Tag: Watch

Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why People Still Wear Watches When They Have A Phone

Billions of people around the world have a mobile phone or have access to a mobile phone and according to a report from the U.N. 6 of the world’s 7 billion people have access to a mobile phone while only 4.5 million people have access to a toilet. That says a lot about the society we live in.

1. Exercise. People these days are starting to go running more often and the amount of money that it costs these days to buy a phone that will keep a track of your route while you’re out on a run and your pace, it’s a lot of money to just drop it and break it.

That’s why running watches are so popular these days. They’re a fraction of the cost of a smart phone and they do everything that you need whilst out on a run and there’s no worries about dropping it and breaking it, it’s strapped to your watch so it’d have a job!

2. Fashion. These timekeeping devices are somewhat a staple in any fashionista’s ‘diet’ and they’re also an ideal way to sort of round-up and bring together an outfit by adding that finishing touch.

In terms of fashion with watches, it isn’t as much about the fact that you have the time on your wrist as it is that it’s about what the watch signifies.

3. Polite. As we explained in the opening paragraph, there are 6 billion people in the world who own a mobile phone yet, as common as it is to be seen on your phone these days there are still some people out there who are a tad more traditional and can be easily put off by the amount of time people spend on their phone.

You could be out for a nice dinner and chatting away nicely until someone just pulls out their phone and “checks the time” you can probably presume that they’re looking for a way out of the conversation.

For this reason, it’s better, and handier if you have a watch. So if you do just want to “check the time” you just need a flick of the wrist. However, if you do want to get out of the conversation then you always have the back up of your phone!

4. Conserve Battery Life. This has a double-barrelled meaning. Yeah, you’d be saving your phone’s battery life if you just left it in your pocket but you’d also be saving your own battery life.

The biggest thing though is that you’ll waste your phone’s battery life. Also, if you genuinely are just looking at the time on your phone then there’s a chance that someone has tweeted you, emailed you or even Facebook-ed you. Then, that leads to you spending more time on your phone and then wasting more of your battery life.
It’s just easier to have a watch on, like we said previously, it’s just a flick of the wrist if you’ve got a watch.

5. Your Job. There’s a number of different professions out there that probably wouldn’t be ideal for someone to be sat checking the time on their phone so, that’s why it’s great to have a watch. Could you imagine if you went to see a psychologist and they were sat there on their mobile phone.

There’s a number of different professions out there that actually make a massive use of watches, like the medical profession as it’s certainly frowned upon to be talking to your doctor or a nurse and they’re on twitter on their phone. It’s just rude. Sometimes, it’s a good job that watches are still in use.

6. Weatherproof. Depending on where you live will depend on the kind of watch you need. If you’re lucky and you live near a beach then you’re definitely going to be inclined to get a watch to wear. Let’s face it; there’s not many, if any, mobile phones these days which are too compatible with the elements that make up a beach.
The heat can also cause your phone to overheat and malfunction and with the price of smartphones these days, the last thing you want to happen is for your phone to break.

Of course, there’s sand too at the beach which everyone knows can get in all sorts of annoying places! Moving on from the beach, it rains everywhere in the world and if you’re caught out with your phone out, ‘just checking the time’ you could end up regretting not buying a watch!

7. Health Reasons. We all know how ‘Health & Safety’ mad the world has gone and there’s numerous studies out there to show how using your mobile phone for x-number of hours a day or days a week can cause x, y or z problems to you.

None of these things are ever spoken about when it comes to watches. You don’t hear about people getting brain tumours from using their watch too much, or wrist tumours from wearing it too much. So, if you do get a watch, just keep reminding yourself that you’re not doing any damage to yourself by using that instead of a brand new mobile phone.

This article has been provided by the Watch Supermarket team. If you want a brand new watch at a great price then why don’t you check out our range?

August 2, 2013
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why You Need An LED TV

Long gone are the days when you could simply ‘rumble on down to Rumbelows’, choose your desired screen size and have your new TV delivered to your home. These days buying a new TV is like sitting a small exam on the latest technology. Aside from how big you want your screen to be, you also need to choose between LCD and plasma – which do you plump for? Well worry no more, as there’s a new boy in town that wipes the floor with the pair of them – the LED TV. Why should you choose LED over LCD and plasma? Here’s why:

All LED TVs Include Snowboarders Jumping Out Of The Screen As Standard

1. You Don’t Need To Re-Mortgage To Buy One Anymore. Okay, so let’s be honest, LED TVs have been around for a while, but the first wave of these new sets where pretty pricey and maxed out most of the credit cards in your wallet. However, the latest variants of LED TV are now much more affordable meaning they can be compared like for like alongside comparative formats without price being an issue.

