Tag: World

7 Reasons That Twitter Will Alter All Human Existence

Twitter: Fun? Yes. Useful? Yes. A culture-changing behemoth that will fundamentally alter all human existence? Yes. Here are seven reasons why.

1. Opinion. Twitter is a hotbed of instant opinion and, thanks to the medium, our ability to express opinion will remain undiminished. Unfortunately, also thanks to Twitter, all human opinion will eventually come to be expressed in 140 characters or less. Thus Machiavelli’s view of history as a tool for learning will change from:

“Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.”

To:

“He’s just like his dad. Men are all the same. LOL.

And Albert Einstein’s,

“The population of the civilized countries is extremely dense as compared with former times; Europe today contains about three times as many people as it did a hundred years ago. But the number of leading personalities has decreased out of all proportion. Only a few people are known to the masses as individuals, through their creative achievements. Organisation has to some extent taken the place of leading personalities, particularly in the technical sphere, but also to a very perceptible extent in the scientific.”

Will become:

“People are becoming more stoopid. LOL”

And where we would once have had wordy treatises extolling considered opinion on the omniscient nature of the supreme being, we will have:

“God knows. LOL.”

2. Mimicry. And it’s not just that opinion will be condensed to insubstantial gibberish. Some people will eventually be reduced to saying nothing at all. Thanks to the retweet button, the lazy and unoriginal will find it possible to maintain discourse with others without ever stating any of their own thoughts or opinions at all. This will be familiar to anyone who has ever conversed with a Daily Mail reader or a viewer of Fox News but, the spectre of it escalating further is worrying indeed. Perhaps thanks to the constant retweeting, the world will be reduced to having just one opinion on any given subject. Rupert Murdoch’s, probably.

3. Courage. And it’s not just that we’ll lack opinions and the capability for extended expression. Humanity will eventually develop to lack courage. Because when we disagree with the opinion that someone has just retweeted: “Pink is for sissies. LOL”, we won’t reply, “No it isn’t. Chuck Norris wears pink underpants. LOL”, we’ll send a direct message to someone else saying, “Did you see what @RupertMurdoch1874 just said? Where does he get off saying that? LOL.” Because as people fear losing followers or public ridicule they become more and more timid and secretive and would rather whisper things to their friends in the corner. Sadly, however, they don’t become any less stupid.

4. Shame. Shame will disappear completely as a human emotion. As we increasingly rely on Twitter for information that we would previously have acquired through knowing stuff and learning and having a modicum of sense and whatnot – or even just old-fashioned googling things – we will eventually attempt to acquire all of our important life information from Twitter.

“Is Twitter down? LOL”

“Can I eat lamb that’s been in the fridge for over a day? LOL”

“Is it weird that my period’s six weeks late? LOL”

“Why am I getting so fat? LOL”

Seriously, if our dead ancestors came back from the grave and saw the things that people tweet, they’d…er…die again, of shame. And spin too. (Okay, I really didn’t think that metaphor through but at least I’m not brazenly parading my stupidity on Twitter full-time. No. I’m busy writing this. I’m saving my Twitter-stupidity for later).

5. Emotions. Human expression of emotion will also come to be affected by Twitter. People will no longer smile, cry, or frown, they will merely write “*smiles”, “*cries”, “*frowns”, “*throws self under a bus. LOL”, to denote emotion. Whether this will extend to mainstream media is a matter of conjecture (which is fortunate as that’s what I’m doing. I’m conjecting. I’m a conjector), but it’s easy to imagine rolling news channels with banners stating “M6 Traffic Jam Reaches Sixth Day *sticks bottom lip out”, “Man Found Guilty Of Sex Act With Goat *eeuuggghhh” and “Osama Bin Laden Captured *punches air with fist”. Well, actually the last one is hard to imagine. But at least emoting by using the asterisk is some progress from using smileys and emoticons, which is just abusing perfectly good punctuation-marks in order to make a stupid bloody sideways face.

