Enjoy a sneaky peek inside the first chapter of my new book. I hope you like it. Comments warmly welcome below!
Introduction
I shuffled to the edge of the platform and looked down at the 400 foot drop below me.
The dark waters of the canyon seemed unrealistically far away, like I was looking at them from the safety of the inside of an aeroplane or watching them on TV. The dizzying height made my eyes water. I wasn’t crying, I swear!
‘Are you ready, mate,’ said the instructor behind me as his scratched his ginger stubble in boredom. Or nits. Or both.
I turned my body toward him but my shackled ankles made it difficult. ‘Hey,’ I croaked in something that resembled shattered confidence. ‘Instead of giving me a countdown, can you say “Up, Up and Away”?’
He looked me up and down and gave a chuckle. ‘Sure, whatever.’
I waddled like a demented blue and red penguin back to my perch on the precipice of the basket that swung brazenly in the breeze.
‘Up.’
The massive blue crane from which our metal carrier dangled stood like some long necked diplodocus gazing over the gaping crevasse.
‘Up.’
A dozen ant-sized people gathered at the cliff edge below me.
‘Away!’
And I stepped into the abyss.
All I remember is my impending doom as the water flew up to me at breakneck speed. This was it. This was how I was going to die.
Even as my body was whipped back upwards by the recoil in the bungee rope I was still pretty sure I was a goner. I could feel my ankles slipping in the harness that was strapped around my legs. It was my own bloody fault for wearing a bright blue morph suit under my Superman costume.
Why was I wearing a morph suit? Well, that’s a completely different story altogether.
Why was I wearing a Superman onesie? To hide the blue morph suit, obviously.
‘That was amazing!’ said my wife Sally after I had been dumped unceremoniously upside down on a crash mat and had my untrustworthy ankle harness removed. She gave me a big hug. ‘How was it?’
I was lost for words. ‘Amazing!’ I said.
‘I’m so proud of you,’ she smiled up at me with adoring eyes.
‘Amazing!’ I repeated.
Ok. Well, maybe I was just lost for all other words.
A few moments later the face that she stared at me with was far from adoring.
I’d just answered her question with one word. The word was ‘Nothing.’
The question had been, ‘How much did you raise for charity?’
The look said it all. However, Sally decided to add words to the look to make it say a bit more.
‘What? You’re telling me that we’ve just driven all the way to Chepstow and you paid a hundred and something quid to do the UK’s longest bungee jump and you didn’t even raise any money for charity?!’
‘Um, no,’ I conceded. I looked at her disapproving face and I felt guilty.
That’s me. Selfish, ego-centric, self-centred me.
I’d done a lot of silly stuff in my time. A lot of stupid pointless personal challenges. I’d organised a couple of flashmobs. I’d been a vegan for a month. I’ve coordinated a multinational treasure hunt. I’ve done a stand up comedy gig. I’d completed a skydive, a Monopoly pub crawl, a Tough Mudder, the 1000 Press Up Challenge, 2 London Marathons and (almost) climbed Kilimanjaro. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
But why had I done all of these? Not to raise money for any honourable cause other than to satisfy my own selfish need to test my capabilities and to do something a little bit different.
So why didn’t I do any of these activities for charity?
(And why do I keep asking so many questions? Who do I expect will be answering these questions? Are you reading this and answering the questions in your head? I bet you just said YES in your own mind! Woah! Freaky!!)
Maybe it was about time I settled down and picked myself a charity to support. But how was I going to go about doing that?
Or maybe I shouldn’t give to charity at all. Aren’t all charities corrupt organisations that swindle the generous souls of this country out of millions of pounds anyway? Aren’t there big fat cats in top hats and monocles sat greedily on the top of massive piles of cash and broken promises rubbing their furry paws together in glee? Aren’t snooty gap yaah do-gooders driving around sub-Saharan Africa in bright white jeeps while starving locals scratch at their windows with talon-like fingers? Aren’t there streets of scruffy students pressuring perfectly respectable shoppers to part with their hard earned dough for no noticeable reward? Aren’t there a thousand charities out there pestering you to death with their incessant calls for cash?
I mean literally to death. Olive Cooke was a 92 year old sweet lady from Bristol was receiving 260 begging letters a month for money for charity. The poor poppy seller who’d already signed up to 27 different direct debit schemes. The kind OAP who just couldn’t live in a world that was full of horrid and heartless charity workers who wanted everything she could give. And all she wanted to do was give. The only thing she ever did for herself was to throw herself to her death in Avon Gorge in Bristol to end the torment of these soulless charities.
What about Microsoft multi-billionaire, Bill Gates, who has been strongly criticised for creating the Gates Foundation. As well as developing a supposedly honourable organisation for the distribution of his vast wealth he has in fact just created a tax relief loop-hole where he could avoid paying his dues to the government and hide his finances at the same time. Or has he? Maybe he’s just being clever and giving himself the flexibility to use his money in the way he wants to support causes he believes in. Is he as honest as he makes out he is?
And what about Kids Company founder, Camila Batmanghelidjh, who apparently frittered away millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Millions of pounds! The charity collapsed towards the end of 2015 amid allegations of ‘financial mismanagement, drug taking and sexual abuse’. That is despite a last minute £3 million hand out from the government. What on earth the government is doing propping up a charity, I have no idea. Is that how charities work, with donations coming from the government? I hadn’t even realised before this scandal hit the headlines.
This is the massive murky muddle that is organised charity. It’s a labyrinthine quagmire of inconsistencies. These are the aching concerns at the back of my mind when I slip a quid in the rattling tin of some well-meaning gent outside Sainsbury’s on a rainy Wednesday afternoon.
There is a certain amount of trust that we place in big charities that this small donation we give is going to be used for some greater good and not just be lost in the maelstrom that is the coffers of some multinational company. How can we trust a charity that has no face?
Even more interesting than that for me is the question ‘Why do people give up their time for these giants?’ There must be something inspiring these wonderful generous people to part with their valuable time. What motivates people to brave the elements, the rejection, the endless hours stood in a colourful bib shaking a tin of coins at people? I guess, this is the way that people feel that they are making a difference for whatever cause they have decided is important for them.
But, another question rises in my mind. ‘Why do people choose to support one charity over another?’ What is there about Cancer Research, for example, that causes some people to go batty with their fundraising that, the RNLI maybe doesn’t get? What makes the British Heart Foundation so apparently popular while Children’s Heart Foundation is far less well known (to me anyway).
Finally, I suppose, the most important question, at the end of the day, is ‘What charity is important enough for me and you to support?’ I mean, I do a lot of stuff that would warrant fundraising. I’ve run marathons and ultra-marathons, I’ve bungee jumped and sky dived, I’ve trekked up mountains in the UK and abroad. All of these could have raised money for some important cause but in the end I only did it as some egotistical confidence boost. Some personal aim to challenge myself with no ulterior altruistic motive. I’ve literally pushed myself beyond anything I thought I was capable of doing and was it for a good cause? No. It was for an immature and idiotic aim to stave off ennui. What a self-centred moron I am!
2016 was going to be different.
I set myself the challenge of completing 52 different charity activities for 52 different charities in one year. I was going to take every charity opportunity that I could. Along the way I hoped to answer some of the questions that I had burning in my mind about the charity sector. And who knows, maybe by the end I might have found out which charity was important to me.
Oh, and I planned to do it all without telling my wife! Why? Because she’d basically vetoed the idea the moment I told her about it.