Snapshot of Stories

Celebrities and the public have helped this year’s Comic Relief charity telethon raise a record £75m.  Comedian Lenny Henry, a founder of the Red Nose Day fundraiser which is now in its 25th year, kicked off the live show on BBC One.  Music mogul Simon Cowell, singer Jessie J, comedian Peter Kay and boy band One Direction all made appearances.  There were also reinterpretations of hit TV shows the Vicar of Dibley and Call the Midwife and Ricky Gervais resurrected his David Brent character in a mini-episode of The Office.  David Walliams featured in a sketch alongside the likes of supermodel Kate Moss, footballer Frank Lampard, Hollywood stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Hugh Grant and veteran comedian Ronnie Corbett.  Meanwhile, across the country people dressed up during the day to help raise money for good causes in the UK and Africa.  The television broadcast began at 19:00 GMT, with Henry revealing a special gold Red Nose suit.  He said it had been “25 years of truly incredible fundraising, truly incredible comedy and… truly incredible suits”.  Shortly after 01:30 GMT, comedian Russell Brand announced the money raised stood at £75,107,851 – passing 2011’s total of £74.3m.  This year’s total includes a government pledge to match the £16m Comic Relief has committed to help more than half a million of the poorest women and girls in Africa.  It will go on improving literacy, helping girls go to school, provide care for expectant mothers, help women farmers, promote women’s rights and be used to help reduce violence and harmful traditional practices against women and girls, such as genital mutilation.  The government had previously said it would give Comic Relief the equivalent of whatever VAT is paid on sales of the official Red Nose Day single.  Meanwhile, a Berkshire MP is donating £14,268 to Comic Relief after posting a Twitter message saying she would pledge £1 to the charity for every retweet.  Fiona MacTaggart, Labour MP for Slough, later posted that she had “no regrets” despite being “Twitter naive”.  During Friday night’s show, One Direction performed the single, a cover version medley of Blondie’s One Way Or Another and the Undertones’ Teenage Kicks, on the show.  French and Saunders threatened to hoover DJ Ken Bruce’s head.  Hosts on stage included Dermot O’Leary, Claudia Winkleman and Jonathan Ross. Former Doctor Who actor David Tennant and footballer David Beckham were among those to appeal to the public to make donations.  And singer Jessie J made good on a long-standing pledge to shave her head for charity.

A decorated fibreglass Easter egg, said to be worth £10,000, has been stolen from Buchanan Street in Glasgow city centre.  The 2ft-high egg was one of 100 placed around the city by charity Action for Children, as part of its Big Egg Hunt.  Many of the eggs feature unique designs from leading artists.  The charity said Strathclyde Police had joined the search for the egg, which has a design by Matthew Dent, entitled A Thousand Forests.  Charity fundraising director Andrew Harris said: “We appeal to whoever poached our egg to return it to us.”  The charity had placed 100 of the eggs around Glasgow.  Two eggs went missing when the Big Egg Hunt was held for the first time, in London, last year, but all were returned.  Glasgow’s missing egg, which features a red and yellow tree design, was taken from Buchanan Street in the early hours of Friday morning and organisers hope it will also be retrieved.  The giant eggs feature some of the UK’s best loved children’s characters, such as Moshi Monsters, Peppa Pig and SpongeBob, SquarePants.  Among those adding their own designs include author, painter and rock singer-songwriter Billy Childish, film-maker and photographer Sam Taylor-Johnson and artist Annie Kevans.  The remaining eggs can be found at St Enoch Square, outside Buchanan Galleries and in some of the city’s best-loved shops and museums.  Action for Children runs 75 services across Scotland, working with the area’s most vulnerable children, young people and families.  The Lindt Big Egg Hunt began in London on 12 February before visiting Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester then Glasgow.  The eggs will travel back to Covent Garden in time for Easter.

Songs Played

Nelly Futado – I’m Like A Bird
Kim Marsh – Cry
1975 – Chocolate
Republica – Christina Obey
Semisonic – Closing Time
Bed Folds Five – Where’s Summer B
Jennifer Lopez – Get Right
Everything Everything – Duet
Andreas Johnson – Glorious
Anastacia – Left Outside Alone
Owl City feat. Carly Rae Jepsen – Good Time
FrankMusik – Confusion Girl (Shame Shame Shame)
Calvin Harris – The Girls
Bob Sinclar feat Gary ‘Nesta’ Pine – Love Generation
Offspring – Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)
Hurts – Miracle
Bon Jovi – Because We Can
Dandy Warhols – Bohemian Like You
Shiny Toy Guns – We Are Pilot
Biffy Clyro – Black Chandelier

80s Hour

Chris Rea – On The Beach
Fine Young Cannibals – She Drives Me Crazy
Jackie Wilson (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher
Liza Minelli – So Sorry I Said
George Michael – Father Figure
Morrissey – Suedehead
Gap Band – Oops Upside Your Head
Madonna – Papa Don’t Preach
Kate Bush – Babooshka
Pet Shop Boys feat. Dusty Springfield – What Have I Done To Deserve This? 

Next week in Brentwood is the Brentwood Fun Run!  My friend Lucy Webber is running for Cancer Research UK … if  you can spare a few pennies, please sponsor her here:  www.justgiving.com/LucyWebber0713/

Snippets from the week’s news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. Plants lace their nectar with caffeine to keep pollinators loyal.
2. Hemingway never used a Moleskine notebook.
3. You can attract beluga whales by singing underwater.
4. Shops get staff to strategically mess things up.
5. The phallus-shaped Spartobranchus tenuis was an ancient relative of acorn worms.
6. One of the Crossrail tunnelling machines is called ‘Phyllis’ after Phyllis Pearsall who produced the first A-Z.
7. On the net’s most crime-ridden network – Spectranet in Nigeria – 62% of addresses controlled by the ISP send out spam.
8. “Aunt” is the most popular pornographic search term in Syria.
9. Dominic West is a disciple of guru Babaji.
10. Big eyes contributed to the Neanderthals’ demise.