7 Reasons

Tag: why

  • 7 Reasons T’ Talk Like A Pirate

    7 Reasons T’ Talk Like A Pirate

    Avast, me hearties! ‘Tis Long Jon Gold. T’day, as if you needed remindin’, be International Talk Like A Pirate Day. And here be seven o’ t’ finest reasons why you should be channelin’ Johnny Depp at this very moment. And while you be readin’ this I be off t’ make Marc ‘Fish Fin’ers’ Fearns walk t’ plank. Yarrr!

    7 Reasons To Talk Like A Pirate

    1.  Bury Bad News. T’day be t’ perfect day t’ tell people that thar be goin’ t’ have t’ be redundancies. Or tell your beauty that you no longer want t’ be with them. Or announce that Nick ‘Smell-O-Panties’ Griffin has moved in next door. No one will ever be able t’ understand you, but your aft be covered.

    2.  Abuse. It’s a brilliant excuse t’ abuse people you don’t like under t’ pretext that it be just how pirates talk t’ each other. You may have long thought that your colleague be an ol’ scurvy dog, but only now can you actually tell her. You may think you’re best-bucko’s beauty be a complete twazzock, now be t’ time t’ tell him. And her. Just get it off your treaaye*.

    3.  Innuendo. Of course t’ alternative be that you fancy t’ pants off your colleague and you need an excuse t’ flirt. Talkin’ like a pirate offers you t’ perfect opportunity. What lass wouldn’t be won over upon hearin’, “Ahoy, me beauty! I’d love t’ drop anchor in your lagoon” or, “Ahoy, me lovely, would you let me come aboard?”? And obviously, if you be lass after a bloke, send them an email sayin’ this, “Me porthole, your six pounder, one jolly rogerin’? Meet me in t’ toilets in five.” I promise you it will work.

    4.  Dress Up. While talkin’ like a pirate be good fun, why not go one step further and dress like one too? T’ be honest, you’d just appear weird if you sat in t’ meetin’, in your tailored suit, talkin’ pirate. It would be much better t’ be dressed as one too. Take George ‘Skull & Cross-Fingers’ Osbourne as an example. At t’ moment he be borderin’ that fine line between bein’ a genius and a fool. Were he t’ be filmed in a cabinet meetin’ just talkin’ like a pirate, those who think he be a fool would have more evidence to support that claim. On t’ other hand, were t’ to be dressed like Hook and accompany his curls with t’ spiel, not only would his credibility shoot through t’ roof, he’d probably also get himself doin’ pantomime in Weston-Super-Mare. And that’s go t’ be a good thin’ for everybody..

    5.  The Future. If you’ve been wonderin’ whether you be in t’ starboard career, spendin’ a day talkin’ as a pirate will tell you once and for all what your next move should be. If your pirate burr slips in t’ West-country farmer more often than not, it’s definitely time t’ up sticks, invest in a combine ‘arvester and join T’ Wurzels. You’re a natural.

    6.  Sick Days. After a day o’ talkin’ like a pirate t’ chances be your throat will be so sore you won’t be able t’ talk at all. So, take t’ day off. Make aye you phone your boss up and breath heavily done t’ phone t’ him/her first, that way they can’t complain that you didn’t try and report in.

    7.  T’ Alternative. T’ alternative be t’ write like a pirate. That, I asaye you, takes time. I started this post in August. I finished it about ten minutes ago. So based on me experiences, if you were t’ write like a pirate for t’ day you would end up bein’ three weeks behind. And that’s not a good place t’ be. I should be writin’ a mid-October post today. Instead, I’m still writin’ this. One can only assume I will be celebratin’ Christmas, by meself, on 15th January. So, unless you want t’ join me, ignore t’ email for t’ day and get on t’ dog and bone instead. Yarrr!

    *’Treaaye’ is pirate slang for ‘chest’. Who knew? Apart from pirates obviously.

  • 7 Reasons That Question 17 is Frustrating

    7 Reasons That Question 17 is Frustrating

    This is Question 17 in the Individual Questions section of the UK Census.  It’s “intentionally blank” and will drive you slowly mad.  Here are seven reasons why.

