7 Reasons

Tag: Wet

  • 7 Reasons The 2011 Canadian Grand Prix Was The Best Ever

    7 Reasons The 2011 Canadian Grand Prix Was The Best Ever

    We were originally going to discuss the benefits of taking your own chiminea to the pub today, but that’s going to have to wait. That’s because today we must acknowledge yesterday’s Canadian Grand Prix. Admittedly, it is still fresh in our minds, so really this post is for the future. In the years to come, when people need to know about the best Grand Prix ever, they will come here for the facts they can’t find anywhere else. That doesn’t mean you can’t read today’s post today, you can. It’ll just mean more to you in 2034.

    7 Reasons The 2011 Canadian Grand Prix Was The Best Ever
    Button Under Investigation For Attaching Extra Hand To Shoulder

    1.  The Comeuppance. Lewis Hamilton finally got it yesterday. And he deserved it. For far too long he has looked ridiculous. For far too long he has worn ear studs and a stupid beard. What’s that about? Doesn’t he own a mirror? Jenson Button was quite right to squash him against the wall. Perhaps now Lewis will realise that before he sorts out his problems on the track, he must sort out those developing – on his face – off it.

    2.  The Revenge. Everyone remembers when Fernando Was Faster Than You. Finally, in the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix, we had revenge. Felipe was faster than Fernando. Until he drove into a wall anyway.

    3.  The Rain. Being British we are used to rain delays. But usually it’s while a Test Match is supposed to be happening. For the duration of the delay we usually get Blowers talking about pigeons and buses. During the two hour delay during the Grand Prix, we had Martin Brundle and David Coulthard talking about red-shouldered crows and boats. Maybe it was the lack of the cravat, but listening to Brundle and Coulthard was painful. They were mind-numbingly boring. At one point I may have even started thinking about table decorations for my forthcoming wedding. They were that boring. And because of that it was quite simply one of the most genial bits of commentary I have ever heard. They took me to a point where I was desperate for racing. After two hours I don’t think I have ever wanted to see an F1 race more. I would have been happy to watch thirty laps behind the safety car. Just so Brundle and Coulthard stopped repeating the same thing every five minutes. It was the perfect contrast to what was about to develop. Well done BBC.

    4.  The Steward. Depending on which video you choose to watch on YouTube, this is either called Steward Falls Over, So Funny!!! or Steward Nearly Dies, So Scary. I’ll let you decide, but at the time I thought I was about to watch a decapitation.

    *Edit* Formula One Management have seen fit remove all evidence of this from YouTube but you can view it on the BBC Sport website which we have helpfully linked to here. Sadly, it’s only available to UK users.

    5.  The Bad Guys. There were two of them. Both Germans. Naturally. They were first and second in the running for the critical stages of the race. The leader was Sebastian Vettel. The young master who had developed a bloody annoying habit of winning all the time. In second was Michael Schumacher. The legend and one of only two drivers who could make Ralf Schumacher look stupid. The other being Ralf Schumacher. For the hero to win this race, he had to pass them both. An accomplishment that would rank alongside Sonic defeating both Dr Robotnix and Shadow.

    6.  The Good Guy. You have probably worked it out by now, but the good guy was the Brit. (The one who doesn’t look silly and isn’t of Italian and Scottish ancestry.) Jenson Button had five pit stops, a drive through penalty, two collisions, two cheese rolls, a game of Scrabble, a tinkle on the piano, a phone call with Nigel Mansell, another cheese roll, an argument with a cactus and at one point was last on the track. And yet, in a plot that makes The Love Bug look realistic, he made his way through the field and, on the last lap, passed Vettel and won. Won! And he did it all while looking like Chris Martin. Genius.

    7.  The Also Rans. This has been somewhat overlooked, but Hispania Racing achieved the best result in their history during this race – 13th and 14th. Well done to them. On a similar scale of achievement, I went thirty-six consecutive laps without needing to use the bathroom. Best effort of the season so far that.

  • 7 Reasons To Have A Second Birthday. Today!

    7 Reasons To Have A Second Birthday. Today!

    It turns out that today is the perfect day to have your second birthday.  Here are seven reasons that you should.

