The Strange Relationship Between Britain and Eire
I was watching something on the television tonight and they said that the RNLI operated in both the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
I checked on their web site and they are a British Isles charity. And the Queen is the patron.
I wonder if there are any others.
If You Want to Raise Money for Charity Get Your Kit Off
Comic Relief has been a big success this year, with over £74,000,000 raised on the night.
Chris Moyles raised a couple of millions by broadcasting continuously for over 50 hours. I once programmed for about 36 hours non-stop and I know how difficult that must have been. At least with the programming, I was testing the Artemis scheduler and I was driven by the bugs I kept finding.
He was also helped by fellow presenter, Fearne Cotton, who said she’d broadcast in a swimsuit, if he passed his target.
He did and the server to the webcam crashed.
Even the Telegraph deemed it fit to show pictures and video on their web site. What did Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells think? He was apparently unable for comment, as he was too busy trying t9 work out how to watch the video.
Gates Takes on Polio
Bill Gates has now turned his big guns on polio. Good!
The Minotaur Lives
Imagine my surprise, when a parcel appeared on my doorstep carried by a man who looked like he was doing an impression of Pete Henry, except that he was a few years older than my last recollection.
In the parcel, was about a hundred copies of the infamous Metier Minotaur. This was the edition that had the tall Pete’s picture where he was trying to get into a compromising position with the diminutive Karen, in what looked like the dining room of my old house at Debach with the infamous wallpaper. It was also probably the laste edition as it had Metier’s obituary. On the last page it asked if the hamster really did it.
Pete told me that he had had a vision from God and this had sent him to a dark, satanic print works in Clerkenwell, where in exchange for a fistfull of used notes, he had received these magazines from an atttractive young lady.
So what am I to do with this manna from heaven?
My son died of pancreatic cancer, so these priceless works of great literature will be sold with all proceeds going towards research into the cancer at Liverpool University, where a world-class team has been assembled.
I am not restricting the sales, as the excellent printer, has informed me that if need be he can print enough copies to completely cover every window of the gherkin.
Street 20 Cricket
They’re just talking about Street-20 cricket on the radio. Basically, it’s a shortened form of the game for kids and the Lords Taverners are taking it all over the country to places like run-down crime-ridden housing estates to give the kids focus. One guy who runs it, has just been named young coach of the year. They aim to find the next generation of England cricketers too.
The Scandal of Gift Aid
The thinktank, ResPublica estimates that charities are losing £750million in donations because of the antiquated Gift Aid system, run by HMRC. Read about it in The Guardian.
Surely, it is better for charities to spend the money on what they do, rather than spend it on back-office administration.
Well Done Eddie!
Eddie Izzard has now completed his feat of running forty-three marathons in fifty one days for Comic Relief.
In finishing he proved what many thought was an impossible task: that a 47-year-old cross-dresser with no sporting inclination could complete an endeavour usually reserved for a small band of endurance athletes and masochists.
So well done, Eddie!
I have given a small amount to Comic Relief and I hope that others will do so. This link does it and it’s very painless.
I have a confession to make though about Eddie. Much as I like him as a person and find him very funny, when he appears in interviews on the radio and television. But my late wife and I went to see him at the Corn Exchange in Cambridge and walked out at halfway. It could have been that I am going a little deaf or the bad acoustics of the theatre, but we just didn’t get it!
But, it’s still well done to Eddie!
I also have a rather tenuous connection to Eddie.
I have said in previous posts like Letterpress Rules OK, that my father was a printer. One of his employees was a lovely Scot called Frank Black. He actually taught me to drive in the Triumph Herald Estate that the company used for deliveries. But his main job was actually to cut paper on the modern Grieg guillotine. Hence the reason my father always referred to him as “Mac the Knife”.
In a previous job, Frank had run a company in partnership with an Izzard called Angel Electric. I think that they used to provide all sorts of pumps, heaters and other accessories for tropical fish tanks. Hence the name!
The Izzard family were fairly well-known in North London and another was a television producer who used to do a very respected program called Travellers Tales. In one, they were in Iran and they needed to get access to some caves where people had lived many centuries ago. It was thought that no-one had been there since the Middle Ages. So they called up Joe Brown, who at that time was one of the best rock-climbers in the world. (Checking his Wikipedia entry says that Joe is still with us and will be 79 in ten days time!)
Joe just walked up the wall and they were in!
It was fascinating television.
Whenever I read of Eddie and his achievements, I just think of the connections and remember Frank Black, who was a really good bloke.
Russell Crowe Spoils His Image
Russell Crowe likes to give the impression he is a hard man. But does this episode in a charity shop show he has a softer side?
It’s actually not the first time he’s donated to charity and you could even argue this one is small by his standards. That’s not to denigrate what he did.
Richard Dunwoody Finishes
At 2:20 in the afternoon today on the July racecourse in Newmarket, Richard Dunwoody finished his heroic walk.
Richard Dunwoody Finishes
This is the moment when he crossed the line. Richard is in the white t-shirt behind the guy in the blue shirt. Lester Piggott is on his left in the grey suit.
Interviewed by the Press
I hope that the public have been generous in their donations.
Walking With Richard Dunwoody
I should say that at the moment, I’m to use a horse term, lame.
I trod on a razorshell on Holkham Beach and the doctor had to remove it. Because of the discomfort, I’ve been holding my lower leg muscles tight and now they’ve all seized up.
Yesterday, I contributed to Richard Dunwoody’s 1000 Mile Charity fund and felt that it would be a good idea to go and support him and perhaps walk a mile.
Richard Dunwoody on the Bury Road
As I suspected it would, my leg did seize up badly, but I did finish.
I asked Richard whether on not he would do this again. He said that it was very boring doing the same half mile of the Bury Road! At least he’s less than twenty four hours to go.
It was all rather poignant for me, in that my late wife used to swim and run every morning from the Bedford Lodge Hotel. If she had still been with us, she would have probably done two miles with Richard every morning.
I’ll be seeing Richard again, when he completes the walk by walking down the racecourse this afternoon.
There’s still time to contribute.
The Anonymous Widower 