm spoon, and now Anton Corbijn is actually taunting me. He’s showing me a bit of a film that I love that’s better than the one he’s made and that I’m watching, I thought. While screaming inwardly.

6. The Pants. And then there are the pants. Violante Placido, for reasons I won’t bore you with, decides to disrobe (except for her pants) and go swimming in a river. But why would anyone take all of their clothes off except for their pants? Then they’d be wet once they got out of the water. And they’d have to go home wearing wet pants. And who wants to wear wet pants for an afternoon? And I know that you’re thinking that it was for the sake of modesty, but it wasn’t. Because they became completely transparent the moment they got wet, a fact that my Sleeper-Watcher noted later, before he informed me that I, “…sat bolt-upright and made some sort of involuntary tongue noise. And didn’t blink for eight whole minutes” in reaction to this scene. Three days later, after a great deal of thought, I still can’t fathom the pants.

7. The Ending. Again, I won’t tell you what happens, but there’s a moment of awareness when someone alters the thing. And when that person – whose gender I won’t digress – alters the thing that I won’t name, I had a moment of clarity. I knew, in that instant, that the character that was going to do the deed would be thwarted by the one that altered the thing and that the other character that I also won’t name would eventually have to do the deed – not with the broken thing that had been altered, but – with another thing but that we hadn’t been introduced to, and that the deed would end badly. Not only for the character who had been forced to do the deed with the new thing, but also for the character to whom the deed was being done, that countered the deed with his own thing, having previously sparking this chain of events by altering the initial thing in the first place. And it was just bloody obvious that was going to happen a long time before the end.

So, to summarise: During the first half of the film you will fall asleep or resort to watching someone else sleep to keep you entertained; you will then be branded a pervert, be partially baffled by facial expressions, taunted by the director, and then wholly baffled by pants before eventually spotting the blatantly obvious ending many minutes before the film ends. I don’t think ungoing is an actual thing, but I want to do it. Right now.

December 1, 2010
7 Reasons That A Drawn First Test Was The Best Result For The Ashes

1. England. For England, a draw in the Brisbane test is certainly a good start to proceedings. We’ve already made certain that there will be no repeat of the 5-0 whitewash in 2006/7 (that I can’t remember) and we’ll be all the more confident as a result of that and, with the monkey off our back, we’ll be able to play more freely; without protests from animal rights activists angered by our wearing of the back-monkey.

2. Australia. For Australia, despite being the home team, and despite the stunning manner in which they won their last home series, a draw isn’t a bad start either. Now that many of their cricketing greats have retired, to devote more time to highlighting their hair and creosoting themselves – leaving Australia with players in their team that even Australians have to google – it was always going to be a tough series. A loss would, quite simply, have been devastating for them. At least with a draw the Australian public will retain some hope and confidence and will continue backing their team; whoever they are.

3. Andrew Strauss. A draw’s a good result for Straussy personally. It means we’re still in the hunt for The Ashes and, while this test can be seen as a positive in terms of his captaincy, will give him much needed time to work on his abysmal batting form. Strauss was England’s lowest scorer in both innings at Brisbane scoring 0 and 110 runs respectively, which is 192 runs fewer than his opening partner. A poor show indeed.

4. Ricky Ponting. A draw, for Ricky Ponting, is no bad result. He’s already received a lot of criticism from his countrymen and a draw is unlikely to add to that. Despite him being the most dislikeable man in the history of Australia, I almost felt sorry for him earlier today (? Yesterday? I just don’t know any more) while he was being booed by both of his own crowd. And I would have done. If I were mental. Or he wasn’t Ricky Ponting.

5. @theashes. Yes, the Twitter user with the best name on Twitter will also benefit from the draw. The feckless American who decided to give herself the name @theashes without checking Google or Wikipedia first and now has over 5000 new followers and more Twitter mentions than…er…the actual test match got (remember the cricket anyone?) now has a few days (I still haven’t worked out how many, I have no idea what day it is and am also surprised to note that it’s now light outside) to choose which team she wants to support as the two teams are still level. Then, when a Twitter-mob quickly forms to campaign to send @theashes to The Ashes, she can choose sides without accusations of glory-seeking, before payment is required for a plane ticket and the Twitter-mob dissipates even more quickly than it was formed.

6. Spectacle. The draw leaves the rest of the contest evenly balanced and, as history has shown us, the best, the absolute best Ashes series are the closest fought ones. Was the 2006/7 Ashes series actually exciting? I asked someone who actually remembered the series and he said “No.”… “Mate”. But the 2005 series and the 2009 series were both epic, close-fought affairs in which both teams gave their all and that everyone remembers fondly. In fact, most right-thinking cricket-fans don’t mind their team losing in a close and exciting contest at all.*

7. International Relations. Because of the draw we can continue to talk to Australians and they can continue to talk to us with pride and dignity intact all round. We can pretend that Finn and Swann didn’t get knocked around the park a worrying amount in Australia’s second innings and that South Africa is just west of the Isle of Wight, and Australians can pretend that there were people in the stands on Monday and that they were just very small. And quiet.

