Sweet Charity

I have a theory about charitable donation. Hamilton and I were into the 74th hour of our bi-monthly draughts rubber at the Muted Slughorn. Me to play. But first, the important business of drenching my whistle. My round. No-one behind the bar, so I helped myself to vintage bottle of elderflower wine, noticing, in the process, a donation box sitting accusingly by the pulls. 'Please give generously in support of Dapple, an elderly shire-horse who was being bullied by other horses, and had to be removed from the field and provided for separately.' What an endearing cause, I thought, and was on the verge of popping a ripe trio of shiny doubloons into the tub, when I realised my error. Of course I was willing to give to such an appealing cause, just as I would willingly give to the RNLI, or the RSPCA. Such charities are the most rewarding by far, since you can go on featherbedding the ol' conscience without having to accept the existence of real problems in the world: Global warming, children in need, famine in sub-Saharan Africa. The Donkey Sanctuaries of this world provide an invaluable service: they offer a comfortable domestic problem about which no-one is too fussed. Giving money to Oxfam or the NSPCC, for example, forces us to recognise the afootness of very serious societal, economic and political malaises - the sort of which it is preferable to remain ignorant.