6. Internationalism. As cultures interact on Twitter, entire national traits will disappear as the world becomes a more homogenous place. After all, anyone who is aware of the Twitter phenomenon that has been @theashes, will have noted that, after 234 years of trying, an American has been finally converted to following the glorious sport of cricket. This means that, in a mere 71,839,532,700 years, the entire population of the United States will be cricket lovers, and the world will be all the better for that. And then we can start converting China. Seriously, Cricket will be the world sport in…(Nope, my computer isn’t powerful enough to compute that. Probably at about the time when people return to the sea and the dinosaurs come back in their meteor).

7. LOL. As the phrase “LOL” becomes so ubiquitous that every last feckless bastard ends their tweets with it (this will probably happen in about six days time) and we come not to notice that we’re doing it altogether and forget its original meaning, there will come a moment when someone actually wants to write “laughing out loud” which, as it takes up too many characters, they will abbreviate to LOL. And as all tweets will already be suffixed “LOL”, the tweet “LOL. LOL.” will eventually occur. And that will be the moment that Twitter, or humanity (or both) will implode. Or explode. Either way, there will definitely be a plosion of some sort. LOL.

December 7, 2010
7 Reasons That James Blunt Must Be Stopped

You may agree with Dave Cameron; you may follow Nick Thing; you may be a supporter of Mad Elliband; you may be a devotee of that Scottish man with a name like a fish. It doesn’t matter, because there’s one cause that everyone must unite behind: Stopping James Blunt. And be in no doubt whatsoever, James Blunt must be stopped. Here are seven reasons why.

1. Ubiquity. He’s bloody everywhere. On everything. I can’t turn on my television or my radio at the moment without James Blunt being on it. I can’t visit websites – though I’m aware I’m now partially responsible for this – or open newspapers (yes, newspapers, those paper things from the past that existed before this screen in front of you with these words on. He’s in them too) without seeing or hearing him. James Blunt has – in the last fortnight – achieved total, absolute, all-permeating multi-platform media omnipresence. He’s in a magazine somewhere near me right now. And near you. In fact he’s in all of the magazines. Everywhere. All over the place. Being James Blunt.

2. He’s Becoming Weirder. Remember when Tom Cruise seemed normal? No? Well some of us have long memories and he did once. Before he split up with Penelope Cruz; before he started jumping up and down on Oprah’s sofa; before he began espousing odd birthing techniques, Tom Cruise didn’t seem all that weird. But he does now. And the same thing is happening to James Blunt. He used to look and seem relatively at one with the world, but the more I see him, and the more I see him respond to external stimuli (interviews, conversation etc) by grinning inanely and then grinning inanely some more, the more he reminds me of Tom Cruise. Which is the slippery slope to weirdness.

3. His Hair. Have you seen his hair? I’m about to skirt the accepted boundaries of heterosexuality right here and right now, but I don’t care; because James Blunt’s hair used to be lovely. Absolutely fucking lovely. A dark, lustrous, bounteous, luxuriant barnet; a follicular paragon; a mane to rival the legendary tresses of both Samson and Aniston, but have you seen it recently? When he appeared on Have I Got News For You (and Never Mind The Buzzcocks and Daybreak and The One Show and BBC Breakfast and T4 and Something For The Weekend and London Tonight and The Graham Norton Show) it looked like he’d painted a brillo pad orange and stuck it down to his head. I don’t know how this is happening to his hair or why it’s happening; but what if it’s catching? What if it happens to my hair?! Or yours?

Seriously. What has happened here and is it contagious?