    Question seventeen in the individual questions section of the 2011 UK Census

     

    1.  Why Is It Intentionally Blank? What is the intention?  Why?  Why? Why?  Why, oh why, oh why, oh why?  I had to go online to find out why.  Apparently it’s a question about the Welsh language.  But wait, I’ve seen the Welsh language and it isn’t invisible. And if it was then the answer would be blank too, so there’d be no point in asking the question in the first place.  And why would you just state that it’s been left intentionally blank?  Why not just remove it?  Is there some sort of nefarious purpose to it?  Should we don our foil hats before completing the census?  Should we be afraid?  I’m afraid.

     

    2.  It’s A Temptation.   While I was online I checked Twitter.  Which is where I saw this:

    A tweet from Twops Twips who used to be more the sensibly monikered Top Tips.

    Now there are some things that people should never ever see.  The insides of other people; anything to do with Harry Potter and daytime television are all high up the list.  But higher than that, higher than anything else, the absolute worst thing they can see is any sort of suggestion that they should draw a cock in a box on an official document.  Obviously that’s what they’ll want to do right at that moment, with every fibre of their being.  But they can’t because they’d have their tax raised or be sent to prison or something.  And that just makes it all the more of a temptation.  Essentially question 17 is a form of torture in which we are forced to wrestle our primal urge to undermine authority and officialdom by drawing a cock.

     

    3.  It’s Not Actually Blank.  It’s got words in it.  I can see them, they’re right there at the top of the box telling us that it’s blank.  But that’s a lie.  It’s the most blatant example of officialdom fibbing to us since Jeffrey Archer had any power.  It’s like a spoon that says “I am not a spoon”.  It’s not exactly like a talking spoon, I grant you, but it is in the sense that it is lying.  Badly.

     

    4.  It’s Not A Question.  The text above question 17 states that “This question is intentionally left blank”.  But in a similar manner to the age-old philosophical question (if a butterfly beats its wings in a forest in China does a tree fall on a deaf person on the other side of the world?) question seventeen gives us food for thought.  If a question isn’t a question is it still a question?  When is a question not a question?  What do you even call a question that isn’t a question?  It’s certainly perplexing.  It turns out that when a question isn’t a question it raises more questions than it does answers, but after a long, careful deliberation I can state with some certainty that: it isn’t; when it doesn’t contain a question; I don’t know; my brain hurts.  But it’s definitely not a question.  This further complicates matters.

     

    5.  Numbers.  After the lie about the question being left blank, they helpfully tell you to go to 18.  But question 18 isn’t question 18, is it?  It’s question 17.  Because the blank box with a fib in it is no more a question than I am an owl or a plant-pot. This means that the entire numbering system for the remainder of the census is incorrect.  Question 24 (which is actually question 23) says if you are aged 16 or over you should go to 25 (which is numbered 26).  But that’s not a question at all; it’s an instruction.  So question 25 is actually the 23rd question.

     

    6.  But Wait.  No it isn’t.  Because question 11 in the Individual Questions section isn’t a question either.  It’s also an instruction.  So question 25 is actually the 22nd question.  This means that all the numbers in the Individual Questions section are wrong from question 10 (which isn’t a question) on. I haven’t been this confused since…ever.  This is even more confusing than being married to a woman.  And less fun.

     

    7.  The Bastards! And the civil servants/bureaucrats/number crunchers/census-bastards haven’t just cocked up their own census.  They’ve buggered up the title of this post, which is now incorrect.  There are still seven reasons here (which is an improvement on Monday when I spent an hour trying to come up with a seventh reason only to discover that it was, in fact, the eighth and had to remove one) but this isn’t 7 Reasons That Question 17 is Frustrating any more.  It’s 7 Reasons That Question 17 Which Is Not A Question At All And Even If It Were It Would Be Number 16 But It’s Not And Furthermore It’s A Liar Is Frustrating.  I’ve read books shorter than that title.  I won’t even be able to fit it on Twitter.  Does our reader even have a screen that wide?  Right, census-mongers!  I’m drawing a cock in your blank box right now and I’m posting it back to you tomorrow.  On fire.