2. Unlike Plasma, You Won’t Need Your Own Power Plant To Run One. LED TVs are currently much more energy efficient than their rivals with a typical 40 inch set using just 83 watts – as opposed to the 96 watts used by an LCD and the whopping 221 watts drained by similar sized plasma.

3. You’ll Remember What A Colour TV Is Supposed To Look Like. Remember the good old days of CRT televisions when colour TV was actually colourful? Well, thanks to LED TV those days are back! LED TVs are awash with colour and unlike their LCD cousins they can actually ‘do’ the colour black too!

4. Size Matters. Indeed size does matter, but in the case of the modern TV, the thinner the better. LED TVs are now available at just over an inch think, unlike LCD TVs and plasmas which are significantly bigger. As well as taking up less space and being easier to handle, this also makes LED TVs much more suitable to wall mounting than their chubby counterparts.

5. You’ll Be Helping To Save the Planet. As well as using much less power than their rivals, LED TVs are environmental friendly in another way too. Unlike LCDs and Plasma televisions, they don’t use mercury in their manufacture and therefore can be disposed of safely without any risk to the environment.

6. They Look Awesome. As well as having a great picture LCD TVs look pretty cool too. Their ultra slim appearance and skinny frames make them more about the picture than the set itself. Even when they’re turned off their sleek design means an end to that butt ugly lump of plastic sitting in the corner of the room we’ve all become accustomed too.

7. Your Mates Will All Be Jealous. A combination of slick design and awesome performance will have all your friends green with envy when they return home to their archaic plasma. And, when someone mistakenly refers to your awesome gadgetry as an LCD TV, make sure you’re on hand to say, “Erm, no, it’s an LED TV actually!”

February 27, 2012
Guest Post: 7 Reasons You Need To Own A Breitling Watch

I think it’s fair to say that when it comes to timekeeping, 7 Reasons wouldn’t be your go-to guys. The promise we gave you was that we would always post at 9 a.m.. Not a minute before and certainly not twelve hours after. The latter, frustratingly for all of us, is what happens/happened more than we’d like/have liked. If only we had a decent watch. A Breitling for instance. Judging by today’s 7 Reasons guest writers – Time2 Luxury Watches – they sound like the perfect solution to our timekeeping failings.

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Luxury watches are cool. That’s not reason number one, incidentally, that’s just a little fact for you. And Breitling watches are cooler than most. To be perfectly honest, when it comes to why you should have a Breitling strapped to your wrist, it’s pretty tricky to narrow the reasons down to seven. You may want to get some J-Lo style body insurance going on, though, as most of these luxury Swiss watches tip the scales between £5,000-10,000…
….got that hand insurance sorted? Then let’s look at the seven reasons why you need a Breitling watch in your life.

1. They’re Swiss. To be fair, most luxury watches ARE Swiss, but not many hold a candle to Breitling when it comes to being effortlessly cool. That’s why you’re very unlikely to find A-List celebrities rocking lesser known luxury Swiss watches like a Golana (not a subsidiary of Gola) or a Skagen. In the same way you wouldn’t find an A-lister driving a Skoda. Breitling watches are synonymous with cool, the question is, ‘Are you cool enough to wear one?’

2. They’re Lifesavers. In the interests of full disclosure, not all Breitling watches are lifesavers. But they do have a collection called Emergency – typically sported by pilots and Indiana Jones types. They come fitted with an emergency distress beacon which can be activated in the most distressing of circumstances – such as crashing your luxury private jet in the desert or on a tropical island inhabited by black smoke and bad actors – á la Lost.

3. You’ll Get Yourself A Celebrity Wife. Brad Pitt wears a Breitling and he’s married to Angelina Jolie. Need I say more? Yes? Well, OK, Tom Cruise wears a Breitling and he’s married to, err, Katie Holmes…..don’t hold that against them.

