Over the years I have become throughly bored, annoyed and curmugdenly over the annual charity telethon rubbish. Children in need, Comic relief, etc etc all thoroughly get on my tits with the mind numbingly amateurish awfulness of the output, the dirge of second string celebs trying to hype up mundane boring activities as heroic deeds, - I mean do I really want to see some stupid talentless welsh tart whining about how hard it is on a lashed up trike thing - or some fake camp comedian swimming up the thames? Is it in the least faintly interesting or newsworthy?
If the BBC shut down for 24 hours, and didn't pay these airheads for that day, the money saved would raise more then the constant assaults on our already battered consciences.
However, occasionally from the bog of boring mediocrity a worth while little gem gets thrown up. Like last night, caught by accident.
The real majesty and power of this song really swells and kicks in at 3:30
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7ceR_t7wVg
|
Totally agree. I never will donate money to open buckets and Children in Need never got anything from me the day I saw money being given to a group of bored looking children for musical instruments in some obscure Fenland village.
Philippines are in much greater need IMO.
|
>> Philippines are in much greater need IMO.
I hope they get a lot of donations. Countries need to help and this is going to cost a lot. I don't think we can imagine anything as bad as this happening in the UK or even Europe. The earthquake in Acquila doesn't come close does it although also terrible.
Maybe when Vesuvius blows it's top we'll see devastation on a scale unseen in Europe in recent times.
|
I'll be watching the football.
If that's no good then I'll get back to my book with a glass of wine or two.
|
My wife bought something for children in need.Where the money goes I don't know,maybe it is all about publicity and we are conned.
If that is the case they have to live with their conscious.
|
Any money I donate to charity is done ensuring I can gift aid it.
I did donate small change into the nearest on the counter/bar box but now we have a money box used for coppers / five pence coins. The new steel coins also join them ( they frequently do not work in parking meters etc).
When the box is full we exchange the coins ins at local shops and then considerably round up the proceeds ( plus the gift aid) for the local heli ambulance.
|
'Fraid I'm with Z on this …………. and I'm glad someone else admires the great Jeff Lynne - a true musical visionary.
I saw him in 1969 - my mate and I had gone up to Wrexham from Leics on his Brother's Ariel Red Hunter. It was the Cartrefle (women's) Teacher Training College rag ball and what a bonus - as well as loads of young women, the Idle Race were playing and Jeff Lynne was their 19 year-old guitarist and main songwriter. It was clear then, to me at least, that the bloke was a genius.
|
"I really want to see some stupid talentless welsh tart whining about how hard it is"
Don't think I ever twonked a Welsh bird, let alone her ninnying about how hard it is.
|
Yep, I agree. Cant be doing with all this tugging at the heart strings stuff. If I chose to donate to something I will, not because I've been made to feel guilty enough to have to give.
My employer forces the graduate intake to spend a percentage of their time doing good deeds so I've been pestered at my desk more than once this week, although I do make an exception when the females do a the car wash fundraiser in the summer :-)
|
I happily, regularly and willingly give to charity. But I don't need an adult in a fancy dress costume or some newsreader dancing or whatever to encourage me to do it.
It does though, on a more serious note, say a lot about how our tax money is spent if there is still not enough of that to go round to support genuinely needy children.
|
Nobody is forced to watch " Children in Need", nobody has to donate to charity, to moan about those who do seem rather churlish to say the least. An lot of people spend a lot of time and effort raising money for those less fortunate than themselves. Seems to me that we should be proud to live in a country where people are so generous.
|
I really, really hope that all these 'celebrities', and presenters, are doing CIN free of charge. And no expenses. None of them are short of a bob or two and to think that they were even paid their bus fare would make me puke.
Incidentally I don't give a penny to CIN.
I'm making a new will next week (Will Aid) and having investigated several potential beneficiaries, it has opened my eyes to some of these charities. Small, local one's. with unpaid volunteers are my benefactors henceforth.
|
>>Small, local one's. with unpaid volunteers are my benefactors henceforth.
I wish it were that simple. In my experience unpaid volunteers merely help to conceal the financial mismanagement of those above them.
I don't know how to choose an efficient charity.
|
Agree 100%. Cannot abide Children In Need for the reasons mentioned above, especially considering this year he money would be better off going to the Philippines.
My true loathing is reserved for the Radio 2 auction of things "money can't buy", which is merely an opportunity for people who would never normally donate to charity to impress their friends by spending obscene amounts of money.
Why not treat it as a raffle where everyone stands a chance, not just City bankers and lottery winners? Hate it, hate it, hate it.
|
I actually like it, Children in Need I mean.
If someone has got loads of money, then I'm quite happy for them to impress their friends by how much they spend on charity, just so as they spend it.
I don;t really get what is not to like, as far as I remember its not compulsory and you can spend your own money where you like.
If you want your money to go to the Philippines, then send it there. Or is it that really some people don't like how other people are choosing to spend their money and think they should have a say in that?
In fact the only realistic objection I can think of is that they disturb your normal viewing habits.; although if you'd just spent two hours in a Chilean bar in Santiago watching England play like idiots, as I have, then perhaps that would not be such a bad thing.
|
>> normal viewing habits.; although if you'd just spent two hours in a Chilean bar in
>> Santiago watching England play like idiots, as I have, then perhaps that would not be
>> such a bad thing.
could be worse, you could be scottish.
|
|
The only reason that I have donated to CiN is because Jeff Lynne and Richard Tandy (members of my all-time favourite group) have perfomed Mr Blue Sky (my all time favourite song) as close to authentically live as I'm ever going to see it. I can die happy now.
|
>could be worse, you could be scottish.
