7 Reasons

Tag: Willy

  • 7 Reasons Ian Dury’s ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful: Part 3’ Is Unreasonable: Part 2

    7 Reasons Ian Dury’s ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful: Part 3’ Is Unreasonable: Part 2

    In a late change to the 7 Reasons posting schedule, I am back again. Don’t worry though, apart from celebrating as you normally do when you realise it’s a Jonathan Lee day, you may carry on as normal. Now, tomorrow marks the ninth month anniversary of the 7 Reasons post, 7 Reasons Ian Dury’s ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful: Part 3’ Is Unreasonable: Part 1. To commemorate this occasion I thought I’d bring you part two. So, just to remind you, the last reason to be cheerful that we analysed was ‘jump back in the alley’. Right, on with the show.

    7 Reasons Ian Dury's 'Reasons To Be Cheerful: Part 3' Is Unreasonable. Part 2

    8.  18-Wheeler Scammells. Lorries. Big ones. Now, I know you are supposed to get excited when you see an Eddie Stobart lorry, but that’s kind of a tradition. Along with having a fight with your brother and then being told off. Unless you are a lorry-spotter – and I am fairly confident that at least one of you is – I can’t imagine anyone breaking into a wide, toothy grin at the site of a lorry. Unless they’re an illegal looking for a way to get out of the UK anyway.

    9.  Dominecker Camels. General consensus has it that Dury wasn’t highlighting a type of black and white camel here, but instead referring to the cigarette brand, Camel. Not cool Ian, not cool. Smoking doesn’t make you cheerful even if the cigarettes are in the shape of a mammal. Smoking makes your clothes smell and your bank balance deteriorate far faster than the cool dudes sucking on straws and biros.

    10.  All Other Mammals. All other mammals? All of them? They can’t all make you cheerful. What about a lemming throwing itself off a cliff? That makes you happy does it? And what about the naked mole-rat? How can anything that looks like a nude Janet Street-Porter possibly make you happy?

    11.  Seeing Piccadilly. The only feeling I ever get when I see Piccadilly is one of frustration at the amount of people who think it is appropriate to stand in the middle of the pavement taking photos of massive electronic billboards shouting brand names at them. And then they take bloody ages to walk down the stairs to the Piccadilly Line platform too. I can only assume there weren’t as many idiots around in the seventies.

    12.  Fanny Smith And Willy. I didn’t know this, but apparently Fanny Smith is a professional skier from Switzerland and the logical conclusion would be that by Willy, Dury is referring to Willy Carson. I have to be honest and say that while Fanny is clearly lovely, there are far more attractive things to get cheerful about. Ian Bell batting for example. And as for Willy, the overriding opinion in the internet forums is that he is too small to cause any sort of penetrable excitement. So it looks like you are on your own here Ian.

    13.  Being Rather Silly. This is a simple one. You should either be very silly or not silly at all. Being rather silly is both pointless and tiresome. Either give it your all or not at all. As in the local pub, you only cause anger with half-measures.

    14.  Porridge Oats. I don’t like porridge. So the idea of being cheered by them is a totally alien concept. That’s probably a slightly unfair analysis though. So let’s do ourselves a cereal substitution. I like Shreddies. So let me go and pour a bowl to see if it cheers me up. (I am walking to the kitchen. I am opening the cupboard. I am picking up the cereal box. I am getting a bowl. I am pouring cereal into the bowl. I am looking at my bowl of cereal. I am walking back to the laptop). No. I feel exactly the same as I did before. Though maybe slightly frustrated that I now have to wash-up an extra bowl.

  • Russian Roulette Sunday: Make Do And Mend.

    Russian Roulette Sunday: Make Do And Mend.

    Russian Roulette Sunday

    Hello. It’s Sunday again. And Sundays come as Sundays do – after five days of hoping that the other 7 Reasons writer has come up with something for Sunday. They never have. Which is why Marc came to me yesterday, breathless and devoid of inspiration, and said, ‘We don’t have anything for Sunday do we?’

    ‘No,’ I replied, supping on a cup of tea and stroking my mirror.

    ‘Damn,’ was his silent reply.

    We sat in silence for a minute or twenty. Neither one of us prepared to say, ‘Let’s have a Sunday off’. Then, just as I was about to snap my gingerbread man at the neck, Marc leapt out of his chair and kicked the cat. ‘Let’s do some more advertising!’ he declared.

    ‘Marc,’ I began, my blood beginning to simmer at my colleagues scant disregard for our lack of money, ‘we don’t have any finances. You gave all our money away to Pearl & Dean and my masks have proved about as popular as Esther Rantzen in a…well about as popular as Esther Rantzen’.

    ‘You make a good point Jon,’ Marc said, taking off his pith helmet and vaulting over the desk, ‘but maybe we can just make do and mend.’

    I looked puzzled, Marc was using phrases from World War II again. ‘How do you mean, Marc?’

    ‘I mean, we just use a load of old adverts and pimp them to suit 7 Reasons. Then we can ask people to put them up in their windows and on the back of their cows.’

    ‘Genius!’ I shouted, sending tea all over my groinal department. And with that Marc left, leaving a waft of whisky and a cat stuck in my plant pot.

    Thirteen hours later we were finished. And so was the cat.

    So yes. Please choose your preferred poster and stick it up in your place of work, caravan, shed or personal telephone box. Then take a photo and send it to us. It’s not that we are an unbelieving duo, we just like to know our hard work has been worth it.