Our weekly round-up of interesting and outlandish information, collected from the corners of the charity sector.

Katie Hopkins is the gift that keeps on giving

The life of a journalist can be, at times, incredibly frustrating. During its Monday to Thursday hiatus, Diary is endlessly bombarded with juicy titbits, loose-lipped gossip and all manner of rumour mongering.

Alas as a journalist one can’t just print any and everything one hears. It’s an irritating fact of life that rumours need to be substantiated and facts need to be checked or else Diary might find itself being slapped with a libel charge and dragged before a court of law.

Hallelujah for Katie Hopkins then: every conscientious, ethical journalist’s guilty pleasure.

In her latest column in the Daily Mail, Hopkins has again taken aim at the charity sector and, not surprisingly, she’s refrained from pulling her punches.

“Would I like to support the Christmas Shoe Box Campaign for the Children of Moldova?” she blusters. “Frankly, no I would not”.

Take that Moldovan children and your shoe boxes!

“As for Movember and your sponsored moustache,” she continues “you can sprinkle it with petrol and set it on fire and I still wouldn’t feel charitably towards you”. Shoreditch hipsters and lip-tickler aficionados everywhere; you’ve been put on notice.

Kate Hopkins is all given out. She’s charitably spent. Death to ‘chuggers’ and tree huggers and half marathon runners. Nary will a penny of her money find its way onto your JustGiving page.

Despite her apparent contempt for all things charitable, Hopkins does have a solution to the problem and, if Diary might say so, it’s almost elegant in its simplicity.

“Do away with all the duplication and create one charity,” Hopkins says. “Call it The Charity”.

A unified mega-charity? By Jove, that’s a capital idea! It could be housed in some towering, featureless concrete monstrosity located in one of those run-down areas of London where all but the hardiest rats and cockroaches fear to tread, and every cause could take it in turns to have its year in the sun: 2016 could be the year of cancer, 2017 the year of homelessness, 2018 Moldovan children, and so on.

However Diary thought there already was something a bit like ‘The Charity’, and it was called: 'The State'.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good attack column though, right Katie?

Silver linings to dark clouds

It's seldom that a story about a proud, Muslim-woman being viciously and anonymously attacked on the internet for daring to publicly follow her faith has a happy ending. Thankfully though, this might just be the exception.

Susan Carland, an Australian academic and University lecturer who is married to Australian television presenter Waleed Aly, made a pledge two weeks ago to “donate $1 to Unicef for each hate-filled tweet I get from trolls”. Carland’s brave stand has since raised nearly $1,000. “The needy children thank you, haters” she recently tweeted.

Carland says that, since beginning with her donations, she now “barely bats an eyelid” at her trolls. Those brave and noble annonymous keyboard warriors, raging against perceived injustices from the sanctury of their parents' basements. 

Haters ‘gonna hate, and all that.

It’s not all doom and Cloon or #swoonforcloon

It’s November in the UK and, aside from the swirling gales and the sideways rain, it’s also getting mighty dark, mighty early.

Diary thanks its lucky stars then that one of the brightest in the Hollywood firmament has deigned to walk amongst us Brits, warming hearts and winning minds wherever he goes.

George Clooney (pictured, obviously) was in Edinburgh this week to receive a £175,000 cheque for his humanitarian aid charity, Not on Our Watch, from the People’s Postcode Lottery. Diary wouldn’t hazard a guess at the last time a two-time Oscar winning actor was in Edinburgh, but it’s probably been a while.

While in town, big George swung by an Edinburgh sandwich shop which donates its profits to homeless people before picking up his cheque from Postcode HQ on the – appropriately named – George Street.

He was also more than happy to get his handsome mug into as many selfies as humanly possible. Is there anything he can't do? 

O, be still Diary’s beating heart! #swoonforcloon is going to start trending, you heard it here first.