Posts Tagged ‘charity’

Only a truly self-righteous prick would want everything they own to be red.

Bono is widely accredited with being smug, arrogant and self-righteous. Not content with this public stance he continually goes on to prove everyone right by using the plight of the third world as a marketing outlet.

Project Red customises popular wares with a unique red fascia. Phones, iPods, t-shirts and what have you all come in red so that people just as bare-faced can simultaneously accessorise and brag about their tireless charitable efforts.

Purchasing the Motorola Red phone sends £10 straight to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, and £130 to Motorola. I daren’t suggest what proportion of this went to the Global Fund to Kit Bono out with a Limitless Collection of Ostentatious Commodities (GFKBLCOC).

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So they're not magic money cards after all...

It’s the last week of the month. You go to the cash machine to get out a tenner for the evening, maybe to buy some cigarettes or a couple of beers. The machine laughs heartily and spits your card back out at you. Transaction denied. You are officially skint.

It’s very easy to get snarky about people who have found themselves in this situation, but to be honest, we’ve all been there. It’s a horrible feeling, especially at ten o’clock at night when you can’t do anything about it. Worst of all, you’ve got another week to go before you get paid and your food cupboards are empty. What can you do?

I’ve been here a number of times, for various reasons. At university, I didn’t have a steady income, and I spent my loans on CDs and beer. After university, my first job was so low paid that I could just about afford my flat and food. Now, I just spend too much on shiny, shiny objects. I frequently provoke tuts of dismay from my poor, set-upon mother, who still opens my bank statements. But, even so, she understands, because we’ve all been there.

So, without further fanfare, here is the official NotWelshMan’s Guide On What To Do When You Keep Hitting The Wrong End Of Your Overdraft. If you have any other good advice, then don’t forget to leave us a comment and we’ll update the article.

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Zimbabwe: a crippled economy just got worse

We spend a lot of time complaining about money. As a Welshman living in London, I still haven’t worked out the exchange rate between bales of wool and pounds sterling, which means that I continually overspend every month. Payday invokes warm little feelings down below for me, which is why my girlfriend refuses to talk to me on the first of the month.

Of course, rent, bills and the Xbox soon suck the newfound euphoria back out of my loins. But, for that two days a month I can be called solvent, I am happy.

So imagine what it would be like if your employer turned round and refused to pay you in real money.

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Desert Bus 2008 – the inspirational dumbasses for our own special dumbasses

The guys who started all this – this blog with no purpose, let alone clearly defined mission statement – are a bunch of dumbasses.

And then there are those folks who inspired the guys.

In November 2008, back in the old wild west days of the internet, we found this website where these guys were streaming video of themselves playing a video game – they were driving a virtual bus through a never changing CGI landscape of pus-coloured sand and black tarmac. Eight hours of straight road, through this crappily rendered desert, for … charity? Yes. “Some people will do anything for money,” we said. And so began the collision and division of cells, the joyous process of our brains going tick-tick-tick-DING!

“I have an idea,” one of us said. The others promptly picked the idea up and ran away with it, and put out a hit on that first fellow. That first guy, well he’s buried out there in an unmarked grave, in that cemetery that Kate looks at all day long. She looks at it sometimes and smiles. He’s left a beautiful legacy behind.

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