4. It’ll Get You a Good Job. If you turn up to a job interview rocking one of these luxury watches, it won’t matter that you were booted out of your last job as an investment banker for losing your company billions of pounds. One look at the Breitling on your wrist and they’ll see that you’re a good egg and worthy of their employment.

5. Just Look At Them. Seriously, just take a look at some of the Breitling watches on the market. Difficult to deny they are pretty impressive timepieces – see a couple of the more striking (and expensive) ones below:

6. It Could Be Your Nest-Egg. Luxury watches, and Breitlings in particular, hold their value particularly well. So, if you suffer the misfortune of falling on hard times and you want some caviar money, you could always hock your Breitling to keep you in the fish eggs that you have become accustomed to.

7. You’ll Know What Time It Is. An obvious point, perhaps, and a perk which is by no means limited to Breitling watches, but one that shouldn’t be overlooked. You will know what the time is. So, if a pretty lady asks you the time (which she will…..you’re wearing a Breitling), you’ll be able to tell her that it’s time to get her coat.

November 25, 2011
7 Reasons To Watch The Rugby World Cup

Here we go then. After four years of waiting England are finally about to bring the Webb Ellis Trophy home again. Don’t worry though, if you are of another nationality, there are still reasons to watch.

1. The Perennials. Yes, I’m talking about New Zealand. Favourites for the fifth tournament in a row and justifiably so. The Kiwis are very good and every other team out there is quite frankly abysmal. Add into the mix that they are also hosts then the odds of 8/13 still seem quite generous. To an uneducated supporter that is. Everyone else knows that New Zealand will not win. They are chokers. Defeated in the 1995 final, the 1999 and 2003 semi-finals and the 2007 quarter-finals. They are the Netherlands of the rugby world. So much natural talent and yet so little mental toughness. The draw has been kind to them this year, they play their nemeses France in the group stage meaning they’ll win that one. A quarter-final against Argentina won’t provide too many difficulties, but then they come up against the Aussies – who, after losing to Ireland in the group stages, knock South Africa out in the quarters. And the Aussies win that one. Because they know how.

2. The Group Of Death. If there is such a thing as the group of death in this World Cup, it’s group D. Neither Wales nor South Africa will find it easy against Samoa or Fiji and while South Africa’s experience should help them through, Wales may be heading home early. Which is obviously a shame because New Zealand is full of sheep.

3. The Minnows. That’s right, I’m talking about Scotland. They should be entertaining to watch. For a neutral anyway. For a Scot there’ll be a dispiriting draw against Romania, two horrendous defeats to Argentina and Georgia and then a two-point win against England. Just because that’s all the Scots care about. And because Hape will be playing for England instead of the suspended Tulagi – who head-butted one touch-judge, two cheerleaders and a supporters coach during the game against Argentina.

4. Sleep Deprivation. The time difference means all of us who fine-tuned the art of staying awake all night followed by a half-arsed day at work during The Ashes, get to do it all over again. The first game between the hosts and Tonga is really just a warm-up. The fun starts on Saturday morning. The first of four games kicks off at 2am. There are no forty-minute lunch breaks to sleep through. No rain-delays to give you an excuse to go to bed. Just rugby, rugby, rugby. But that’s great because being deprived of sleep is wonderful. It puts you in a trance-like state through which you do all the jobs you hate without even realising. It really should be available on the National Health.

5. Commentary. With no Ortis Deley presenting, we have to look to the commentators for tongue-twisters. And, in particular, the unlucky sole who pulled the short straw and will find themselves in Auckland on 25th September commentating on Fiji v Samoa. If you know your Waqaniburotu, Murimurivalu and Koyamaiboles from your Treviranus, Poluleuligaga and Tagicakibaus then I suggest you give ITV a call. You’ll almost certainly be put on stand-by. For the rest of us, this has drinking game written all over it. For every mispronunciation, it’s two fingers. You’ll be wrecked by 6am.

6. The Unexpected. Last year ITV performed quite a coup. They got Francois Pienaar to join their line-up for the Football World Cup. Yes, the rugby legend Francois Pienaar. One assumes this was because the World Cup was being hosted in South Africa. So this begs the question, which Kiwi football star have they lined up to offer expert analysis on the scrum? That’s right, it’s Blackburn defender and current Kiwi captain, Ryan Nelson. I expect.

