With friends like these

There was a time when you couldn’t walk down your local high street and not be set upon by a succession of ‘charity muggers’ — those relentlessly cheery and chatty young men and women who want your money for worthy causes like Cancer Research UK, Greenpeace, Oxfam or Age UK. These days the high streets are relatively free from their presence and their sales pitch is more restrained. But there’s a new breed of brazen ‘charity muggers’ who want your money — and they’re called your friends.

I used to get emails from friends asking me to dinner or for drinks; now, on a daily basis I get emails from friends asking me for money — money for their favourite charity. They tell me they’re running/walking/singing/swimming/growing a moustache/shaving their heads/ going sober for a month to raise money for some worthy cause, and would I like to sponsor them?

And then there’s another type of worthy cause that friends would like me to make a donation to: themselves.