Bangers to Cancer

Angered by the irresponsibility of online drinking game NekNominate, which involves drinking alcohol quickly in an unusual situation, then daring someone else do the same, a group of charity supporters have dreamt up their own alternative which involves, er, taking most of your clothes off and asking people to give you cash.

The new craze is called NipNominate, and it’s pretty simple, really: post a picture of your cleavage while holding a piece of paper with “Bangers to Cancer” written on it, and ask people to donate cash to Breast Cancer Care.

Not an intuitive response to an online drinking game, maybe, but probably an improvement on the original. It’s raised £4,000, anyway.

It takes a long time to make an elephant tap dance

Speaking during a debate on the effectiveness of the Charity Commission, Lord Borwick, a hereditary Conservative peer, had this to say about introducing culture change at the regulator:
“It takes a long time to turn an elephant around,” he said. “And even longer to make it tap dance.”

We believe he was suggesting it will be a while before the Commission reaches a state of sufficient responsiveness and efficiency to make the Public Accounts Committee happy.

Slightly gnomic, perhaps, but probably correct.

Darn those socks

Borwick also voiced his support for a recent report, The Sock Doctrine, published by think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), which suggests that hundreds of charities have effectively been established by government agencies to lobby for things which government itself supports, in order to drum up backing for unpopular policies.

Borwick recommended that to prevent this practice, government should stop handing out unrestricted grants, and subject charities to the Freedom of Information Act.

He probably won’t be on the Christmas card list of Sir Stuart Etherington, then.

Etherington, usually the soul of moderation in his public comments, was sufficiently unimpressed with his complimentary copy of The Sock Doctrine to pen an open letter to the IEA.

It kicks off with the phrase: “I have read your paper and I disagree with it,” and arrives, following a few terse paragraphs, at the recommendation that: “I believe you should send a correction to make clear that the IEA has no evidence.”

Ouch.

Are you indigent? Scottish? Gentle? We can help

Every so often, Society Diary hopes to bring to your attention charities with a slightly unusual moniker. This week we kick off the series with the Royal Society for the Relief of the Indigent Gentlewomen of Scotland.

You’d think this might be a historical organisation that no longer got about much. But no, they’re still going strong, and last year gave away almost £1.5m, since even in this day and age, it appears that there are plenty of indigent gentlewomen around in Scotland.

They seem to have recently rebranded, too, to bring the name more up-to-date. They’re now called the Indigent Gentlewomen’s Fund.