The Week's Good Cause

And now on Radio Four, a special appeal for the victims of the Goldman Sachs disaster.

It is all too easy, these days, when our TV screens are full of pictures of lazy Haitian people, lolling indolently amidst the ruins of their shanty towns, expecting people to fly half-way round the world merely to provide them with whimsical luxuries such as food, water and medical supplies, to forget who the REAL victims are, the TRULY unfortunate people in our society today.

Gerald is an investment banker, formerly in charge of a thriving, luxurious hedge fund. Unfortunately, in the autumn of 2008, owing to a staggering combination of greed, overconfidence and sheer brass neck of a kind only seen maybe once every fifty years, Gerald's hedge began to wither, and when harvest time came, Gerald, and many others like him, were unable to pick the juicy bonuses which were their staple diet, and on which they had, in previous years, gorged themselves to the point of gluttony.

Sadly, Gerald is not alone in his plight. His colleagues Tarquin, Peregrine, Toby and Ambrose are all in the same predicament. Each of them is heavily reliant on aid from the taxpayer, and down to their last Ferrari. (Except Tobes, who has a Lamborghini. Yah!)

Please give generously today, as much as you can afford. Even a donation as small as ten pounds would give Gerald the much-needed ability to re-light his cigar, while twenty pounds would allow him to resume his acquaintance with Columbian marching dust, and give up Shake N Vac. Fifty pounds would provide him with something to stick down the knickers of a Polish lap dancer, and two hundred pounds would provide him with some welcome refreshment, in the form of a bottle of his favourite vintage bubbly!

Please send as much money as you can, preferably in a wheelbarrow, and let us put some of the sparkle back into Gerald's existence, so he can once more resume his rightful place as a wart on the bloated underbelly of capitalism.

Thank you.

And now, the weather...