    1.  Because You Can.  You might not think you can have a second birthday on June 10th, but you can.  You probably think that only the Queen can have two birthdays, but you’re wrong.  The Queen doesn’t have two birthdays, she has three.  She has her birthday, her official birthday and today, in the Solomon Islands – but nowhere else – it’s the Queen’s official birthday there.  Is it really fair that the Queen should have three times as many birthdays as the rest of us?  Of course not.  No one would mind if you had a second birthday on June 10th, least of all the Queen who’d still be one better than the rest of us.

    2.  Because The Weather’s Right For It.  The date of June 10th falls during the month of June, you may not be surprised to learn.  This means that the weather is guaranteed.  Because on any birthday in June, it will rain.  This will make the weather on your actual birthday – unless that too, falls in June – seem positively glorious in comparison.

    3.  Because It Can Only Improve Your Day.  Today, I was woken at 5:30am by my wife announcing that our son had wet the bed.  “Never mind”, I said, “you can put him in our bed for a couple of hours”.  “I can’t”, she replied, “it’s our bed that he’s wet”.  You need a second birthday to get over that sort of news.  I’m sure that many of you have also woken up to similarly bad news or had unfortunate experiences today (possibly involving rain).  It’s not too late to have a second birthday.  Have it now, you deserve it.

    4.  Because Tomorrow Is World Gin Day.  Tomorrow, in its infinite wisdom, the world – or gin – has decided that it’s World Gin Day.  If you have your second birthday today and request gin, tonic, limes, Angostora bitters, ice and glasses (because receptacles are important), you’ll be perfectly equipped for tomorrow’s festivities.  And you’ll have got the cake-eating out of the way, because if there’s one thing that gin doesn’t go with it’s cake*.  Have your cake today.  And eat it.

    5.  Because Something Good Needs To Happen On June 10th.  Sometimes, when writing about a particular day we do actual research via the medium of Google.  Having researched June 10th, I can confirm that it’s one of the dullest days in history and can disclose that the two events with the most humour potential from this date are that the first public zoo was opened in France in 1794 and Elizabeth Hurley was born in 1965.  It’s not just that you need June 10th for your second birthday.  June 10th needs you.

    6.  Because It’s The Right Time Of Year.  If you have a birthday in February or November, you probably lose out presents-wise because of your special day’s proximity to Christmas.  That’s right, Jesus was born too and he’s far more important than you.  June 10th is almost in the middle of the year and is as far away from Christmas as you can hope to get**.  So, with your second birthday on June 10th, you’ll get better presents and you’ll foil Jesus.  It’s all win.

    7.  Because It’s Jon’s Birthday.  Today, June 10th, is my writing partner Jonathan Lee’s birthday.  If everyone else had a second birthday today then he would age at half the speed of the rest of us (though anyone that saw yesterday’s post might say he’s making rather a good fist of that already***).  We’d all become world-weary and cynical and while, in the Autumn of our lives, our minds had closed to fun, tomfoolery and japery, Jon would still be merrily frolicking away, committing acts of piracy in his garden.  The world’s a much better place for that. Happy birthday Jon.

     

    *If there are two things that gin doesn’t go with they’re cake and cycling.

    **Except for Mecca.

    ***He wrote, in his glass house.

     

     

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons That The Umbrella Is A Bad Invention

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons That The Umbrella Is A Bad Invention

    We were hoping to bring you a guest post by Tom Cruise this week, but sadly talks broke down when we couldn’t give him a more precise date on which he would receive his badge. Thankfully, we have found someone someone else who once considered a career in film. Unfortunately, the Reading Odeon wasn’t recruiting at the time.* And that is definitely to 7 Reasons gain. Back on the 7 Reasons sofa for an unprecedented two Saturdays in a row is serial guest writer, Dr Simon Best. This week he has swapped the luxury of sleepers for umbrellas. Well who wouldn’t? Over to you Dr Simon.

    1.  Health Hazard. When you are under an umbrella you become blind to things around you. This makes umbrellas a health hazard. Umbrellas are a health hazard for tall people. Imagine you are well over 6 foot tall, and walking down a street in the rain packed with people with umbrellas. You will be very fortunate if you emerge with your eyesight intact. Umbrellas are also a health hazard for short people like me when we stand at bus stops and taller people with their umbrellas drip water onto our heads or if we happen not to be wearing hoods, down our necks.

    2.  The Weather. Umbrellas may be designed to withstand rain, which is excellent. However they are not designed to withstand more than the gentlest breath of wind. I have seen umbrellas turned inside out by breezes that aren’t strong enough to ruffle a feather. Take an umbrella outside in Britain and it’ll end up looking like this:

    This umbrella was probably bought this morning and is now useless. Like all umbrellas.

