Chugged

I've been thinking for a while now that I should maybe give more money to charity. I give £3 a month to Oxfam - the result of being chugged a few years ago in Covent Garden. £3 was the minimum you could give back then and, ok, it isn't much, but it's £36 a year which I probably wouldn't give to Oxfam if I wasn't on a direct debit payment.

I've taken to heart the government advice about not giving money to beggars, figuring it gives me a good excuse to ignore their grubby out-stretched hands. However, I kind of neglected to do the second part of the Government advice which was actually give money to a charity instead. Ho-hum!

So I thought that the next time I see some chuggers from Shelter I would let them have their wicked way with me. Today they were out in force on Cornmarket. I walked up and down the street a couple of times, but none of them would take the bait. Typical! Can't avoid them when you don't want to give any money!

Eventually I just walked up to one of them. I had my spiel ready in my head. I wanted to be all Duncan Bannatyne-like: "I'll give you £3 a month, no negotiations, that's my final offer. Oh, and I want a 30% stake in all homeless people."

Okay so I didn't actually say the second part. I did manage to fairly confuse her anyway. They don't often get people coming up to them actually offering to sign up.

Turns out the minimum you can sign up for now is £6 a month, which made me look a bit stupid. My hobo-investment plan lay in tatters! Damn inflation! I rolled over and signed up, investing 100% more than I had intended.

So now I can ignore homeless people without a guilty conscience! Result!

I figure I'll maybe sign up to CRUK next (seems they're happy to take £2 a month. Hmmm... bums are more expensive than labs). Then I can ignore sick people! Just kidding - I maybe feel I should repay the scientific world for not contributing my genius to academia any more. Ahem. Only thing that holds me back is knowing how it gets spent. New PCR kits anyone?