Some of us get a kick out of this red nose lark. Kids embrace it wholeheartedly, workplaces organise little events and raise money and have a laugh during the process. People as individuals feel fulfilled or proud of themselves as a result. Seriously, that's marvellous, I don't have a problem with any of that. I'm not knocking good human nature.
What does piss me off a little is the corporate side of it all.All that cheery bollocks and hypocrisy. All the hangers on who benefit. The BBC show presenters, how much they getting out of it all? £50k a show, more, less? I dont know, i might be wrong as they could all well be doing it all for nothing all part of some great humanistic upswell of giving and philanthropy.
Supermarkets are full of goods and posters and labels and stickers and red nose buckets. They embrace it like they would any other marketing opportunity. Its like xmas or easter or mothers day or valentines day or any other monetised opportunity they can profit from.
Take this morning. I was watching some cooking program on TV. This woman with a haughty voice comes on strolling around some vineyard with a glass of grape juice in her hand and said something like.."if you go to the supermarket today, look out for wine aid stickers" apparently the supermarkets will be donating 10% of the price to comic relief. Ooh thought I, how generous - not!
Sorry, people must be thick as pigshit if they think these businesses have huge philanthropic streaks running through them. They don't, they exist to make money. Its a hard headed cynical business choice to get in there and plan things around events like this. They know that people are gullible. People will think "oooh thats a nice company to shop at, they are great. They put buckets and noses up everywhere, get their staff to walk around with red noses on, all the staff were smiling, what a wonderful wonderful shop that is, I'll go back there and shop again" To them its just good business sense. They are not charities.
Just watch as this whole comic relief thing continues. Look at the companies who jump on the bandwagon, ask yourself if they really gave a shit about African women with aids in Uganda, or underpriveldged kids in Bolton. Read articles like this and decide for yourself.
Im sure there is a benefit somewhere in all this too. Im not disputing that, lots of good comes from it. I just question whether there isn't a better way of helping people. I just question whether we really have to marry serious things like dying from nasty viruses often prematurely due to the fact that the drugs that could help prolong their lives and are just insanely priced and out of their reach, with a thing like entertainment and comedy is really sending the right signals - I think not, I think it reduces the issue to something lesser and doesn't really help us slap ourselves around the mushes and see these people and their problems in the right kind of light. Dying is serious shit, its not fucking funny.
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