Read all about it. Soon.

On August 3rd or thereabouts, there will be a big story in the national media about charity and music. We will say 'we set that up' and you probably won't believe us.

You heard it here first.

Nuclear Scare

I am in one of my favourite places on earth – Kirksanton in Cumbria. I’ve been coming here to stay with friends for ten years now and my children (see above) now love it even more than me.

When the Lake District National Park was created, this little pocket of land was excluded because it was home to an ironworks that would have been prohibited under national park rules. The ironworks closed in the 60s but nobody moved the boundaries – which is a bit of a pain because RWE has now bought a farm here and wants to build a nuclear power station on it.

Ironically, this will entail removing the wind farm that I can see from my window and, tragically for my friends who run a place here offering farm holidays for disabled people, replacing it with a great big reactor.

The whole community is pulling together in opposition and, as far as I can see, the whole plan to build a nuclear power station on cheap greenfield land (as opposed to next to Sellafield which is half an hour up the road) seems extremely dodgy. It makes you wish Paul Foot was still alive – or that George Monbiot would get stuck in.

In the meantime, this was one of Kirksanton’s contributions to the local scarecrow festival.

Don't mention the recession...

There has been much debate recently about whether or not charities should mention the recession in appeals. Despite much 'evidence' to the contrary, we instinctively thought that they should. So we did. In fact, we wrote an emergency appeal all about it.

As a result, one of our clients is now £190,000 (or 316%) over target.

No, it wasn't a split test. But it was a cracking letter and the money flooded in. I guess it's all in the delivery.

James