Blackburn’s Ryan Nelson Will Be In ITV’s Analysis Truck For The Rugby World Cup

7. The Alternative. Well that would be to listen to it. On, wait for it, TalkSport. Yes, that’s right, TalkSport! They have exclusive rights which means no Ian Robertson this year. They do have a decent commentary team with John Taylor and Brian Moore in the ranks, but my problem is that they’ll keep interrupting the matches to tell us that Nick Barmby has rejoined Spurs on a free and some twat from a van-hire company will repeatedly tell they’re the best in Canvey Island. I don’t want to know! Then we’ll probably have Jon Gaunt doing a rugby phone-in with Nick Griffin. It’s not going to be pretty. Watch it on TV instead. Watch it on a real channel. Watch it on… oh… erm… it’s on ITV again.

September 8, 2011
7 Reasons I Will Watch The X-Factor Next Year

Before 20 million of you groan, this isn’t one of those ‘The X-Factor is rubbish’ posts. I have long adhered to the maxim, ‘if you don’t like it, switch it off’. Which is something I have accomplished in every year previous to this one. This year though, I lived with one of the 20 million. Which meant I saw more of it than I really wanted to. Next year, though, it’s not happening. Unless these drastic changes are made.

1. Louis Walsh. Quite simple, he must stop being a twat. And by that I mean, he must stop being a twat. I like to be challenged intellectually, which is why I call my parents during the show. What I can’t stand is people stating the bloody obvious. And that includes Walsh saying, “Matt, you’re in the final”. Yes, obviously he’s in the bloody final. If Walsh stops repeating everything I can find out by pressing the ‘i’ on my remote control then I could be in for the long-haul.

2. Simon Cowell. This isn’t an anti-Cowell moment, the guy has created something that makes him a lot of money, well done to him. What he must do next year, though, is stop pretending he is actually making difficult decisions. If I want to watch over-acting I can watch the bloody-awful but painfully addictive Miranda. I want him to act like he does in the supermarket when faced with the choice of either an apple or a banana. There’s no pretence here. Cowell knows he wants the banana and so he grabs it. No dramas, he just gets the job done. If he brings this attitude with him next year, we have half a chance. Assuming he also does something with his hair.

3. Cheryl Cole. She must lose her right hand. Or, at the very least, it must be tied behind her back. I am very appreciative of the fact that she can’t help the annoying accent and the stupid comments, but she can stop doing that bloody salute. It makes her look like a camp toy soldier.

4. Dannii Minogue. She’s a bit like white bread. Nothing drastically wrong with her, just a bit plastic-y. I would much prefer something more substantial. Wholemeal bread. Or, as she is called in this case, Kylie. She’s just better in all areas.

5. Media Blackout. I don’t read the tabloids for a reason. I’m not interested in the soap opera of life and I like reading words that contain more than two syllables. I appreciate that’s two reasons, but, to be honest, there are probably five more. But that doesn’t matter. The point is, I don’t read them because I don’t like them. That is easy enough to do and you’ll be pleased to know I am very accomplished at not buying The News Of The World. The problem comes when every radio and TV show talks about it. I don’t think that’s fair. As things stand, I would have to emigrate to Venus to avoid all the nonsense spouted about the show. If there was a media blackout I’d happily go as far as Middlesborough. That sounds like a good compromise to me.

6. One Night Special. No dragging the series out for months on end. The show starts at 7pm on a Saturday night and is finished by 10pm. Contestants can’t sing for longer than thirty seconds each and every ten minutes someone is voted off. No, actually, they are shot.

7. Sports Round. I like sport, but it was seldom mentioned in the X-Factor this year. Next year, instead of the usual vote-off by the judges, there will be a sports quiz between the bottom two contestants. Hosted by Henry Blofeld. And you’ll be able to play along using the red button and throw popcorn at the TV.

December 14, 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
Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Watch Eastenders

A few weeks back, Claire Quinn talked to us about freckles. And why they rocked. So convinced were Marc and I by her reasons, that we popped outside to catch some rays. We’ve just come back in to find Claire back on the sofa. She’s watching Eastenders. So while she tells you why it’s great, Marc and I are going back outside.

1. Happiness. Ok I hear you… “Eastenders” and “happy” aren’t really words you ever hear in the same sentence. The deaths, marriage break-ups, screaming public arguements in The Queen Vic and the miserable bloody face of Billy Mitchell might have something to do with this. But on reflection, your life feels a whole lot better!