4. The Bath. And then last night it all became even stranger. Because, when I was listening to a politics programme on BBC Radio 5Live in the bath (on a rare occasion that it wasn’t full of champagne and dancing girls), they announced that they were about to interview James Blunt. Oh God, I thought. I’m trapped. I’ve just put on my facial mud (for MEN) and now I’m going to be stuck in the bath for twenty minutes listening to James Blunt…again. And I was. And I couldn’t even put my head under the water to cover my ears or to drown myself because of the mud. So I had to listen. And listen I did. I listened to James Blunt recount the time that he disobeyed orders from his commanders in Kosovo and didn’t attack the Russians, thus averting a massive East-West conflict. That’s right, James Blunt saved us from World War III. And while, at the bottom of my heart, I knew that not having a third world war was probably a good and desirable thing, I couldn’t help thinking that if we’d had a third world war, James Blunt would never have been allowed to leave the army and we’d never have had to listen to his music, and he wouldn’t be bloody everywhere; all over the place; even in my bath.

5. The Song. And sure enough, as I lay there unable to escape from James Blunt: Saviour of the World, they played the song. The same song that I’ve heard everywhere, every time that James Blunt has appeared over the last fortnight: You’re Beautiful. The one James Blunt song that I know, apparently the one James Blunt song that everyone knows. There are others, sure, but can you name them? No, and I can’t either. I, a musical man with an enviable collection of music; a man for whom music has been a passion for his entire life. A man who owns all four Electrelane studio albums, and has most of the Os Mutantes albums on original vinyl. I can’t name more than one James Blunt song and neither can anyone else except his fans, and even they can’t do it with any certainty. And having heard it sodding everywhere for the past fortnight (even the Sesame Street version) it came as a blessed relief later on, to turn the television, the computer and the radio off knowing that I would escape from it. And then my wife started humming the bloody thing (having presumably absorbed it through some sort of osmosis) and, while I couldn’t help but agree with her sentiments, it was still the same damned song…again. But off key.

6. Then There’s His Name. James Blunt’s name is James Blunt. That’s right: James Blunt. And you might think to a humourist, that it would offer all manner of potential, but it doesn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact. Because it rhymes with the one word in the English language that you can never, ever use without losing the sympathy of your reader. If he were called James Bluck, James Block, James Blank, James Blick, James Blit, James Bliss, James Blits, or James Brance I might conceivably be able to make fun of him in rhyme. But I can’t. Because his name is Blunt. And do know what’s really annoying about it? It isn’t even his real name. He changed it. His original name is Blount: Pronounced Blunt.

7. And This Is The Worst Part. He seems like a nice guy. A man who, despite being everywhere with his one song irritating the hell out of you, me and all those other people standing about and clogging the pavements, actually seems to have substance. A man who has a mind of his own and is no mere vacuous, avaricious, chancer like many contemporary popular musicians. A man who has served his country in combat and has come out of the experience intact and has forged a successful post-army life for himself; sadly in contrast to many ex-servicemen who often don’t get the support that they deserve and that we owe them. A man who goes back and performs concerts for the troops and is a vociferous advocate of, and fundraiser for, Médecins Sans Frontières. And that makes criticism of him hard. And it probably makes me look like a bit of a count. But please, for the love of god, James. Stop. Enough. We all know we’re beautiful and we need a break now.

November 15, 2010
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Dolphins Are The Physical Embodiment Of Evil

The 7 Reasons sofa tour of the USA takes another break this week as we head back to Blighty. Desperately in need of tea (Jon) and coffee (Marc) we have parked up in Manchester. By pure coincidence this also happens to be the home of perennial 7 Reasons guest writer, Liz Gregory. Luckily we arrive whilst Liz is tackling dolphins. Not literally of course, just literarily. I’m sure you do it already, but here is a reminder that you can read Liz’s work more regularly over at Things To Do In Manchester.

Cute, friendly creatures, right? WRONG. Dolphins are plotting the destruction of the human race, and it’s only a matter of time before an episode of Dr Who documents this possibility. Here’s why:

1. Too Intelligent By Half. Dolphin-supporters are keen to hold up cleverness as a reason to admire these marine menaces rather than fear them. But honestly, if you were that clever, would you be satisfied with jumping through hoops for treats? No, thought not.

