Still Feeling Uncharitable

...And that's another thing I bloody hate about charity campaigns - they're always trying to get you to give up something.  Right now, for instance, we're in the midst of 'Stoptober', where I'm being urged to give up drinking for the month of October.  For charity, of course.  For God's sake, drinking is one of the few pleasures I have left, I don't care if it is for charity, I'm not giving it up even for a month.  But it will be good for you, they say in their adverts, chronicling all the hangovers and damage to your liver you'll avoid by not drinking during October.  Thereby making you feel guilty for abusing your body, before telling you how you can help them raise money by abstaining.  A neat trick there to convince you that you can restore your self-esteem by joining their campaign.  But it isn't just 'Stoptober' we have to endure.  Oh no, once that's over, we'll be into 'Movember' during which people are encouraged to grow moustaches for charity and we have to put up with various celebrities showing us how they can't grow one, ending up with what looks like a smudge of boot polish beneath their noses. As I've note before in theses pages, in my opinion moustaches are for life and should be left to the professionals.  Amateur moustaches which last only a month are an offence against nature.

I know that by now everyone is screaming about how I've got no sense of fun, to lighten up - it's all for a good cause after all.  But that's the point - I'm sick to death of charities trying to make fundraising 'fun'.  It isn't.  Getting people to part with money isn't fun.  Paying it out certainly isn't.  No matter how 'good' the cause.  Besides, the causes charities usually collect for - famine, natural disasters, terminal illness, horrendous diseases, maimed animals and abused children, to name but a few - are anything but 'fun'.  Trying to make their campaigns 'fun filled' and 'entertaining' rather demeans the seriousness of these causes, I can't help but feel.  But then, I'm a curmudgeonly old git, aren't I?  The bottom line here is that if they want my money, then just bloody ask for it, don't try and get me to stop drinking or grow facial hair.  Sure, I'll probably still say 'no', but at least we'll both know where we stand, won't we?  So, for the record, I'm going to keep on drinking throughout October and have no intention of growing a moustache in November, (my moustachioed days are long gone, I'm afraid - I just can't be arsed to properly maintain a neat 'tache these days and there's nothing worse than a ragged unkempt moustache).