Sponsored Fun? No Longer.

There have been a spate of sponsorship requests from friends and family landing in my inbox recently, all of them for really worthy causes, though one that I thought was for the RNLI (which I very much support) turned out to be for a very wealthy Blind Charity of similar initials. I just misread it. Ironic really. I have donated to them all but what really gets me is that all these events involve "challenges" that, far from being sufferances, are more like adventure holidays or personal goal achievements. So if you are running a Marathon (a means of making sure you stick to your personal exercise regime) or power-boating around the UK (a fantastic boys holiday) or free-fall parachuting (pure fun I would happily pay to do) or just walking somewhere nice, I wish to announce that I am no longer interested and will now only sponsor people who are going to endeavour to do something they really don't want to do.

Only ladies who are going to put on 28 lbs in a month through eating burgers, or read the whole collection of Sven Hassle books, or have a dead rat kept in their knicker drawer for a year, or try a sponsored "stay at a Hotel which doesn't have Molton Brown Products in the bathroom" need apply.

And as for the men , how about trying a sponsored "not leaving your underwear on the floor" month, or a "read every Mills and Boon publication" challenge, or 6 months of "always driving at 10 mph below the speed limit whilst wearing a hat and driving gloves", or a sponsored "buy your wife or girlfriend whatever she asks for without moaning to your mates" month, That I would happily pay to see. In fact that last one reminds me of the best sponsored event I remember. If either of the two participants involved failed with quite a daunting challenge, they had to make a large donation to the political party they most detested. And as the bet was between 2 Northern Irish fellows of opposite religious persuasion. It made for great competition.

Now if you are in agreement with me then I look forward to your suggestions so that I can add them to the Polemic List of Acceptable Challenges. If you don't agree then I ask you to make a contribution to the Polemic "Swanning about at home watching telly followed by a 2 week villa holiday in the south of France" sponsored challenge. All donations going directly to costs.