Chuck money at charity
YOU know what’ll happen, don’t you? An hour or so into tonight’s COMIC RELIEF (BBC1, 7pm) – hosted by Zoe Ball, Joel Dommett,AJ Odudu, Paddy McFlippingGuinness and Doctor Who – my wife’s going to turn to me and say: “We need to give some money. Have you got your phone?”
By this point, depending on the running order, we may have smiled, maybe even laughed out loud (I’m never really sure how else one can laugh, but that’s a discussion for another day), at the likes of French and Saunders, Ghosts and good old Sir Tony Baldrick doing that Blackadder thing Richard Curtis has written for him, although heaven knows what that’s going to be like without the actual Blackadder.
So, yes, it would indeed seem an appropriate time to send a donation, to help fund this charity’s fine work.We can do that by calling 03457 910910, or by texting FIVE, TEN, TWENTY, THIRTY or FORTY to 70702. (I’m not sure what would happen if, in keeping with the comedy spirit, we were to text a different number, such as A MILLION ZILLION. Probably best not try, just in case.)
But actually there’ll be no need. For us to send money, I mean. “I already did that,” I’ll point out to my wife. “I sent them a tenner for the mountain thing.”
And she’ll reply: “Mountain thing? What mountain thing? What on earth are you on about?”
So I’ll then remind her about Emma, Oti and Rylan’s Big Red Nose Day Challenge, shown on Tuesday night, where these three celebrities raised funds by climbing Cairn Gorm in Scotland.And she’ll stare blankly at me, because that went out at 9pm, which is way past her bedtime.
As it happens, those three are also due to appear on tonight’s show, to update us on how much the mountain thing has actually raised. So that’ll prove I wasn’t making it up or hallucinating.
“OK, but even so,” my wife will no doubt remark. “That was three days ago. Shouldn’t we send a donation for tonight?”
Which brings us to one of life’s great philosophical conundrums. Once you’ve donated to a good cause, how much time can elapse before you start to feel bad if you haven’t donated to it again? I’ll tell her it’s fine to wait more than three days, but I suspect I’ll cave in.
On a separate note, I hope she’s not going to have a go at me if I wear my old single-use-plastic Comic Relief red nose I still have from the 90s.The one that’s in the kitchen drawer where we keep the takeaway menus and the dead batteries.
After all, by wearing it I’m showing I care for the planet. It’s chucking it away that would make me a monster.
Also, it makes me look very handsome.