Another week has come and gone dear readers and what an interesting week it has been in the draughty corridors of power. It would seem that the Harvey Weinstein’s of the world don’t just live in La La Land but also dwell within the decorative halls of Westminster. Who knew, eh? Well, except lots of people, for many years.
Also, this year’s Great British Bake Off came to an end, with one of the greatest inadvertent spoilers of all time. Restaurateur, cookery writer, and GBBO judge Prue Leith, who was reportedly in Bhutan on Tuesday when the final was aired on Channel 4, got her time zones all in a muddle and broke the embargo by tweeting out the winner’s name – a good eight hours or so before the episode aired. You better believe that Mary Berry would have done no such thing, if only because Society Diary’s not convinced she even has Twitter, or indeed any sort of ‘mobile’ phone.
With that in mind (spoiler alert, in other words) we look at this week in charitable sector satire. Pub Landlord (and friends) to get his kit off for charity, Facebook cracks down on a charity calendar and Sir Stephen Bubb misses an open goal.
(A) Pub Landlord goes the Full Monty
“Watch”, screams the headline in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner – that bastion of factual, ethical news reporting in West Yorkshire – “Pub landlord and regulars to perform the Full Monty on charity night”.
Stop right there, you had Society Diary at ‘Pub Landlord’ and the possibility of public nudity. Alas, closer examination of the story quickly put pay to the idea that well-known character of comedian Al Murray would be performing a strip routine from the film The Full Monty in a Yorkshire pub for charity. It’s A pub landlord we’re talking about here, not The Pub Landlord.
However, let’s not let that initial disappointment distract us from what is actually a rather heart-warming story of northern derring-do and charitable compassion.
Gary Rose, publican of The Crown in Scissett, has recruited a few locals from his boozer to perform a few routines from the 90s smash-hit comedy The Full Monty for customers tomorrow. All money raised on the door will be in aid of male-specific cancer research charity Orchid.
According to the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, the fundraising idea came not from Gary but from his wife Sharon and one of his employees Leanne South.
The HDE quotes South as saying “I studied every single Full Monty cover that has ever been done. I watched the movie 1,001 times and learned the dance on my own before I implemented it myself”.
She said that, while neither Rose or his buff dancing regulars, had ever done the routines before “they’ve rehearsed it four hours a week for seven weeks now”.
The arguably motley crew of blokes that Rose has recruited for tomorrow’s striptease include three blokes in their 50s, and two fellas in their early 20s. one of the lads is also referred to throughout the article as Andy ‘Smash’ Asher, entirely without context, rhyme or reason. Diary quails at the thought.
Anyway, ladies, if you’re in West Yorkshire tomorrow and want to see a couple of blokes (probably) strip all the way down to the bone for a tiny charity that no-one’s ever heard of, roll into The Crown in Scissett. Tickets are £20 on the door which, frankly, seems a bit steep. Hey, that’s Brexit Britain for you though.
The balls are in Facebook’s court
Sticking with the nude theme this week, we’re off to Derbyshire and a tennis-themed charity calendar which is proving too risqué for the boffins over at Facebook HQ.
Members from the Belper Tennis Club on Christchurch Meadows took a number of nude(ish) shots for a £10 calendar, all proceeds from which will go to Alzheimer’s Research UK.
The club tried to boost awareness of its calendar using a promotional tool on Facebook, but the company stepped in to pull the advertisement. Facebook say its guidelines clearly state “advertisements cannot contain nudity”.
The BBC also reports that “30 tennis clubs have turned down the offer of selling the calendars”. Photographer Ashley Franklin, who took the pictures, said he “emailed at least 30 tennis clubs throughout the East Midlands, but only two bothered to reply. Not one of them wanted to take the calendar.
"Maybe we have misjudged people, maybe people think it is old hat. But I thought if you could raise funds by making people smile, that is what we wanted to do."
So the Belper Tennis Club’s nude calendar is back to square 15 and the first set has clearly gone the way of Facebook.
Looks like the may need new balls.
Return to Bubba Hubba
At a fairly shadowy event held in London somewhere yesterday on behalf of former Acevo chief executive Sir Stephen Bubb’s new venture Charity Futures, the man himself half-announced a new governance institute.
Well, whether he’d actually announced anything yesterday or in fact had made the announcement some months before, buried deep below the fold in an article in a lesser known charity sector publication, was rather up for debate.
Either way, it’s out there now. Bubb’s back in business! He’s now the new chair, chief fundraiser *, cheerleader, back-slapper and visionary of the new Institute for the Study of Charity and Philanthropy at Oxford University. Or, if you like most people in the sector prefer acronyms, the ISCP. Or, maybe even IftSoCaPaOU, although probably not.
ISCP. Sounds fine, Diary guesses. But it doesn’t really have the same ring to it as any of the classic charity body acronyms: NCVO, Acevo, CFG, IoF, FRSB (RIP), et al.
Also, Diary can help but think that Bubb has missed an open goal here, in terms of a catchy name anyway. This is something this column has been agitating and calling for now for over a year. One of Diary’s colleagues even knocked up a great logo, free of charge, for His Bubbness’s venture. It was the 20 May 2016. It was the birth (and subsequently swift death of) the Bubb Hub. Or, Bubba Hubba, to its friends.
Never forgive, never forget.
* Unlike the other fundraisers above, there is no indication that Sir Stephen plans to obtain money for his charity by taking his clothes off.
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