When you’re young

whoa-o

It is Children in Need (CIN) day today. I must say I am not a great fan. It’s not that I don’t like Terry Wogan, I believe that is one of the remaining treasonable offences punishable by hanging, it’s not even that I don’t like news readers behaving like total prats doing song and dance routines (which I don’t). I think the thing I find most objectionable is that I don’t think it really works. I would go further and say that in some ways the event exacerbates the problems it pupports to be trying to fix.

How can that be? I hear you ask, each year we give millions and millions of pounds, every year more than the previous one. Famous people give up their time and for a few thousand pounds you could have some ‘famous’ singer give you and your family a private concert.

And yet we hear every day that the problems young people face are getting worse and there is little trust between the young and the not so young in our society.

The problem would appear to be one of distancing ourselves from the issues. We think that we can solve the problems by proxy. We can give some money and have a good laff at the telly and life will get better for everyone. This is obviously not the case.

I appreciate that a lot of people work hard to raise money and a lot of people work hard to spend that money to help the lot of young people everywhere. I do, also, believe that people think this lets the majority of the rest of us off the hook. Sadly it doesn’t.

So I won;t be tuning in tonight, I will be where I am every Friday, helping the kids at Weekenders enjoy their Friday night together.

In my own small way I will be satisfying some childrens needs.