Our weekly round-up of outlandish and interesting information collected from the corners of the charity sector.
But does he have a large mansion?
Society Diary has recently made a bit of a habit of bringing you stories about people taking their clothes off, but there’s been a bit of a rumbling among this column’s large and dedicated readership that too many of them feature young ladies.
Therefore Diary is happy to report that Benedict Cumberbatch, the only man in showbusiness who has been described as both a drop-dead heartthrob and a dead ringer for an otter, has decided to recreate Colin Firth’s famous emerging-from-the-lake-dripping-wet-at-Pemberley scene from Pride and Prejudice, all in the name of the charity Give Up Clothes For Good.
The charity itself is not actually exhorting to people to seek out a state of permanent nuddyness, possibly in return for sponsorship, but to donate your old clothes to raise money for charity.
Diary is slightly uncertain about the need for this campaign. On the one hand, don’t people do this anyway? At the charity shop? But on the other, Diary loves a good double entendre, and it’s always good when someone gives you one.
Pay homage to leadership on leadership pay
A bit of a memory lapse this week from William Shawcross, chair of the Charity Commission, who praised to the heavens NCVO’s “exemplary leadership in response to the debate about CEO pay” by launching “important new guidelines”.
Diary is far from sure that the sector really got exemplary leadership in the debate around CEO pay. The debate, if that’s really the right word for it, seemed mostly to consist of right-wing newspapers pouring poo on the sector from a great height, while those who actually set CEO pay made themselves notable by their absence. But NCVO, at least, did more than most.
Shawcross also conveniently forgot his own less-than-emollient leadership at the height of last year’s lengthy silly-season contretemps, which consisted of telling the Daily Telegraph that he wasn’t sure pay levels for charities were really “appropriate” and that they risked bringing the sector into disrepute. Thereby doing an exemplary job of engendering trust and confidence in the voluntary sector.
That must have taken a lot of blowing
So another charity has decided to boost its publicity with giant cock.
We’re talking, of course, about the Animal Aid Charity Festival, held in Brentwood in Essex last weekend, which featured a 15 foot inflatable slide in the shape of a rooster and raised more than £1,500.
Why? What did you think we meant?