2. Horrid Sinister Curly Mouth. I can always tell when my husband has misbehaved or is telling fibs because his mouth goes curly at the edges. Dolphins’ mouths do this ALL THE TIME, because they are plotting ALL THE TIME.

3. Sinister Clicking Noises. I accept that all creatures communicate in their own way, but why that communication system has to involve a series of unpleasant clicks and whirring is beyond me. Either talk properly, or be quiet.

4. That Episode Of The Simpsons. “Night of the Dolphin” aired in 2000 to great rejoicing from the anti-dolphin community, because it showed the truth: interfering Lisa frees a load of dolphins from an aquatic park and they repay her faith by taking over the world. That’s because they want WORLD DOMINATION, and you can’t say you weren’t warned about this ten years ago.

5. Too Keen To Befriend The Human Race. Aah, how lovely – dolphins are always quick to swim alongside humans in the sea, no doubt in a bid to bond and strike up cross-species friendships. No – they want to rob you, and have yet to work out that humans don’t carry money, phones or keys in swimwear. Not so clever now, eh?

6. Too Many Friends In The Sea, Big Ones. The dolphins are undoubtedly the brains beyond the aquatic world domination plan, but obviously they need a bit of muscle behind them. And have you seen how big those whales are? They’ll be the ones blocking the doors when the dolphins storm the Houses of Parliament.

7. Retractable Legs, Probably. You may scoff, and point out that we will always be safe from the snub-nosed ones because they are rubbish on land, what with having no legs and all. I have one thing to say to this: you didn’t think Daleks could go up stairs either, did you?

So remember: stay away from the water, lock all your doors, and NEVER wave a hoop at a dolphin – they have VERY long memories. Click, click, whir.

August 7, 2010
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why Teaching Is (Mostly) The Best Job In The World

A few weeks ago, you may remember Liz Gregory telling us why Summer was great. There was so much agreement with her in the 7 Reasons HQ that we just had to get her back on the sofa. Thankfully, Liz was only too keen to make a reappearance. And this time she’s bought along her box of chalks. Or are they marker pens? I can never tell when I’m sans contact lenses. If you didn’t check out Liz’s blog – Things To Do In Manchester – last time, then you better do it today. Unless you want detention. Right, enough of the stupid school quips, I’m off to the bike sheds.

1. Holidays (Part One). We may as well deal with any resentment up front, so we’ll start with holidays. I get 11 weeks per year. Teachers in schools get more. I understand that people in the real world get insultingly poor amounts of annual leave, and I feel bad about this. But no-one, anywhere (that includes you, Cameron) will take my glorious six-week summer off me.

2. Holidays (Part Two). Last year the afore-mentioned six week summer break began on July 7^th. The Ashes series started on July 8^th. This point needs no further expansion.

3. The Students. Yes, I know this one is hard to believe; even a cursory glance at The Daily Mail will indicate that the youth of today are a snarling, feral mass, pausing from their casual sex and drug-taking only to mug passing old ladies and commit knife crimes. You may be disappointed to learn that actually, today’s teenagers are pretty much the same as any other generation of teenagers: moody, unpredictable, funny, witty, charming…in short, they are good company. Although I do query some of their musical taste, and the overall aesthetics of wearing one’s jeans halfway down one’s backside.

4. Talking About What You Love, All Day Every Day. I teach English, which means that rather than answer telephones and push bits of paper around a desk all day, a typical Monday might include reading Wuthering Heights (and indeed performing the Kate Bush caterwauling classic as a Christmas treat), acting out bits of Streetcar Named Desire (Stellllaaaaaaa!), and teaching how to write scripts, articles or short stories….it’s amazing.

5. Seasonal Celebrations. Christmas is fun, sure. Christmas in a college with hundreds of sixteen-year-olds who are desperately excited but are trying equally desperately not to show it is even better. Students are also very keen on the confectionary that tends to accompany such seasonal celebrations, and bring it in by the bucket load; there is surely not a teacher in existence who has not felt their waistband constrict at Easter or Christmas due to a surfeit of Quality Street.

