Sports Relief, the big guilt game

Last Friday was Sports Relief day - again. 

Another evening of being bombarded by a celebrity sprinkled, charity-giving TV marathon. 

Lots of famous people do lots of funny or physically challenging things so that we , the audience, donate lots of our money.

Seb Coe, Olly Murs and Sally Phillips doing lots of funny things for Sports Relief

Humorous sketches and chatty hosts, intersperse the laughs with horrendous pictures of beautiful children in faraway countries dying from malaria or pneumonia or picking out food from enormous rubbish dumps. 

Often the celebrities have been flown over to the faraway places to experience the suffering first hand, breaking down in front of the cameras as they beg us to donate anything, anything at all. 

" Just pick up the phone and make that call.  
 £5 can be the difference between life and death. 
You can be that difference." 

It's very clever. 
It plays on our guilt at every level. 
We feel guilty that we are sitting in warm living rooms with big televisions watching people who don't even have a roof over their heads..
We feel guilty that our biggest worries are about work or exams or what to cook for dinner while there are people who don't even know if they are going to find enough food to make it through the day.
We feel guilty that even the richest of us can access health services for free when there are children dying from completely curable diseases.
As we watch people raising money by being sponsored to run marathons, swim in freezing water, cycle for miles, dance for hours, we feel guilty that we are sitting at home doing nothing.
And once we have watched the phone number for donating flash up on the screen, we feel guilty if we don't donate.
We feel guilty if our friends have donated and we haven't
By the time we crawl into bed after one of these fund raising nights. we have been emotionally battered into charitable submission.
And they are always on a Friday night to make sure that if we don't donate, our weekends will be ruined by our guilt.
 How can we go out and spend money having a good time on a Saturday night, when people are dying for lack of the £5 we didn't donate. 
They are sleek, professional, carefully planned assaults on our emotions these Comic or Sports Relief nights. 
 They are presented  by carefully chosen, familiar, popular celebrity hosts from a variety of backgrounds and genres to make sure that there is someone to appeal to everyone. They last for so long ( 6 hours ) that is impossible to put on the television any time between teatime an bedtime without coming across someone begging you to do the right thing.
And it's true, we should all do the right thing.  Those of us who can afford to give, should.
But the truth is, that although all of us could probably give more than we do, it is not individuals doing the right thing that is going to rectify the world imbalance in the distribution of wealth

.“While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.” 
― Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah

It is completely wrong that anyone in this rich, modern world should be starving or dying because they are unable to access the medication that could save them.
It is completely wrong that anyone should be homeless or penniless.
But while the richest 300 people in the world are more wealthy than the poorest 3 billion, while the impersonal, enormous multi-national corporations make all the rules, while bankers feel that they are accountable to no one, nothing will change.

How about some of those presenters on the Comic Relief nights giving away some of the expensive clothes they wear or donating the cost of a trip to the hairdresser. 
 How about some of our footballers earning £100,000 a week, donating one week's salary. How about Starbucks or Amazon donating some of the tax they haven't paid.
That would be a lot of £5s!
But the truth is, collective guilt is never as effective or powerful as individual guilt.
So once again, last Friday's Sports Relief made a record amount of money: over £51.000000 
Which just goes to show how much people are prepared to pay for one night of guilt-free sleep. Or maybe you'll feel better about yourself for even longer, perhaps even until Red Nose Day.

Romance is Alive in an MX5

Spring is here. 
I know it is, because last Saturday, for the first time this year, I drove our very old MX5 along the A27 with the roof down.
And it felt amazing. 
Music playing, sun shining, deep green fields flashing by. 
So close to the ground you are almost molten.
You never feel more alive than when you're driving in an MX5.
It was bought on a whim, this little black car of ours.
Ninesh phoned me one lunchtime a few years ago and said he had seen an old MX5 roadster advertised on the intranet.
" It's a bargain," he said. " A once in a lifetime opportunity.  The owner's going to bring it in tomorrow so I can have a look at it."
And the owner brought it in. 
And Ninesh looked at it, test drove it and bought it, all before the end of his lunch hour.
And then he phoned me.
" I've added it to our insurance already," he explained, " so I'll drive it home after work.
Don't tell the kids.  It'll be a surprise."
" It will," I agreed, " it's still a surprise to me."
I was just cooking dinner in the kitchen that evening when Joss came racing in.
" Mum, mum," he yelled, " dad has just driven up in a convertable.  Where did he get it from?"
" Why don't you go and ask him?" I laughed.
" Come on Mia," shouted Joss, pulling her through the front door.
I followed them, watching as they clambered in and out of the passenger seat while Ninesh proudly showed them the radio, the seats, how the roof could be pulled up and down.

