Hello 7 Reasons readers. I’m almost breathless with excitement as I’ve just worked out what we should all be wearing and it’s…a top hat. Here’s why.
1. You Can Cause A Stir. The sight of the top hat was initially shocking; according to an officer of the Crown the wearer of the first one, James Hetherington “…appeared on the public highway wearing upon his head what he called a silk hat (which was shiny luster and calculated to frighten timid people)”, he also stated that “…several women fainted at the unusual sight, while children screamed, dogs yelped and a younger son of Cordwainer Thomas was thrown down by the crowd which collected and had his right arm broken”. Now, top hats are less shocking these days than they were in the eighteenth century, but you’ll still cut a dash.
2. It Will Make Us Better At Sport. Now it might not be immediately obvious why this is so and you’re probably thinking that surely a top hat would be a little cumbersome to wear during sport, and you’d be right too. But let’s look at what happened the last time top hats were popular; one of the most popular pastimes for urchins (after picking pockets, bursting into song, pilfering roasted chestnuts and suffering from rickets) was knocking the top hats off gentlemen by hurling things at them. Surely this would be just as much fun for modern children (and me, come to think of it). In fact, knocking people’s top hats off would be all the motivation that our young people would need to spend their time diligently honing their throwing actions, and pursuing them after they’d done so would improve their running skills too. If we wore top hats, we’d surely see an improvement in cricketing standards some way down the line.
3. It’s An Act Of Benevolence. When was the last time that you saw someone with a tall cylindrical head? That’s right, you probably haven’t, and do you know why? That’s because unfortunates with heads shaped like the funnels of steamships probably feel too self-conscious to leave the house. So what better way of restoring to them a normal, dignified life would there be than for us all to wear top hats? Then having a tall cylindrical head would cease to be a stigma for sufferers who could disguise it with a top hat themselves.
4. It’s An Egalitarian Act. At the moment, the foremost wearers of top hats in the UK are Eton schoolboys, but should Etonians get all the fun? After all, they get to spend years wearing a top hat and, eventually, they get to run the country too. If we want a more equitable society then we need to reclaim the top hat from the privileged few and wear it ourselves. We may not get to be in charge, but we’ll look bloody marvellous while we’re going about our business of not running things while in a really good hat. We’ll be recovering a grand traditional item of apparel that is as quintessentially British as cheese and chutney sandwiches or being attacked by a wasp in a beer garden. What’s more, we’ll be reclaiming it for the masses. That’s us!
5. It’s A Practical Hat. Nowadays almost everyone has at least one digital camera with them when they go out, but people rarely carry tripods. A top hat though, with its horizontal surface is an ideal camera platform. You can also keep your camera in your top hat as there’s a fair bit of storage space there. You can use it to store other things too; biscuits, a small owl, a good book, a book by Dan Brown, a series of smaller top hats ever diminishing in size: The list of things you can carry in there is boundless. In fact, ironically, the list of things you can store in your top hat is so large that it’s one of the few things that you won’t be able to store in your top hat. You’d need a cavernous hat to store the list in; a veritable behemoth of a hat; a hat the size of a house; a hat that you could get lost in. Where was I?
6. It Aids Peer Recognition. Most social groups have shared readily identifiable features that their members can use to spot one another. Hipsters can tell other hipsters by their shirts and glasses; MCC members can recognise other MCC members by their egg and bacon ties; gits can spot gits by looking into a mirror and seeing Piers Morgan, and 7 Reasons readers can distinguish other 7 Reasons readers because they are carrying their laundry basket around with them. If you wear a top hat, you’ll be able to spot your peers – other top hat wearers – in a crowd, from the other side of moderately high walls and in cars with sunroofs. You can’t put a price on the camaraderie of the hat.
7. It Helps Others. Want to help a humourist who’s just decided to spend his birthday money on a top hat? Of course you do. You can do that just by wearing a top hat, thus making him feel slightly less self-conscious about wearing one himself. Because I’d like to don a top hat and amble around the streets of my city without people pointing and mocking; without being shrieked at by hideous hen parties and being taunted by even more hideous groups of stags; without children guffawing at my distinctive and wondrous headpiece while shouting, “hat!”. I’d consider it a personal favour if everyone that has read this were to go out and buy a top hat today. We could start a revolution, or at least make me look a little less ridiculous, which would be no mean feat. Go now. Go buy a hat!