6. Stationery. This may actually be specific to English teachers, but every September the pain of a new academic year is soothed by an almighty trip to Paperchase to stock up on novelty pens and notebooks with monkeys on. This is an essential part of teaching, and its impact on the economic stability of Britain must not be overlooked.

7. Students Suddenly Realising You’re Not Ninety. I am not particularly advanced in years, but to my youthful charges I may as well be approaching my hundred and twelfth birthday. Until, of course, you are spotted outside of work, wearing jeans, talking to friends, and maybe (gasp) drinking wine. This prompts much admiration, as students recognise you for what you truly are – a plucky old person with a life outside college. This will raise your kudos above every member of the maths and science departments almost instantly.

July 10, 2010
7 Reasons I Should Be Celebrated The World Over

Today I turn 27. I is Jon. Happy Birthday to me. Thanks. This very special day gives me a wonderful opportunity to indulge in a little piece of narcissism. Well, I say narcissism. It’s more a chance to try and make the world a better place.

Image Courtesy of Ceci Masters

1. Holiday. June 10th would automatically be made a public holiday. And just before you start thinking this could never happen, well it already has. In Portugal.

2. Statues. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not so vain that I think there should be statues of me in every town, village and hamlet. But one in every 50sq miles sounds about right. The simple fact of the matter is that there are 6.2 billion people on this planet and I can’t get round to everyone. A statue does exactly what I do. Apart from get injured when someone takes exception to seeing me everyday and knocks my head off.

3. Italians. As this short film demonstrates, they need to sort their attitude out. I am hoping that if the rest of the world celebrate me then the Italians might join in. Voluntarily or otherwise.

4. Common Denominator. There is a lot of bad blood between a lot of people in this world. What the world needs now is love sweet love, but if we can’t get that we need something else. Something that ignores borders. Something that ignores beliefs. Something that ignores opinions. Something that ignores The French. Something that everyone can agree is beauty. Maybe then, with common ground, we can build a better world for our children. That something, is me.

5. I Do The Things That You Don’t Have To. For the most part of my life, I have been getting on and doing the jobs that otherwise you’d have to do. Trying to become an international athlete for instance. Or deciding that I could take on – and beat – Australians at every single sported ever invented. Or spending three years of my life searching for my friend’s look-alike – and then writing a book about it. Or planning to catch one hundred London buses in one night. If it wasn’t for me, you’d have had to do all that. You’d be the one who was a bit…erm…strange.

6. You Again. Have you sent me a Birthday card for today? The chances are you probably haven’t. But that’s not necessarily your fault. It may simply be a case that you don’t know me. If you don’t know me you can’t be expected to know when to start looking at Birthday cards. If I was celebrated all over the world though, you would know. Clinton Cards would put adverts up and stuff.*

7. 7 Reasons. If I was celebrated the whole world over, I wouldn’t have to spend ages, in the early hours my birthday, trying to think of a poxy seventh reason as to why you should celebrate me.

*If you do know me and you haven’t sent me a card, I would like to know why. Thanks.

June 10, 2010
7 Reasons We Love Propaganda Posters

At 7 Reasons, we’re quite into war and propaganda, and recently, we’ve been putting together some bits and pieces that we’ve used propaganda posters in. We’ve looked at an awful lot of them in the past couple of weeks, and we were astounded at the amount of brilliant posters that we’d never seen before. We thought we’d show you some of the more obscure ones today. We’re sure you’ll agree that each one of them is a reason to love propaganda posters.

1. Tell Her Nothing (1940). Produced quite early into World War II, this extremely rare British poster proved so popular that as soon as the posters were put up, they would disappear – presumably stolen by amorous servicemen. This woman was a more popular pin-up than Vera Lynn in the early war years. We would tell her everything. And give her the blueprints (whatever blueprints are).

