Johnny Vegas' Charity SpongeBowieBob...

I'm aware that readers will no doubt be losing their patience with appeals from do-gooder celebrities for yet more of their hard earned readies to help combat this or that and provide vital humanitarian relief to the other. I don't blame you - believe me, I get so many demands on my time from aid organisations and charities that I've had to employ a special secretary to deal with them. And, often, when you do decide you'd like to help out in some small way or lend your name to a particular cause that you feel has special importance to you, they just don't want to know. Take the other week. I sent a bundle of my old tights and leg-warmers to the Spastics Society, thinking that they might be interested in auctioning them off or what have you and being able to put the proceeds to good use in whatever way they saw fit. Anyroad up, a couple of weeks later, I get a bundle of said hosiery landing back on my doorstep with a sniffy letter saying:

Dear Mrs. Swipe. [sic]

Thank you for your interest in our work. Unfortunately we are not currently accepting jumble. Furthermore, the term 'spastic' is no longer considered appropriate. Kindly desist from sending us bundles of your used underwear or we will have no other recourse but to instigate legal action...

Charming! And especially galling as some of the aforementioned smalls were actually worn by the original members of the Vipers from Venus and therefore of particular historical interest. As anyone who's ever tried to persuade a bunch of burly stevedores from Kingston-upon-Hull to experiment with genderbending and to get in touch with their feminine side will know; it might be devilishly hard to get them into a pair of tights and ill-fitting knickerbockers, but it's a *ruddy* sight harder getting them to take them off!

However, as you'll be aware, the situation in Haiti is so desperate that I felt I had no alternative but to offer to help in any way, no matter how small, that I could. So, when the NSPCC called and asked me if I'd let comedian Johnny Vegas make a SpongeBowie puppet based on me, frankly, how could I refuse? (Apparently SpongeBowie is the star of a children's animation called (predictably) SpongeBowie SquarePants, or similar. (No, I hadn't heard of it either.) As you'll see, the likeness is *really* uncanny! He's even got my dilated pupils spot on, hasn't he! And those teeth!

So, please, please, please visit the NSPCC site and bid as much as you can afford for this priceless one-off artefact and help the NSPCC help the children of the world. It really *is* the very least you can do...

Thank you for your time.


L.U.V. on ya,

Bob