Give us your money urged all the celebs and not so celebs on Comic Relief in an orgy of C list virtue signalling on the channel dedicated to such enterprises, the BBC. The celebs themselves donate their time which is, as you know, valuable. Why is it valuable? Because the State funded broadcaster pays celebs vast salaries with taxpayers cash extorted via a poll tax, so distorting market forces and creating a false sense of "worth" all round.
So very rich folks donate their "valuable time" and get to show how utterly heroic and virtuous they all are and in return poor folks - that is you and I - are asked to hand over our dosh. Lots of us do and this shows what total heroes the celebs are. But other than the underlying rank con, there is another bit of a problem with Comic Relief which one day will sink it...it is not very funny.
Over on twitter one wag tweeted "all we need is for you all to donate one funny joke each and we can make Comic Relief work". Indeed. It is hard to say that the celebs saved their best material for the virtue signalling evening.
The low point of the night - which the Mrs who is a fan of little Graham Norton forced me to watch - was the camp Irishman doing his chat show with more folks on the sofa then ever before. As a format it did not work and was not funny in the slightest. But it must have seemed like a good idea at the time.
In an attempt to save the sketch Norton asked some bimbo about how she had enjoyed sex on a plane. She seemed a bit embarrassed so Jonathon Ross waded in to discuss masturbating on a plane with Norton. It was just toe curlingly bad and not in the slightest bit funny. It was a new low for the show.
But I guess I miss the point. Lots of poor folks handed over their cash for a "good cause". The State funded broadcaster justified the vast amounts we taxpayers have to pay to keep it going by doing its bit. The celebs - some of whom you might have heard of - gave their valuable time so showed how fucking virtuous they all are.
All is well in Airstrip One. Orwell would have been delighted by the proceedings.