Comic Grief
The UK is currently in thrall of Comic Relief fever which, although it thankfully only comes around every two years, goes on for well over a month.
It’s a great idea in principle: get the country’s top comedians and stars together for a telethon and encourage people on the street to dress up, wear a ridiculous red nose and have a blast—all to raise money for charidee, something the Brits are so good at. But after 2 weeks of this, it begins to grate and we are only half-way to the build-up to Red Nose Day (when I plan to be out of the country).
What also grates is that everybody on the radio or television (BBC) has been to Ethiopia—not just the people in front of the camera or mike (as if that wasn’t bad enough) but down to the production assistant piping up in the background of the radio show: “Oh…I’ve been!”. Why? So that they can pull all-expenses paid stunts to advertise Comic Relief and otherwise prance around for a month coming across all self-righteous. I shudder to think what a trip to Ethiopia costs, considering not just the flight but medical expense and top-level security needed there. So many people have been that the organisation must have chartered an entire plane and filled it up with Z-listers and press. Whether the ‘organisation’, is the BBC (license payer’s money) or CR (donor money), I cannot say. In either case it is an unsolicitated squandering of public money. And it makes me feel stupid when I put a tenner into a collection tin ’cause I can’t afford any more.
Of course it all makes great business sense—else the charity wouldn’t do it. It is a sad truth that having ‘celebrities’ pose with scrawny children raises more cash that showing a decent documentary and ending it with a statement that every ‘celebrity’ not shown on screen has saved enough money to build a new well or feed a family for a year. But that’s not what the public want, so who am I to criticise. At least it’ll all be over in three weeks. Phew.
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