" It's amazing mum,' said Joss, his eyes shining," it's only got 2 seats but there's a little gap in the back, just big enough for snacks! "
" And is the boot full of flowers?" I asked Ninesh.
He laughed.
 Our " boot full of flowers," story is ( literally ) Hollywood romantic.
I had given up my London: job, flat, family, friends, to begin an uncertain new life with Ninesh in California.
Jet-lagged and a little shaky from a customs interrogation, I stepped through the arrivals gate at LA airport and into Ninesh's arms.
" The car's not far," he said, grabbing my bright red suitcase and pulling it and me through the sliding doors.
Outside I stopped for a moment and breathed in the warm, polluted LA air, gazing up at the sun-filled, never-ending blueness of the sky.
"Welcome to the rest of your life," my mum had said as she and my dad drove me to the airport that morning.
And here it was, the rest of my life, just beginning.
" Come on," said Ninesh, dragging me into the cool darkness of the car park.
" It's not much," he said, pointing at a small, blue, metallic car parked in a corner, " but it's all I could afford and it will get us around."
I nodded, not really listening. I've never been that interested in cars.
" Shame it's not that one," I said, pointing at the sleek, black, shiny Mustang convertable we were just passing.
Ninesh stopped in front of it.
" I know," he sighed, " I've always wanted a convertible. Perhaps our key will fit it."
And leaving my suitcase in the middle of car park, he tried to fit the key to his car into the boot.
" Nesh," I gasped, " you can't just put your key in someone else's car. You'll be arrested."
Ninesh laughed, slipped the key into the lock and popped open the boot.
" I wonder where all those flowers have come from?" he grinned.
I stepped forward and stared into the boot. 
He was right, it was full of flowers.
I looked from Ninesh to the flowers and back to Ninesh, completely confused.
" This is our car," he said, " I wanted it to be a surprise."
" But we don't have any money," I said, " it must have cost a fortune."
" It was a bargain," grinned Ninesh, " a once in a lifetime opportunity. Welcome to America."
And so, with a boot full of flowers, music playing and sun shining, we put the roof down and drove into our new life.

And even if a very old MX5 in West Sussex will never be quite the same as a roaring Mustang in California, whenever I put the top down and feel the rush of the wind in my hair and the warmth of the sun on my skin, I will always believe that the boot is full of flowers.

Pancake therapy

Last Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday, pancake day, here in England.

In our house most days are pancake days. Pancakes are one of the few things that Mia and Joss will eat for breakfast. So Shrove Tuesday doesn’t really mean much.  
But this year I got up very early to make pancakes for our Community Café.

Still half asleep, I measured out milk and flour and broke in an egg.

Outside the sky was just beginning to turn from black to velvet blue as I beat the ingredients together and let the mixture stand. 
Outside the world was filling with birdsong. 
Inside, the kitchen was filling with the smell of sizzling butter

There is something amazingly calming about cooking while the world is sleeping.
Nothing to break your train of thought.
No children asking unanswerable questions.
No canned laughter from the television.
No buzzing phones.
No faceless voices floating out of computers. 

Just you and your dreams and the hope that always comes with a brand new day.
As I poured the batter into the pan, it felt as though anything was possible.
That perhaps this was the day when my pancakes would be perfect.

The thing about making pancakes is that, as long as you have the right pan, there is very little that can go wrong,( unless you toss them too high).

If they get holes in while they cook, fill them in with a bit more mixture.

If they are too crispy, let them cool until they have softened.

If they are too thin, call them crepes.

If they are too thick call them " American style," pancakes.

If they are not perfectly round -  who cares, they still taste good.  

It would be great if life were like that.

If an emptiness of an aching heart could be filled with a drop of mixture.

If waiting for a while could make a problem disappear.
If calling something by a different name made everything fine.
The truth is, life will never be as simple as making a pancake,
But there are always things you can  do to make it better, like choosing the most delicious filling: sugar and lemon, nutella, maple syrup, jam, squirty cream. ....
Perhaps the best thing to do is to begin each day with delicious decisions and a little bit of pancake therapy.

Early morning stack of pancakes