2. Fashion. Pat Butcher’s famous horrendously oversized earrings, Bianca’s silver puffer jacket, actually I can’t go on; the visuals in my head are causing too much pain. What I do realise though, is that I have impeccable dress sense. Thank you Eastenders costume designer person. Who needs Trinny and Susannah?

3. Money. Who can name me one family that owns their own washing machine in Albert Square? No? I didn’t think so. Neither can I. However, I do own one. Eastenders has made me feel rich!

4. Family. I don’t think it would matter how dysfunctional your family is, watching this soap makes your family feel positively normal.

5. Geographical Knowledge. I am an intrepid explorer! Well I am in comparison to the Enders lot… I mean, I know more than one pub to drink in, I have more than two choices of restaurant to dine in and, well, basically my life doesn’t revolve around 100 square feet. Which leads me nicely onto…

6. Employment. Not having to restrict myself to 100 square feet around my abode, I realise I have a much greater range of jobs to choose from. Thankfully, I am not restricted to market trader, hospitality worker or mechanic.

7. Dirty Laundry. No, I am not repeating myself. I am not talking about washing machines again. I am talking about personal information… Eastenders has taught me that airing your dirty laundry in public is NEVER a good idea. Why would you EVER humiliate yourself like that in front of all and sundry? If I didn’t want everyone to know that I think I am a cat, I wouldn’t start announcing it publicly… oh shit.

May 22, 2010
7 Reasons To Watch The Winter Olympics

1. Primetime. This time around, the Winter Olympics are in Vancouver. That means it will be shown on the TV in the evenings. Assuming you are reading this in the UK that is. Watching sport on a weeknight evening is brilliant. It is what makes life so enjoyable.

2. We Might Win A Medal. And if we do, it will almost certainly be won by someone we haven’t heard of. In a sport we know nothing about. But come Sports Personality of the Year in December we will all be voting for her. Or him. Or them. Those of us who aren’t voting for Rory Delap that is.

3. Last Chance To See. The British Ski and Snowsport Federation has gone into administration. This could be the last time you get to see Great Britain represented at the Winter Olympics. History in the making.

4. Anthems. It gives us a chance to hear National anthems that we don’t normally in the Summer Olympics. The Austrian and the Swiss for example. I can’t tell you whether they are any good or not because it has been four years since I last heard them. But we’ll find out next week.

5. Curling. Despite being one of the earliest nations to have adopted widespread use of the vacuum cleaner, Britain is actually quite good at a sport that involves sweeping. Even more astonishingly, the captain of our women’s curling team is a teenager. Predictably, she isn’t involved in the sweeping, preferring to leave a big mess containing worn clothes, dirty plates, miscellaneous make up and cds without cases in the path of the stone.*

6. Commentary. The Winter Olympics provides commentators with the opportunity to commentate (naturally) on sports that they are none-too-familiar with. It gives you the chance to shout at the TV whenever they make a mistake. But there are also commentators who see it as an opportunity to make a name for themselves. They’ll try and make the sport far more exciting that is actually is. Don’t take my word for it. Watch this. And make sure you stay with it until 2:20.

7. Baring (sic) Up Under The Strain. I know everyone has seen this, but I can’t think of another reason. And I chose this particular version of the video because it is called, ‘bob sled chick rips pants and shows her ass in a thong…sexy’. Thanks jimni999
.

*This is not true, Eve Muirhead is bloody brilliant – and probably very tidy too.

February 12, 2010
7 Reasons to Watch Rachael Hodges on BBC News

Radio legend and BBC Radio 5Live newsreader, Rachael Hodges, has recently begun presenting the sport on BBC News, the BBC’s 24 hour rolling news television channel. She’s not sure when she’s on, but it will definitely be today, and tomorrow…probably. Here are 7 reasons to watch.

1. USP. Rachael Hodges has this rather wonderful quality that means she can take even the most mundane of things and turn them into something rather beautiful. Take Richard Bacon for example. Richard Bacon would not be where he is now if it wasn’t for Rachael Hodges. Just ask anyone who listened to Bacon’s late-night BBC Radio 5Live show last year. We are hoping she has a similar effect on Kevin Pietersen.