True enough.
|
>> this year he money would be better off going to the Philippines.
But who do you give it to FF, to ensure that say 80% of it will get to people who actually need it? The Philippine government? Me don't tink so...
How long has Save the Children been going? I think they had a big compound in the war-shattered Chad capital in my days there in the eighties. The French hacks said they were actually CIA, but you don't usually get real evidence to support assertions like that. I do remember the compound as being empty, with very little going on in it. No obvious sign of children being saved. No doubt there were administrative difficulties. I went to see them. They were unwelcoming, the visit was brief, and I didn't speak to anyone of caring, nipper-saving demeanour, just rather hard faces.
Two things should be underlined however: none of that is evidence of anything; and that sort of work in that sort of place can make a saint look forbidding after a very short time. They weren't at all likeable though.
|
I am at one with Zero on this. I stopped donating to Children in Need after being verbally abused by a drunken bloke in a pub who would not accept my refusal to put money in his bucket on the grounds that I'd just bunged all my loose change into another collector's bucket in the previous pub. That sort of thing still goes on and I've sen very little from the charity to discourage such practices.
I also disapprove of the BBC's wholesale endorsement of the charity which I believe is much to the detriment of other worthy causes.
|
My feelings very well expressed FF, and CG, for me it is not the decision to give money to charity I question, it is that they feel the need to do it publicly which leaves a bad taste.
Some years ago our small charity had a donation from a firm related to the haulage industry. We had to jump through hoops, which cost the charity money, to handle the resulting required publicity from the donor.
On the other hand, a rival firm donates a regular monthly sum on the proviso that no-one at all ever knows about it, and he remains entirely anonymous.
I know where my respect goes.
Pat
|
Here is a comparison of charitable giving on a per capita basis by nation . You will see that the UK come in at a respectable number eight. The French are ninety first. Australians are the most generous.
www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/sep/08/charitable-giving-country#_
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Sat 16 Nov 13 at 11:23
|
Giving to charity is a good thing. I'm clear on that. If you can spare it and it can help someone or something in need of help then it is the right thing to do.
I do though agree with those who find these vast media driven compaigns a bit irritating. If I could be convinced that the "celebs" were doing it for any real reason other than to "raise their profile" and that the public were getting involved for any real reason other something to do as a group activity, and that the viewing audience were watching it for any real reason other than to be entertained, I might find my tolerance levels increasing and my cynicism levels decreasing.
As an aside, why do TV presenters have to shout and audiences feel obliged to whoop so much nowadays ? Are we becoming Americans?
|
|
Slight thread drift. If anyone is thinking of donating to help the Philippines, giving money through DEC Disasters Emergency Committee I understand that the Government will match your donation £ for£, plus one can apply Gift Aid if a taxpayer.
|
What gets me Meldrew what will the rich do in the Phillipines to help their own people.
The majority of the poor living in wooden shacks which they probably have to rebuild.whith their own money.Which they haven't got.If the west was that serious about giving these people a better future it would have happened years ago.
|
>> What gets me Meldrew what will the rich do in the Phillipines to help their
>> own people.
>>
>> The majority of the poor living in wooden shacks which they probably have to rebuild.whith
>> their own money.Which they haven't got.If the west was that serious about giving these people
>> a better future it would have happened years ago.
We are not sending stuff to give them a better future, we are sending aid and money to get them back to where they were before. They didn't have much, and at the moment they have far less.
|
>>it is that they feel the need to do it publicly which leaves a bad taste.
I don't really know why it should leave any taste in your mouth. I can't really see much past - "Charity gets loads of money". I doubt the eventual and hopefully worthy recipient of that money will care one way or another who grandstanded what.
|
|
I can't see much past the appalling dross that passes for entertainment. In fact if they said give us money for normal programming I would pay up.
|
"In fact if they said give us money for normal programming I would pay up."
Well you get your wish for 364 days a year. I'm sure you can get by for a few hours without BBC TV.
|
>> "In fact if they said give us money for normal programming I would pay up."
>>
>> Well you get your wish for 364 days a year. I'm sure you can get
>> by for a few hours without BBC TV.
Indeed I did, I didnt watch it and i didn't pay up extra for CiN
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 16 Nov 13 at 14:49
|
Not to worry, they seem to be be managing quite well without your contribution.
CiN has raised $33M so far. Quite amazing.
|
|
I am somewhat suspicious of the profusion of charities that have appeared in the last few years claiming to support our armed forces. I will only donate to the original charities, The Royal British Legion and the King George V Fund for Sailors which has become "Seafarers UK".
|
|
We have had a Royal Air Force for 100 years and they have the RAF Benevolent Fund and I am sure that the Royal Navy must have something similar and there is the Army Benevolent fund as well.
|
>> We have had a Royal Air Force for 100 years and they have the RAF
>> Benevolent Fund and I am sure that the Royal Navy must have something similar and
>> there is the Army Benevolent fund as well.
>>
These are the main Royal Navy charities, along with The King George Fund (Seafarers UK).
rnrmc.org.uk/
(See the "Need our help" page).
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sat 16 Nov 13 at 18:05
|
>> >> We have had a Royal Air Force for 100 years
No we haven't, we have only had a Royal Air Force for 95 years.
|
>>Seems to me that we should be proud to live in a country where people are so generous.
Agreed but I wonder how other countries react. Their religion obliges Muslims to give alms. In France, when I checked about 20 years back,our system was virtually unknown, apart from one cancer charity, which turned out to be a crooked operation. Charity there was a duty of the church but I doubt if there is much money from that quarter now.
|
Children in need & other worthy causes. - bathtub tom