    Provided they haven’t been turned inside out by the wind, umbrellas only protect you from rain from above. However rain often falls horizontally. This is especially the case by the sea. Umbrellas offer no protection whatsoever against horizontal rain. In order to stay dry on your summer holiday by the sea in Britain you need a wraparound umbrella. Or a waterproof coat.

    3.  Size. Umbrellas come in two sizes: Too big and too small. Either way they are the wrong size. They are either too small for two people to shelter under, thus being anti-social and encouraging selfishness, or, if they large enough to fit more than one person underneath, they are so big that they take up an entire pavement and make it impossible for a normal person wearing a sensible coat (with a hood) to get past.

    4.  They Get Wet. “Of course they get wet,” I can hear you all saying, “that’s the whole point of them”. Well what happens when you come in from the rain to your house where everything is dry? The umbrella deposits water all over your dry house. Thus bringing in the rain that you tried so hard to keep off you and getting everything wet and posing the problem of where to dry an umbrella. You can just hang a coat up and it’ll dry but umbrellas need to be open to dry (which brings seven years bad luck). You then leave it propped open somewhere and end up falling over it. Ridiculous things.

    5. Rihanna. This song is about umbrellas. For some inexplicable reason it got to number 1. And stayed there. For 10 weeks. It is very annoying and not just because Rhianna is inviting her gentleman friend to stand under her umbrella – I hope they weren’t on a pavement and had a good amount of space around them. If the umbrella hadn’t been invented then Rhianna would have been forced to sing about something else, or not at all which would have been infinitely preferable.

    Rihanna – Umbrella

    6.  Georgi Markhov. The umbrella was a very bad invention for Mr Markhov. He was a Bulgarian dissident who was murdered in London in 1978. The poison was in the tip of an umbrella which he was poked with while waiting at a bus stop. If the umbrella hadn’t been invented then there wouldn’t be any risk to Bulgarian dissidents (or innocent passers-by) and the KGB would be forced to resort to the CIA’s methods such as poisoned slippers or exploding cigars which were much less effective and mush more amusing.

    7.  Mary Poppins. Mary Poppins arrived to look after the Banks children by umbrella. This is ridiculous as no umbrella would be strong enough to take the weight of a middle aged nanny. Leaving that aside most people think Mary Poppins is lovely. I don’t. She is responsible for making up nonsense words, encouraging vermin by feeding pigeons, and frankly questionable childcare methods (lacing medicine with sweeteners and, using witchcraft rather than tidying up and taking them on a dangerous cross-country carousel ride). Without umbrellas Mary Poppins would never have been able to arrive.

  • 7 Reasons Jumping Up And Down In The Shower Is Silly

    7 Reasons Jumping Up And Down In The Shower Is Silly

    7 Reasons Jumping Up And Down In The Shower IS Silly

    1.  Ceilings. Showers generally have them. There is a reason for this. You don’t want to give plane users a good show do you? And if you do there are places for that sort of stuff. But I digress, smashing your head on the ceiling. Not clever.

    2.  Long hair. This mainly applies to girls and the French rugby team. Your long hair could quite easily get wrapped around the shower head. Then what are you going to do? Pulling is going to hurt. Scissors are rarely within reach. You are probably just going to have to stay there.

    3.  Slippery. Assuming you have actually switched the water on and you haven’t gone in the shower with your anti-slip hiking boots on, the tray isn’t going to be the safest place to jump around in. One false landing and there is no knowing where the soap may end up.

    4.  Design. A shower was simply not made to withstand the sheer force of someone jumping up and down in it. The tray will only take so much pounding before it cracks. And what with water being water and gravity being gravity, it isn’t going to be long before your lounge has a new water feature.

    5.  Sweat. Doing exercise, as jumping up and down in the shower could be classed as, produces sweat. The point of going into the shower is to get rid of stuff like sweat is it not? So jumping up and down in the shower is about as logical as taking your bike for a walk.

    6.  Muscle Injury. Generally speaking people do not warm-up before entering the shower. This means their muscles are cold. Contrary to popular opinion, getting under a hot shower doesn’t have the same effect as stretching. The pinging and twanging of hamstrings is only a matter of time away.

    7.  It looks weird. What? Do you really need me to explain why?