Happy Friday readers and, in a week where Nigel Farage tipped a box of four day old haddock into the Thames from the deck of the ‘HMS Brexit’ to protest against something about fishing rights, all other news seemed to be a load of old pollocks.
Diary hates to carp on about this, but it has cod to stop. Day in, day out, the British public can only lamprey that this Brexit silliness will pass, that Britain can re-affirm its plaice in the world but these people won’t rest. We’re under ziege. Jacob Rees-Mogg is hardly the manta ray-n the Farages of the world in. This column for one is feeling rather i-wrasse-cible about the whole thing. Basstards.
With that out of the way, this week in charitable sector satire: Blue Cross wants to make your pet “the star of their own Blue Cross ad”, Matt Hancock on Matt Hancock and yet more men perform the full monty for charity.
Supawstar DJ
Blue Cross has launched an app in a bid to put “the nation’s pets at the heart of our new advertising campaign” and this column for one couldn’t be happier. The app, which can be downloaded to phones or used online, calls for you (the pet owner) to upload three videos or photos of your pet – be that a cat, dog, rabbit, potbelly pig, etc – which can then be uploaded and shared via social media to friends and family. There are also a few questions to answer about “what your pet means to you”.
Given that CSM Towers has a strict no office animal policy, this column can’t really get past the first step of the app. So, for all Diary knows, the app is terrible. Yet, and yet, it’s nice that after yet another week of grim awfulness in the wider world that Blue Cross has made something sweet and pure, to take our minds off everything and let us put our furry little friends front and centre, if only for a moment.
So to all the Diary readers out there (and this column knows there are at least a few of you), if you have a pet and a few spare minutes today, turn your furry friend into a Blue Cross supaw star and then share the video/pictures with this column.
Matt Hancock on Matt Hancock
Regular readers of Society Diary will remember that six or so weeks ago, Matt Hancock, the culture secretary, launched the Matt Hancock app and, very briefly, it was the best social media sphere in all of the world.
That was, of course, until a legion of data protection specialists and eagle-eyed journalists pointed out that the Matt Hancock app was, for all intent and purpose, playing pretty fast and loose with users' personal data.
With the news breaking this week that data analytics company Cambridge Analytica had been illegally harvesting millions of people’s Facebook data in order to influence elections, blackmail politicians and generally play havoc with all things democratic, it is perhaps right and proper that Matt Hancock, he of the Matt Hancock app, has addressed the Matt Hancock privacy issues.
Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Hancok said the app’s privacy policies have been updated. “We’ve significant strengthened the privacy settings” due to the amount of feedback it received. He said, in fact, that many of the issues stemmed from the fact that Matt Hancock actually “asked for more consent” than was actually needed. Matt Hancock, what are you like?
Hancock is also reported in The Times to have quipped at a “lunch for political journalists in Westminster” on Wednesday that Matt Hancock was at least partly responsible for laying Facebook’s share prices low.
“Look what’s happened since I launched it six weeks ago. The Facebook share price is down 10 per cent”.
You’ve got to ask yourself though, dear reader, before you close your Facebook account down for good and move lock, stock and barrel over to Matt Hancock, do you really want your mum to set up a Matt Hancock account?
Hancock has also insisted that his department (Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and includes the Office for Civil Society, which is responsible for the charity sector - when Diary last checked) is now the "ministry of the future". This leaves the sector with just one burning question, "are charities part of the future?" Send your responses via Matt Hancock (the app) please.
Hot metal, cold facts
Finally this week, we take a look at a decidedly cheeky tweet from the (officially, apparently) funniest accountant in Britain *citation almost certainly needed*.
Yes, Neil Goulder and friends are apparently in a (strip-tease group? Diary’s not sure what the collective noun for seven blokes taking their clothes off for charity is) called ‘Hot Metal’ and, dear reader, this column is now all out of words.
We’re squeezing in a few extra seats for our sold-out shows of #TheFullMonty
— Neil Goulder (@NeilGoulder) March 22, 2018
Meet HOT METAL@HMTC60 @HarpendenHalls pic.twitter.com/o7ZFEAfWEo
The fellas will be performing the Full Monty at the Harpenden Public Halls to raise money for Keech Hospice Care and, well, if you’re in the Hertfordshire area on Friday or Saturday night and have nothing else on, tickets are still available. There’s surely worse ways to spend a night in Harpenden. Probably. Maybe?
Related Articles
