Less Than Charitable

Oh! It's Children In Need* this Friday is it?

Oh joy.

Oh fucking, fucking, fuckety joy.

I'm sure there will be lots of people doing some absolutely hilarious stunts!

Some crazy cat will no doubt be bathing in a bath of baked beans- CRAZY! 

Perhaps some zany loon will be eating a jar of chillies! OUTRAGEOUS!

Bath of Beans: Ha Ha Ha! Hilarious!

Ho, ho, what fun and all in the name of helping unfortunate children - how could you not want to join in?
I'm not sure if you could tell from my tone there, but I'm not really a big fan of this forced fundraising business. Don't get me wrong, I love charity. And I love children, especially poor and mis-treated ones. But I fucking hate the forced nature of these big fundraising events - Comic Relief, Children in Need, Telethon and on and on and on...

All of a sudden, like this week, everyone is out with buckets dressed up as a tool, baking over-priced cakes and forcing you to buy them, or doing some half-arsed sponsored walk or other.

As it happens, I already contribute quite a bit to certain charities regularly each month. Although I don't like to talk about that much.

It's probably more per year than many of these 1-week charity wonders will raise for Children in Need this week, actually. But as I said, I don't like to talk about that much.

But it is quite a lot.

Yet I'm still made to feel guilty every time I walk past a zany cock dressed up as Ronald McDonald on my way to work, rattling a bucket in my face.

"Children in Need Sir?"
"No, sorry - I've already given this year."
"Oh... I see."

...and with a disdainful glance as if I were a dog turd found on his shoe, he turns away in disgust and rattles his bucket anew at other, clearly more generous commuters.

Fuck off!

The wacky idea that companies in my office block have decided to do this week in order to prise more coins out of my pocket EVERY FUCKING DAY, is to walk up the 11 floors of stairs in the building 272 times - the height of Mount Everest. Reasonably impressive, I thought initially, as this was being outlined to me by one of the participants.

"Ohh, you'll be awfully tired though! That's quite a distance for you all to cover in a week!" I exclaimed to him.

"Well, we are not actually doing 272 climbs each - there are about 30 of us - and we are doing it like a relay." He replied.

I was aghast & perplexed. "So, what your saying is- you yourself are, over the space of a week, going to walk up 11 flights of stairs about 10 times? That's not really climbing then height of Everest, is it? In fact, if you were an energetic fellow who worked on the top floor, you might well in fact walk the same distance every week of your working life as a matter of course."

He looked sheepish. "Well yes, but it's still the height of Everest when we add up everyone's contribution!"

And with that he gleefully rattled his bucket and smiled at me once again, quite inanely.

Tensing: Not sponsored for his efforts.

Well, Sherpa Tensing, it certainly is the height of Everest when you add in everyone's efforts, but by the same ridiculous logic, I can probably claim to have successfully walked the equivalent of the moon and back if I add up the walking contribution of everyone in London this week!

So no wonder I'm being so grumpy with you arsehole fundraisers, having walked to the moon - I'm very fucking tired!

I mean really.

Then we've got the ruddy cake-makers, wheeling their trolley full of sick-making cakes in and out of our offices every day this week.

If it wasn't enough being felt forced to shell out £1 for a mediocre flap-jack yesterday, I'm going to be asked to do so again today, and tomorrow, and the next day, right up to the big night itself on Friday. 

Presumably we'll also get visited by the intrepid Everest mountaineers on their way up and down the stairs, pausing in their difficult ascent only for the nourishment of lemon drizzle cake and to count the many coins they've accrued through the pretence of endeavour.

Well, at least when I get home on Friday night I can put it out of my mind and relax in front of the TV with some of the special edition programming commissioned exclusively for Children in Need. I hope James Corden is doing something!

Brilliant!

 
 
 
*Children In Need of Getting Out of My Fucking Angry Face.