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

Well done. Now back to the day job.

So Society Diary is keen to announce that a woman has given birth. That doesn’t happen every day.

Oh, wait. It does.

Anyway, we’re not talking about Princess Kate, who at the time of going to press had not yet spawned for a second time.

Instead, congratulations are due to Lisa Nandy, the Labour shadow charities minister, who earlier this week went into, er, labour, and gave birth to a baby boy, Otis. With impeccable timing, really, a week before she's going to try and get re-elected. But that’s babies for you.

Diary was previously professionally agnostic about the results of the election, but is now hoping Labour win enough votes to form a government, because a minister has never started their tenure while on maternity leave, but it would be a very civil society thing to do.

Diary is also really keen to see how it would all work. Would she have temporary maternity cover? Would a junior minister act up? Would Labour be very non-21st century and hand the job to someone else? Or would we officially have a minister, but actually have the department run by an empty chair?

How Old Do I Look?

Diary attempted to find a picture of young Otis to stick into How Old Do I Look?, the latest internet meme designed to make you feel bad about yourself.

For those who aren’t familiar with the concept, you go to this website, upload a picture of yourself, and it tells you that you’re miles older than you actually are. Then, having been insulted by a computer programme, you do it again with all your other snaps. Why, we have no idea, but you do.

Diary itself is just over one year old, but came out as looking 46, which seems to be about par for the course.

Just for kicks, we stuck in pics of a few of the sector’s leaders. Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of NCVO, apparently looks 76. Peter Lewis, chief executive of the Institute of Fundraising, looks 65. Sir Stephen Bubb, chief executive of Acevo, looks 56 (must be the clean living).

And Caron Bradshaw, chief executive of the Charity Finance Group (pictured) looks 21.

It was the Sunday afternoons that got to him…

Diary was rather taken with this tweet from Andrew O’Brien, head of policy at the Charity Finance Group.

Diary is vaguely pondering at what point it would decide this was a fun thing to do at the weekend. Hair washed? Check. Cat flossed? Check. Taken all the baths you can usefully take that day? Check.

Okay, time to do a survey.

According to How Old Do I Look, Diary is of an age to remember a time when there was literally nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon, sometime in the 1980s. This period, around four o’clock, when the pubs were shut, the telly was crap, and the internet had yet to be invented, was dubbed the Long, Dark, Teatime of the Soul by the author Douglas Adams.

That’s where you’d have to be, Diary reckons.

Actually, it’s a very important survey. But Diary strongly recommends completing it between nine and five, Monday to Friday.

NFL gives up charity status

Finally, in a complete change of subject, it appears the National Football League, the governing body of American football, has decided it is not a charity, and has given up its non-profit tax status.

That’s good, then. Diary has just one question. What the bejiggery *@!# was the NFL doing as a charity in the first place?

Of course, they do things differently in the US, but the NFL’s been running for almost 50 years, and consists of 32 businesses worth £6bn or so each year. The highest-paid employee (not any of the players, you understand, but the top executive) is paid forty-four million dollars. How did anyone think that was a non-profit organisation?

Anyway, it certainly puts moans about salaries at Save the Children into context.