Red Nose Day

(As a disclaimer before I enter into a rant, this isn't about charity for one second. To prove this I made sure to donate £10 to Oxfam before slating Comic Relief)

For all of you not in the know, Comic Relief was invented about 25 years ago by some British comedians to give to African charities. They sold red noses, did silly sketches and it was wholly honourable. Now it has become BBC's biggest 'charity event' of the year and has taken over every facet of consumer media for a few weeks every other years. 

Celebrities like Kate 'yes, I can laugh at myself, honestly'  Moss and Jonathan 'I better be getting paid for this' Ross do oh so hilarious and fantastically altrustic things so as to help raise money for African and UK charities. Big corporations like Subway, Walker's Crisps, Sainsbury's and British Telecom are now in on the scam and sell a load of Red Nose related shit, a small percentage of which goes to charity.

A few years ago they took just four of the participating celebs and guessed at their total worth; Sting, Bono, Chris Martin and Paul McCartney totalled in the region of £1.5bn. That's just four of them - add to that maybe 100 'celebrities' and you would probably have a total well over £2bn. This year Comic Relief raised £40m.

Now I am not knocking raising money, far from it. Any attempt to make people give more to those who need it more and slightly level up the global financial see-saw should be commended. And that £40m came from the wallets of the British people, who have had to bail out a few banks in the last three months. It's the hypocrisy of Comic Relief that needs to be highlighted and stamped out.

Subway is a global, multi-billion dollar firm. It makes fucking billions every year from selling unhealthy sandwiches to the masses, no doubt buying their produce from the cheapest source at the expense of the poorer half of the earth. Now that's capitalism and you can argue about that all day, but offering 31p in a pound by flogging cheap Comic Relief ringtones and then trying to say its a 'giving' corporation is disgusting. All it did was get more people in buying special 'Red Nose' meatball marinaras for £3.29. And how much of that £3.29 went to charity? 5 fucking pence.

Sainsbury's too needs to be shown for the two-faced shitting empire it is: slowly killing the UK farming industry, making thousands unemployed while at the same time selling coffee, sugar, bananas, beef and spices that have mark ups of thousands of percent but only cost them pennies - at Africa's expense. But giving a few pennies to the very continent it is screwing over through Jamie 'I'm even more obnoxious with this fucking nose on' Oliver and his over-priced foods.

Comic Relief, like most celebrity charity events, allows these horrid uncaring people seem caring while at the same time improves their profile and most importantly gives them yet another stage to promote their self-brands. There is no honour in it and there is no grace - the two things that charity should be based on.

Charity is important, and the Government should do more to make sure the haves give a lot more to the have nots (maybe tax multi-millionaire fuckers like Gok Wan and Cheryl Cole a bit harder, for example). But don't try and scam from the indebted and the poor through corporate bullshit and celebrity endorsements. Comic Relief is another thinly-veiled way for those who have everything to look saintly while those who have not continue to be the victims.