2. He Volunteered For Sperm Donation (c. 1945). Used by the Americans after the end of World War II, this poster encouraged virile men to donate their little swimmers to the wives and partners of soldiers killed in action. It was believed that a baby boom would help the economy recover.

3. Syphilis (c. 1944). A poster used mainly in the Dorset area during the build-up to D-Day. It was used to highlight the dangers of fraternising with the allies.

4. Who Smells Of Fish? (c. 1916). In World War I, rationing meant that some foods such as fish were only able to be eaten on Friday. Many citizens ignored this order though and ate their fish on a Thursday. This campaign was created to scare those who cheated by implying that if you ate fish early you would smell.

5. For A Happy, Healthy Job…(c. 1940). While the Battle of Britain was raging in the South-East of England, these posters were everywhere. Women were encouraged to organise themselves and head out into the countryside to search for German airmen that had been shot down and gone into hiding.

6. Women Of Britain. Direct Our Planes! (c. 1943). Due to the sun, it was hard for Allied pilots to focus on incoming German Bombers and Messerschmitts. The British devised a simple solution. They asked women to go out into the streets and point in the direction of the bastards. Our brave boys were able to look down and follow the direction of where the women were pointing. This simple but effective solution proved vital in winning the Battle of Britain.

7. Tell No One (1939). In the early days of WWII, during the phoney war, it was easy to become overwhelmed by the media’s portrayal of the enemy. This poster was issued by the Ministry of Health, to instruct British men on how best to deal with any psychological issues resulting from the constant media bombardment of war-stories.

********************UPDATE********************

Due to the popularity of this post, we have made this series of propaganda posters available for sale in postcard form in the 7 Reasons Emporium. There are also t-shirts.

March 27, 2010
7 Reasons The World Needs Hoverboards

1. Transport. There are a lot of cars where I live – that’s on Earth. Whenever I am in a car I always end up getting stuck. A journey that should take ten minutes, invariably takes twelve. Half the time I think it would be quicker to walk. The other half I think it would be quicker to hover. On both occasions I am right. Walking, though, tends to be a bit boring and I blister easily. I wouldn’t get blisters hovering though and I certainly wouldn’t get bored. Weaving in and out and over cars. I imagine the adrenaline rush to be something like sky-diving with a handkerchief.

2. Evolution. The bicycle is a great mode of transport, but while it remains popular in it’s current form it has also evolved into a motorbike. Another great mode of transport is the skateboard. Unlike the bicycle though, the skateboard has not evolved. And in my opinion it’s getting left behind. Everything else evolves, it’s time for the skateboard to step up to the plate.

3. My Generation. Apart from being Friday, today is also referred to as the age of the ‘Playstation Generation’ (though other computer video gaming consoles are available). People get fat playing on the Playstation. They also end up with square eyes. The best cure for both these ailments is to get outside. I guarantee Hoverboards would do this. The youngsters of today would switch off their consoles, get on their board and hover about all over the place. Or maybe they’ll just go down to KFC.

4. Literature. If WH Smith lacks one thing on its shelves, it is Hoverboard Monthly. Or the more youth-orientated Pimp My Hoverboard Bitch!

5. No More Snow Chaos. If you look outside today, you will notice that there is snow on the ground. This white stuff is treacherous to walk on or drive over. So the best thing to do is stay in, or, if your journey is unavoidable, get on a hoverboard. And if you fall off, at least you’ll land on something soft.

6. Reputations. There is a great film trilogy called Back To The Future. Well, I say a ‘great trilogy’, the third one was a bit random if you ask me, but that is irrelevant until next week’s 7 Reasons The Third Back To The Future Film Was A Bit Random. What is relevant now though, is that they had hoverboards in BTTF II. In the year 2015. We’re not far off. If we don’t get them soon the credibility of the trilogy is going to plummet.

7. Sport. I think just about every sport out there would be improved by the addition of a hoverboard. Especially if they are remote control hoverboards and controlled by random spectators. It would be a bit like…erm…using a Playstation.

January 8, 2010