Fluorescent ink?

You're still dependent on the delivery kid being literate, of course.

There was a post-free envelope delivered by the postie on Wednesday with a Royal Mail logo and "An apology" written on the outside. Oh good, I thought, they're apologising for poor service. Nope, it was from the NSPCC apologising for bothering me with a letter I didn't want to read. And then they send me an identical letter today, stamped through the mail, apologising again. I've recycled them both without reading them and am now cross with the NSPCC.

Ooh, I was going to rant about that as well. We got two of them through our letterbox at the same time.

I used to support the NSPCC with a regular monthly donation and a bequest in my will, but their "Full Stop" campaign (basically they are trying to make it illegal for a parent to smack their child at all) made me stop all that. I wrote to explain my withdrawal of support and got a form letter back saying "Gosh, we're sorry you've decided to stop supporting us, especially at a time when we finally have a real chance of making it illegal for parents to smack their children, but we understand your decision and appreciate your past support." Bah.

Anyway, this more recent letter started off along the lines of "I'm sorry to have to ask you for money because I hate doing that and never know what to say. First of all I wondered whether I should try to shock you by telling you about the story of poor little Snotleigh, who suffered [appalling catalogue of violence elided], or poor little Bratson [ditto], but then I decided not to do that because some people don't like to read that sort of thing. So then I thought I'd tell you some statistics about child abuse, like [random load of stats elided] but I decided not to do that either because many people don't understand statistics."

At this point I stopped reading and threw it in the recycling so I don't know what it said after that.

Personally I get more annoyed by the recent trend towards wristband campaigns (the "against poverty"/"against racism"/"against child cruelty" sort). It's almost as though they think other people are campaigning against those ideals. Essentially everyone can be assumed to be in favour of them - it's how you propose to achieve them that should be the subject of a campaign.

So, in the interest of balance, I demand pro-poverty and pro-torture wristbands. (All proceeds go to the Project for a New American Century.) I shall wear them with pride.

I'm cross with the NSPCC too. They could spend money on helping abused children, or they could spend money on making previously abused adults have flashbacks and decide not to give them money after all. Which one do they choose?

The reason why charities have campaigns like that is that - unfortunately - they work. They end up with more money to help abused children than if they have more responsible campaigns. A lot of people are stupid and easily swayed. They've gone on my mental list of "charities I don't ever intend to support again" though, due to getting the same mailing.

*relief*

Wrote long ranty post that never made it as far as being posted about the stupid letter.

Am rather glad it isn't just me.