     

  • 7 Reasons That Love is Important

    7 Reasons That Love is Important

    It’s Valentine’s Day!!!  On Monday.  Apologies for any panic we may have caused there, but the 7 Reasons team have decided to jump the gun and celebrate St Valentine’s Day prematurely.  Because we’re lovesick.  Well, one of us is in love and that just makes the other one feel sick, but that’s near enough.  So, in honour of the patron saint of pink stuff everywhere, here are seven reasons that love is important.

    A pink heart

    1.  Make Love Not War. It’s a tired expression, but – short of a nuclear missile – love really is the one thing that can end conflict. For good. We are not interested in truces. Like a dirty weekend in a Travelodge outside of Leeds, it won’t last. Real love means complete acceptance of what others believe and how they choose to live. A marriage of acceptance if you like. Not that I’m suggesting we should accept or indeed make love to radical extremists. That would be extreme. And quite dangerous if their grenades are dangling above your head. If you do find yourself in this situation we suggest you wear a helmet. Just in case.

    2.  Passion. That’s what love is really. Whether it’s passion for your partner or passion for your team or passion for passion fruit, it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that you feel something for something. Because it’s those feelings that keep us alive. Without emotion we’d be robots. And if you read yesterday’s post you’d realise that’s not a good thing.

    3.  Compromise. I guess I got lucky. The person I fell in love with also loves what I love. No, not myself. Sport. Which means we don’t have to do the, ‘You can watch Eastenders all week so long as I can watch the rugby all weekend,’ thing. Claire gets to watch Eastenders and the rugby and I get to do the ironing and watch the rugby. But we know we are in the minority. Other people really do have to compromise. And while it may mean missing England beat Wales, you do it because you’re in love. And I admire that. I admire it because I couldn’t do it. Which is why I told Claire before we even started dating that watching England play cricket or rugby comes before anything else in my life. A year later I still haven’t missed a game. And that just makes me love her even more.

    4.  Inspiration.  Throughout human history, love has acted as a spur, a stimulus, a motivational factor in many of mankind’s greatest accomplishments.  The life’s work of Thomas Aquinas; Shelley’s One Word is Too Often Profaned; Shah Jahan’s construction of the Taj Mahal, the historical examples of great works inspired by, and created out of love are almost boundless.  Essentially, if we didn’t have love, we’d still be slimy-fish creatures or animal-bothering Neanderthals living in caves or swamps or our own poo or something.  But thanks to love, most of us aren’t.

    5.  Tennis. I don’t think anything in the world explains love better than a tennis match. As I am sure you are aware, ‘love’ in tennis is the equivalent of zero. Zilch. Nothing. In other words, it is valueless. And that is what love outside of tennis is too. You can’t put a value on love. Unless you are in Amsterdam. Though between you and me I don’t think ten minutes* with a Dutch girl called Helga really counts. Love is the most valuable commodity in life and yet it is free. I have always thought that is a rather wonderful intricacy. We pay our taxes so that the NHS and the Police are there for us when we need them, but the people who are there for us when we don’t need them are free.

    6.  Popular Song.  If it weren’t for the eternally prevalent theme of love, pop music would be wholly different.  There’d be no Renée and Renato’s Save Your Love, there’d be no Yummy Yummy Yummy I Got Love in my Tummy by Ohio Express, and there’d be no When We Collide by Matt Cardle.  This might initially seem like a spectacularly good anti-love argument, but it’s quite the reverse, because when repugnant, saccharine dross like this is being played, you might just find that across a crowded room, someone else is also covering their ears with their hands and bellowing, “What is this shit!?”  And at that moment, your eyes may meet, and that’s when you’ll find true love.  And all because of love songs, which really do begat love.  However circuitously.

    7.  Emotional Intensity.  Love – and this is important in these straitened economic times – is free.  Your other half loves you because you’re you, not because of what you can give them.  Love – true love – transcends the baser human tendency toward being fiscally and materially acquisitive in favour of devotion to and acceptance of another person; no matter what their circumstances or their idiosyncrasies.  When you have found your true soul-mate you will have found unconditional acceptance.  Which is why my other half is going to love her Valentine’s Day card this year, no matter how much it cost.

    A Valentine budget card from Tesco
    She's gonna love this.

    *Okay, two and a half.**

    **This never happened.***

    ***Well, it probably did to someone exciting.