Society Diary: Red nose golf, drugs, and an unlikely action hero

03 May 2019 Voices

Happy bank holiday weekend readers! While the weather may not be as glorious as the previous one, Society Diary is sure that won’t stop the UK population from partying like we have solved Brexit. Here are a few morsels of charity news to get you in the mood. 

Alternative uses for your red nose

This week, Diary saw a promoted tweet from Comic Relief suggesting “Alternative uses for your Red Nose”. Obviously intrigued, Diary watched the attached video which demonstrated that a foam nose can function as a perfectly good golf ball.

One of Diary’s colleagues then mentioned that they had seen an article suggesting that people should use their red nose as a wine stope.

Comic Relief’s video promised it would suggested different uses each day this week, but sadly that has not come to fruition. In fact the original golf video has now been taken down.

Diary is disappointed as it was looking forward to seeing videos suggesting the reuse of a red nose as a toy grenade, a boules jack, a stress ball, a dog toy, a novelty mushroom, a door stop, a paper weight, a ring, a hair clip, a chin rest, a snooker rest, a wrist support, or a brooch.

The only slight problem of course is that while a red nose might just about work as all of those things, it would not do the job anywhere near as well as a product specifically designed for the intended function.

Actually Diary, thinks Comic Relief must have realised it was channelling its energy in the wrong direction. Instead of trying to find an alternative use for a novelty nose, the charity should focus its energy on trying to make foam noses a year-round trend. It might take a lot of work, granted, but by breaking the foam nose taboo, the charity would solve its environmental problem once and for all.

Do drugs with Rob

Everyone’s favourite former charities minister has had a busy week, on Twitter anyway, and as we all know social media is an accurate representation of everyday lives and 100 per cent trustworthy. 

Way back on Monday Rob Wilson tweeted that he was looking for a social media manager to work on “drug policy reform” – unclear if this means Rob is pro or anti drugs and Diary needs to know more.

Diary is a bit perplexed that this offer to ‘do drugs with Rob’ has not garnered more attention. There must be some social media managers in the charity sector looking for a new challenge. Or is it that Twitter is so 2015 and everyone cool has responded to his Snapchat post?

Rob popped up on Twitter this morning to offer his thought on the absolute kicking the Conservative Party got at the local elections last night to offer a few points of wisdom. This includes the helpful “a Brexit clean break is clearly what former Tory voters want” – and so Rob’s transformation from Remainer (remember this blog in which he appealed to charities to campaign for and vote Remain) to hard Brexiteer is complete.

But Diary’s favourite reaction to the election results was Vicky Ford, the MP for Chelmsford, previously most famous for breaking up Brexit debates in Parliament with a discussion about letterboxes, who appeared on the television this morning visibly upset at Conservative losses. An image of her visible distress is now illustrating just about every online news outlet’s coverage of the night, and Diary would like to take the opportunity to point out that Vicky’s reaction is entirely normal for anyone who has pulled an all nighter in Chelmsford… don’t ask for further details. 

Spider man

This week, we finally found out what it takes to get sacked as a cabinet secretary as Gavin Williamson turned down the offer being allowed to resign. The subsequent reshuffle ended well for former prisons minister Rory Stewart, who was promoted to the cabinet as international development secretary.

While there were mixed reactions from aid organisations to Stewart’s appointment, Diary can offer a small insight into the man’s character. One of Diary’s acquaintances once had an interview arranged with Stewart in his parliamentary office. However, Stewart was locked out his office.

However, he solved this issue by climbing out of the window of a neighbouring colleague’s office, moving around the outside of the Houses of Parliament and “breaking in” to his own office. Hopefully such skills will prove invaluable for Stewart as he hopes to cling on to the development brief for a bit longer than his predecessors.

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