Red Nose Day

Today is red nose day. No, that does not mean you have to spend the day drinking until your nose turns red. Instead it means that it's Comic Relief's big fundraising day, and if you care about others you will have by now gone to your local Sainsbury's and spent £1 on buying this year's nose. And wearing last year's nose does not count.

Comic Relief is essentially a charity that raises money for the needy in both Africa and the UK. It's essentially hard to disagree with and so a lot of hoop-lah goes into their big fundraising events every year. A group of somewhat random UK celebrities (aka, no one in the US has ever heard of them) climbed Kilimanjaro last week, there are random celebrity dancing shows now raising money for the charity, and last but not least, at Mark's work you have to pay £1 if you wore red today - and £2 if you didn't. Basically, there's no way to avoid this thing, and you will inevitably feel guilty if you don't donate a bit of money.

Personally I prefer to give money to charities that I support, not just to ones that make me feel guilty if I don't. Luckily my work is not squeezing money out of me today, and I will tactfully avoid any telethons that may or may not be taking place that involve celebrities dressing up in silly outfits and making fools of themselves with intermittent messages telling me what good work the charity does. It might make me seem like a bit of a scrooge, but it just sort of irks me the way they roll the whole thing out!