*Did I mention I haven’t slept since…Tuesday?

November 29, 2010
Special Guest Post: 7 Reasons I’m Backing Us To Win The Ashes

Hello! It’s Wednesday, and regular 7 Reasons (.org) readers might be surprised to find a guest post here. But today is special. Because today is the day that The Ashes begins, and I can’t begin to tell you how excited the 7 Reasons team are by this. Well, I could begin, but I’d never be able to stop myself and we’d all miss the cricket while I babbled on and on. So, joining us on the 7 Reasons sofa today is Sir Straussy who has taken time out from his busy cricketing and tweeting schedule to explain why he’s backing us to win The Ashes. And by us, I sincerely hope he isn’t referring to the 7 Reasons team; that would be a disaster.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the England Captain are entirely his own and do not represent those of 7 Reasons (.org)*

1. It’s In The Toss. This is nothing new, but Ricky Ponting and I are tossers. We have to be. It’s in the contract. To be a captain you must be a tosser. And I am very proud to be both. So is Ricky. The difference between us is that, while I’m a good tosser, he’s a useless tosser. The stats don’t lie. Using the motto ‘tails never fails’ I have won 59% of tosses as England captain, Ricky has won a mere 49% in his role as an Australian tosser. And with the toss being so crucial these days, that 10% will give us the edge. But, I hear you ask, what happens if tails fails? Is that it? Shall we give up? Forget about this Test? No, certainly not. Again, let’s examine the stats, in the 41% of matches in which tails never fails has gone tits down, I have led England to victories 64% of the time. And as for Punter? Well, under his tossership, Australia have won just 30% of the Tests in which he has lost the toss. So, just remember, if my tossing goes wonky, don’t worry, I still produce results.

2. Younger, Fitter, Stronger. Assuming we go into the first Test with the team I want and Australia go into the first Test with the team I want, the average age of the England team is going to be twenty years lower than that of our counterparts. And even if Australia don’t go with Dame Edna Everage and Bill Lawry, our boys will still be younger on average. If the probable teams that have been bandied about in the papers for the last few days are to be believed, we’ll step onto the field with the average age of 28 years and six months. Australia will wheel themselves onto the field averaging 31 years. That age difference means we’re much fitter. Just take a look at our bodies. No one can tell me Dougy Bollinger is fitter than pin-up sensation Stuart Broad. Or Simon Katich is fitter than Brighton favourite Jimmy Anderson. Or podge-face Punter is fitter than the hairy-armed version of myself.

3. The Hair Apparent. According to the internet, the American writer, actor and comedian Larry David once said, ‘Anyone can be confident with a full head of hair, but a confident bald man – there’s your diamond in the rough’. He was talking about Matt Prior. The one player in world cricket whose surname inexplicably can’t be used with an O or Y to form a nickname.

4. Names. And talking of nicknames, should you wish to use ours on the Scrabble board we will score you an average of 9.5 points per player. That’s a staggering 0.9 points more than the Aussies. When you also throw into the equation that this includes the nickname-less Prior, it almost defies belief. How is this going to help us win the Ashes though? Well, it’s not directly, it was more an observation I made playing online scrabble with Lady Straussy. But it did get me thinking. Us English and South African-English just whack a Y on the end of a surname and be done with it. We then get on with the cricket. The Aussies though, well judging by some of the nicknames for their players, I imagine they spend a great deal of time in the middle trying to think of something wondrous. That must be why Haddin is called BJ, Bollinger is called Eagle, North is called Snorks and the 27 year-old new boy, Xavier Doherty, is called X. You need to concentrate on the game in this game, not faff around thinking of schoolboy nicknames. In some ways this is why I hope Usman Khawaja plays. Though I suspect he’s called Koala.

5. The KP Factor. With his Movember challenge nearly at an end – a contest Monty has dominated from an early stage – and his blindfold cricket ‘viral’ video for Brylcreem out of the way, KP now has the chance to concentrate on what he loves. And, talking about love, the other day the lads saw that the fat lad Warney had said KP needed loving again. So that’s exactly what we have given him. Lots of it. Aussie, watch out.

6. Midge. That’s the nickname of Mitchell Johnson, presumably because like a midge he has no sense of co-ordination. Anyway, he has vowed to make me crumble. Which is lovely. I’m looking forward to it at tea. But Midge has also vowed to make me suffer under a bouncer barrage. This goes back to the 2006/7 Ashes where I fully admit I got out hooking twice. Midge wants to exploit this perceived weakness. Given that I was caught behind four times in the same series, one could be forgiven to think I am far more susceptible to the one that pitches in the corridor of uncertainty and moves a fraction away off the seam. Mind you, Midge’s corridor of uncertainty is only slightly smaller than Steve Harmison’s, so perhaps that’s what he means anyway.

