Happy Friday and, well, the headline above is sort of a rhetorical question (even though there is an answer, and we’ll get to that).
So yes, in this week’s Society Diary we have lizard bits, yet more charity knitting and the Charity Commission trots out a rare bit of Welsh.
Lizards
World Animal Protection announced the launch of a new campaign recently, which just goes to show that sometimes, people are weirder than you could possibly imagine.
So many questions leap to mind when one reads that sentence, such as: How does one ‘unknowingly’ sell, or indeed purchase, a penis? What ‘major online retailers’ are stocking monitor lizard penises? What even does a monitor lizard’s penis even look like? (The below, apparently.)
Anyway, WAP say that, out on the mean streets, a monitor lizard’s penis is highly valued. Particularly by the lizards, presumably, but that's not quite what WAP means.
Anyway, for some nonsensical reason, a monitor lizard penis has a potential street value of £50,000.
The penises - which are apparently available on Amazon, eBay and Etsy – are apparently dried out and sold on as ‘Hatha Jodi’ a plant root used in certain religious ceremonies.
So Diary is pretty amazed by this. Firstly, what sort of a scumbag makes their living castrating lizards? And secondly, how can that possibly be easier than just digging up Hatha Jodi? And thirdly, who's paying for this stuff? What's going on in their heads?
More knitting news!
In the latest instalment of what Diary likes to call #sticktoyourknitting – in honour of the one, the only, the knit-master general himself, Brooks Newmark – the sector has thrown up another terrific, knitting-related yarn; albeit one that’s more heart-warming than blood boiling.
Sue Ryder posted a story to its media centre yesterday with the rather confusingly worded headline: “Knitting Banksy’s crafty mystery message of thanks”.
It turns out some “mystery knitters” left a bunch of their knitted creations on the grounds of Sue Ryder Leckhampton Court Hospice. Quite a few knitted creations, in fact, if the press release is anything to go by: “birds, bees, rabbits, sheep and a miniature garden with fairy door and vegetable patch, it even has knitted creations of some members of hospice staff”.
The hospital put out a plea on its Facebook page for the mystery knitter – or ‘yarn bomber’ as SR have dubbed the person(s) – to come forward and lo, she did.
The yarn bomber’s name was Clare Young and her husband Ken had died at the hospital in 2015. In a message to Sue Ryder, Young said she’d “always been made to feel welcome” at Leckhampton Court and had turned to knitting since Ken’s death.
It all sounds Welsh to me
Colleagues over at Civil Society News are dedicated to bringing readers full and comprehensive of all the goings on at the Charity Commission. As such a reporter was duly dispatched to deepest darkest Wales (OK, Cardiff, which is in fact an actual city, a mere two-hour train ride from Paddington station*) to report on yesterday’s public meeting.
Diary was particularly eager to find out what the Commission’s elusive vice chair, Eryl Besse, had to say. Besse is the Keyser Soze of the Charity Commission board; her influence is felt everywhere, but she, herself, is never seen.
So our scribe was particular keen to hear Besse speak.
Sadly, it was not to be. At the start of the day Besse stood up to the room full of waiting charity folk to announce that she was about to deliver her opening in Welsh and there was a frantic moment of fumbling with some headsets to listen to a translation. So we can’t be entirely sure what she said.
Anyway as far our newshound could make out it Besse is really pleased to be on the Charity Commission’s board, is proud of the sector’s response to recent events and thinks charities are more important than ever.
Her other notable contribution to the day’s proceedings was for confirm to William Shawcross, that he was correct in saying the Commission is obliged to register every charity that meets the legal requirements which does lead to duplication, and hypothetically, there could be 25 donkey sanctuaries in Reading.
(Diary rather suspects it is unlikely that 25 donkey sanctuaries would not be sustainable in Reading, but you never know).
* RIP Michael Bond. What a good bloke.
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