This week in charity sector satire: the Westminster press pack flattens Members in the annual charity pancake race; an ingenious American girl scout sells a serious amount of biscuits and the world’s largest bra goes back on sale.
Journalists batter politicians
First this week, we head to Westminster where the national media and our august elected officials clashed with one another over something other than #fakenews, talking down Britain and/or Brexit coverage in general.
On Shrove Tuesday, 13 February, the annual Parliamentary Pancake Race was held to raise awareness of the fine work done by disability charity Rehab. Now in its 21st year, the pancake race has recently come to be dominated by MPs. Indeed, the nation’s finest political hacks were this year staring down the prospect of losing a third straight race to the politicians – a state of affairs that was, put simply, quite un-egg-ceptable.
Under the watchful eye of race starter and ITV newscaster Alastair Stewart, the media team which included such journalistic luminaries as: James Landale and Jo Coburn from the BBC, Lewis Goodall from Sky, Channel 4's Angus Walker, ITV’s Lucrezia Millarini (oh and Tom Newton Dunn, from the S*n) pulled together, gripped their skillets and gave the politicians a proper battering.
The relay race was not without controversy however, with MPs accusing the media team of “fake flipping” – the rules of the race state that each competitor must complete a lap of the race circuit whilst “continuously tossing” their pancake.
Stewart addressed the allegations, saying that in fact both teams indulged in “fake flipping”.
“It’s clear that there were participants on both sides who blatantly disregarded this requirement and engaged in ‘fake flipping’, either tossing only half-heartedly, if at all, and then doing a ‘Mo Farah’ to the finish line. Of course, while the winner takes it all when it comes to a bountiful supply of pancakes with which to savour victory, the truth is that everyone’s a winner for taking part and supporting the work of the Rehab disability charity.”
I’m sure members of the public will be shocked to learn that, even in a race for charity, both politicians and journalists behaved so crookedly that they could barely get their trousers on straight for a week afterwards.
Lucrezia Millarini, captain of the victorious journalists, issued a statement so liberally laced with terrible puns as to be well, almost indigestible. This column reproduces it below, if only for it go be given the sound panning that it so clearly deserves.
“We knew that this would be no pancake-walk. Going in as the clear underdogs into this contest, having not won since 2015, we knew that the Parliament Team would be tough eggs to crack. But we knew what he had to do and spared no pancakes in going out to do it.
“Notwithstanding the fact that as media rivals we are often trying to get the inside scoop over each other, we came together as a team and showed that when it comes to the causes that matter, in particular the work of Rehab with people with acquired brain injury, we stand shoulder to shoulder. To secure victory for the first time in three years, and leave the Parliament Team with egg on their faces, proves that there is nothing fake about our flipping.
“You dream about this moment growing up. Whatever about fresh eggs, today we showed we had the fresh legs to be simply unbeatable.”
The proclivity of egg puns in this statement, and indeed in the accompanying pancake race material in general, can only lead this column to deduce that both the political and journalistic elite of this country are incredibly out of step with the common man! You don’t need to break eggs when you can get the pancake batter pre-made for less than a pound down at Iceland.
Blaze of glory
Now, in a rare international jaunt for Society Diary, to San Diego next where an “entrepreneurial American girl scout has caused controversy after selling hundreds of cookies by setting up shop outside a marijuana dispensary”.
This story comes from The Telegraph and, having read it, this column isn’t entirely sure exactly why this tale of an enterprising, self-made young lady selling her baked goods for charity has courted controversy. Diary wouldn’t be surprised if this particular girl scout is unveiled as one of the new judges on Dragons' Den in a few years.
According to The Telegraph, the unnamed girl scout “sold more than 300 boxes [of cookies] in six hours after she began selling outside a cannabis shop in San Diego”. The boxes of cookies retail at $5 (£3.55) which means the girl scout could have raked in as much as $1,500 (£1,090) if not more. That’s a high figure. Very high, indeed.
However, despite the dispensary having a legal permit to sell the drug, certain sections of society took to social media and other vehicles to decry the youngster's potentially harmful proximity to - quelle horreur! - marijuana. Albeit, legal marijuana.
Mike Lopes, a spokesman for the Girl Scouts of the USA, said it was “a community issue” but did say that, for the most part “it’s not any different than selling in front of any other kind of shop. It just happens to be a marijuana dispensary.”
The marijuana dispensary in question, Urbn Leaf, posted a picture of the young scout on its social media page as a sign of support for her fundraising efforts. Will Senn, the dispensary’s founder said: “We all love Girl Scout cookies and thought a well-intended, lighthearted post to our social media accounts would be a little way to show our support.”
Surely everyone wins in this scenario? The money goes to a good cause and the cookies go at least part of the way to assuaging a bunch of people’s legally obtained marijuana induced munchies. High-fives all round.
Oh wait, Diary’s already made that joke.
Buyer’s regret
Finally, we return this week to the story of the world’s largest bra being sold on eBay in support of Breast Cancer Care.
Long story short, an ad agency created a 29.6 by 26.72 metre bra for a marketing campaign and is now trying to sell it to raise some funds for the charity.
At the time, this column wasn’t entirely sure anyone would meet the opening bid of £500 for a brassiere that enormous but, apparently, one fella did.
According to an anonymous tip received by Society Diary, “the ex-supermarket worker, who now works for a scrap metal merchant claimed he’d heard about the auction on radio and placed a £530 bid straight away, without considering that he would actually win the ginormous bra.”
However, much like when one has a few drinks and does a bit of online clothes shopping in the dead of night, the bra purchaser soon got a fairly bad case of buyer’s remorse.
“I didn’t think the decision through,” the man is supposed to have said to Chillisauce, the company auctioning off the bra, before adding “I have no use for the bra”. No, really?
Long story short, the bra is back on sale. So if you know any buildings in need of a little support, you know where to go.
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