2. Anglo-Welsh. You wouldn’t know this from listening to her, but Rachael Hodges is in fact Welsh. There are two reasons she sounds English. One is because her country of birth lost the rugby at the weekend and secondly the majority of her audience is English. As she needs to stay in the job she is more than willing to cater for the masses.

3. Audible. Not every newsreader/sports-presenter can actually read-out-loud properly. They are either stammering or spitting or fainting at the sight of the Russian name coming up in the next paragraph. Rachael Hodges, though, is a pro. She has everything written out phonetically. You won’t even notice.

4. Appearance. Rachael Hodges is pretty. Very pretty. While it might be a shallow reason to watch her, it is a reason none-the-less. And no one is going to convince us it is not the reason you are going to tune in every 15 minutes. Not that the 7 Reasons team will be watching. They value their lives too much.

5. Nickname. Rachael Hodges has a nickname. The Hodges. Fiona Bruce isn’t called The Bruce is she? Jon Snow isn’t called The Snow. Rachael Hodges has a loyal group of followers called The Hodgehuggers. Ever heard of The Brucecuddlers? Or The Snowstrokers? Exactly.

6. Competition. Rachael Hodges actually competes in sport. She competes in triathlons and is running the London Marathon this year*. Most sports presenters wouldn’t know one end of a hockey racquet from the other and would curl up and die in a wheezing heap if called upon to run for a bus. Assuming they needed a bus to take them to the next pub, of course.

7. Australia. British sports presenters are, on the whole, a dour bunch whose bulletins feature despair, crisis, pessimism and more despair. When our boys go into sporting events they do so with the flames of public fervour already extinguished by the mewling wet-blankets that preview our national sporting events for us. Australian sport presenters, on the other hand, stir up public expectation. “Our blokes are gonna slaughter the Poms” is considered a perfectly acceptable match preview in Australia, where they tend not to get too hung up on detail, analysis or pre-match excuses. Rachael is going out with an Australian. Perhaps it will rub off.

*You can sponsor Rachael’s London Marathon attempt here. http://www.justgiving.com/rachael-hodges

Picture of Rachael Hodges on the bicycle leg of a triathlon taken at Dorney Lake by SussexSportPhotography.com (Thanks Ant!).

February 11, 2010
7 Reasons Not To Watch The Snowman This Christmas

1. It’s A Repeat. Every single year it’s on. And I’ll be honest with you, it doesn’t get any better with each passing year. Not even HDTV has made it an enjoyable thing to watch. Which is such a shame really, because The Snowman himself is just about perfect. He is the only snowman I have ever seen who looks good in a hat. And I’m not just saying that. I really believe it.

2. The Song. A little known fact is that the version of ‘Walking In The Air’ used in the film is not sung by Aled Jones, but by choirboy Peter Auty. A more widely known fact is that whoever sings it, it is still bloody annoying. Oh, and another thing. You do not walk in air. You fly.

3. It’s depressing. I am not entirely sure why it is billed as a wonderful Children’s adventure. I mean, The Snowman turns into a puddle at the end. That’s as horrific a way to die as I can possibly think of. I know the writers did it to prevent him coming back in a dodgy sequel, but surely there are better ways. He could have been broken up for a snowball fight or something.

4. The Great Escape. Now, I haven’t actually looked at the TV schedule, but I am pretty sure it’s going to be on at about 3.45pm on some channel. The same time as The Snowman will be on on the other channel. The Great Escape is a far superior film. Its got tunnels and motorbikes and Germans and a character called The Big X in it. The Snowman didn’t have a name. Nor was he German.

5. It’s Mind Blowing. The film is completely hallucinogenic. I imagine this is the kind of thing The Beatles saw everyday when they were working on Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Only it didn’t make The Beatles want to smash the TV screen with a tin of Quality Street.

6. It’s Wordless. I don’t know if you have noticed, but there is no talking it. There aren’t even bloody subtitles. It’s just 28 minutes of nothingness. The unrealistic nature of this is infuriating. If you were a young boy – as I once was – you would be saying something if a snowman asked you if you’d like to go for little flight somewhere. You would also have put gloves on. Holding a snowman’s hand without gloves on has to be the quickest way to hypothermia.

7. The Idents. This year it is sponsored by Iceland. (The place where no one’s Mum actually goes, as opposed to the country). It means you have to witness those bang-head-on-wall inducing adverts. Who would have thought that they could be even worse without Kerry Katona in them?

December 24, 2009