7. We Are England! To paraphrase Hugh Grant, ‘We may be an England cricket team, but we are a South African one too. A country of Allan Lamb, Basil D’Oliveira, Tony Greig, Robin Smith, Robin Smith’s brother. Nasser Hussain’s index finger. Nasser Hussain’s middle finger come to that. And a friend who bullies us is a Commonwealth country that wants to become a Republic. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to whip out my guns more often. And the whole of Australia should be prepared for that.’ Actually, it sounds much better like this.

*Unless he makes fun of Ricky Ponting or the French.

November 24, 2010
7 Reasons That Jessi Slaughter’s Father Probably Should Have Kept Quiet

I’m sure that most of you reading this are, by now, aware of the Jessi Slaughter (not her real name) phenomenon. If you’re not, to summarise, she’s an eleven year old girl who did what any other eleven year old does, she was silly and she made some mistakes. She wound some people up in internet chat rooms and then made several threats to the people that disliked her including, “I’ll pop a glock in your mouth and make a brain slushy”. They took exception to this, and there was an astonishing internet hate campaign conducted against her. To be honest, the whole thing was rather tawdry and not worthy of our attention. Then her dad waded in:

Understanding of the Internet FAIL
Uploaded by failblog. – Sitcom, sketch, and standup comedy videos.

Now, at 7 Reasons we occasionally like to think of ourselves as a self-help guide. And to this end, I feel compelled to address my remarks directly to Mr Slaughter, as it is surely he who needs my help the most.

1. You’re Not Very Good At Addressing The Camera. I dislike doing pieces to camera, mostly because I’m not very good at them. I tend to get a bit flustered and mangle my words, and it’s because I’m so bad at them that I try to avoid doing them at all costs. But I know this much, Mr Slaughter. When addressing the camera, you should never, ever get down on one knee at the start of every point that you want to make, only to spring up again afterwards, because it’s an undignified position for any gentleman – especially one who’s maturing in years – and it does tend to make you look like a bit of a fruitcake. Oh, and always try to wear trousers. Trousers are very important.

2. “…you’ve been reported to the cyber police…” Oh my god! Run for your lives! It’s THE CYBER POLICE!!! They sound futuristic and terrifying and now I’m cowering fearfully in the corner of my…hang on…the cyber police? There are no cyber police. You just made them up to intimidate the people you’re ranting at. Now, I’m no expert in making up shadowy organisations to intimidate internet users, but I can’t help thinking that the sort of people that spend their time trolling others via the internet might conceivably have some knowledge of its workings and be able to see through your deceit. If I were you Sir, I’d have used a real and scary organisation to threaten them with. But I sense that you realised this too, Mr Slaughter. Somewhere, in the midst of your furious rant, you seem to have grasped that the cyber police weren’t going to fool anyone and you did what any sensible person would have done in your situation; you added a secondary organisation.

3. “…and the state police…”. Yeah, that’s telling them. Tell them that the FBI are going to hunt them down, tell them that the CIA are hot on their trail, tell them that…wait…the state police? Mr Slaughter, Mr Slaughter, the state police? Seriously? These people?

4. Moustache. While watching your epic, and rather unhinged rant, Mr Slaughter, I fancied that I could hear another sound in the background. The sound of moustachioed men’s heads being placed in their hands as they collectively murmured all around the world, “Oh god. This’ll set us back years”. You see, Mr Slaughter, the moustache has been enjoying something of a renaissance of late, and is no longer the object of ridicule that it once was. That is until now. You have shamed the moustached community with your exploits, Sir. I firmly expect sales of safety razors to soar as a result of your buffoonery.

5. “…Consequences…will…never…be the same.” No, Mr Slaughter. And nor will my monitor, covered as it now is with most of the cup of camomile tea that I was attempting to consume while watching your video. Nor will my wife be, as she will surely remain traumatised by the sight of her husband spitting a beverage at his own computer before helplessly convulsing and writhing around on the floor for several minutes wholly unable to form words and barely able to breathe. My cat, you may be pleased to learn, seems unaffected by the spectacle. Oh, and before I forget, what the hell does consequences will never be the same mean?

6. Embarrassing Dads. Your daughter did a silly thing. She’s young, and we all make mistakes. No one wants to watch a red-faced eleven year old girl cry and this episode would have been a fleeting, yet soon forgotten, embarrassment for her if you hadn’t pitched in. Then, Mr Slaughter, and only then, did this video truly go viral. As you so insightfully and eloquently bellow toward the end of your rant, you are “HER FATHER” and you will probably go down as the most embarrassing dad in history. And George W. Bush has children.

7. Parenting. While I’m on the subject, when you state that you are “HER FATHER”, you are surely only referring to the biological aspect of parenthood. After all, what sort of parent allows his eleven year old daughter to go online with a webcam and threaten to shoot people or express the wish that they “get AIDS and die”? If you don’t want her to be vilified on the internet or upset by the reaction she gets from it, take it away from her, rather than mindlessly and somewhat comedically railing against the other people that use it, however childishly they may have behaved. The only part of this whole episode that’s funny is your rant, Mr Slaughter. The rest is horrifying.

July 19, 2010