C’mon, c’mon, Grey Area. Even I know that you’ve got more sense than that – just !

I find that reassuring, coming from you. I’ll start to worry on the day you praise my powers of reason.

Who are “Those almost everyones” as a matter of interest?

You know, Jim. Them. :p

All the world’s greatest discoveries and inventions have come from the efforts and genius of individuals or groups of two or three people. Shakespeare, Bach, Beethoven, Milton, Chaucer, Whittle, Baird, Purcell, Elgar, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Da Vinci (not the Code) Wright Bros. Einstein, Turing, Fellowes, Newton, Fleming, Edison – I’m running out of space, but you take my point.

Well I see your point, but it is a flawed one.

None of these remarkable people worked in complete isolation from the community around them, let alone from the rest of humanity.

Someone else built the studio that Da Vinci worked in, someone else assembled Beethoven’s piano.

Milton’s Paradise would have been lost forever if someone else hadn’t grown the food he ate.

Did you build the components of the computer that you use to bestow the fruits of your wisdom upon the rest of us? Do you personally generate the electricity that powers it?

Of course not.

If £75m has been raised this year alone surely there should be no homeless,uneducated,malnourished,under funded help groups over here–should there.

On a global scale, even an amount as large as £75M (enough to buy 2 Boeing 737-600s, apparently) is a drop in the ocean. It’s a bad old world out there, for sure. But I’m not preaching or anything: whether or not to donate to charity and which charities to donate to is an entirely personal choice, and should remain so.

Just as a matter of interest Lance, as I am willing to put my money where my mouth is, what are you willing to donate?.

It’s not something I normally discuss or mention at all but since you ask, Jim, I already put my money where my mouth is in the form of the three-figure sum that is regularly deducted directly from my salary and donated to children’s charities.

Will that do?

I agree with what you say, however, if one “Tribe” of my fellow Countrymen, (And women) were dying through the lack of clean water, I would gladly give up my mobile phone to enable the money gained from it’s sale, to build one or two water wells with pumps.

Well good for you, Jim.

Since we’re always hearing that charity begins at home, I assume you’ll have no problem with donating your TV to enable the money to help homeless ex-servicemen?

Let us know how you get on, there’s a good chap.

I think it’s pretty reasonable to assume that the Africans who are buying mobile phones aren’t necessarily the same ones who are dying for lack of clean water, Jim. Africa is a rather big place, after all.

So far as I am aware, no-one was forced to donate their money and everyone who did contribute did so of their own free will.

I think we’re all agreed that what someone chooses to do with their own money is no-one’s business but their own, aren’t we?

As you seem to be unable to understand the word Joe Bloggs, read instead, “Your ordinary man in the street”.

Funny how almost everyone claims to be speaking up for ‘the ordinary man in the street’, isn’t it?

Even when they’re saying the exact opposite to someone else who also claims they’re speaking for ‘the ordinary man in the street’.

Why, it’s almost as though individuals have infinitely varying shades and degrees of opinion instead of falling neatly into rigid categories of thought!

And I don’t know about where you live, Jim, but round here the streets have women in them as well as men. 😉

Can’t pick many holes in that diatribe…

Neither can I.

Andy seems to have got it about right, and his account certainly tallies with my own memory.

People are entitled to express their opinions, Derek.

I’m sure those on the receiving end of the funds raised tonight won’t be losing any sleep about what’s been posted in here.