Ice Bucket Challenge

Is your Twitter/Farcebook feed full of “hilarious” videos of people emptying receptacles of near-zero degree water over themselves? Are you as annoyed about this as I am?

It’s meant to be for charity, but it’s now just descended into wannabe internet heroes following each other like sheep. It seems there are organisations you are meant to donate to for the privilege of doing it as well. So if someone nominates you, you’re meant to soak yourself, film the event, give money to a charity not of your choosing and nominate three more people.

Will something bad happen to me for not taking part? Unlikely.

Remember chain letters? You had to send it on to ten people or you would die a horrible death. Not me, I always threw them in the bin and somehow managed to survive. I’ll be treating this ridiculous fad with the contempt it deserves too. Don’t nominate me because I won’t do it. I won’t give money to a charity just because someone tells me to either. While they are worthy causes, I’ll choose who to give my money to and when to do it, thank you very much.

Ah, but some celebrities are doing it and being very generous. Look at Charlie Sheen pouring a bucket of cash over himself and declaring publicly that he’s donating $10,000 to the ALS Foundation. What a guy! No, what a selfish bastard. Telling the whole world that he’s giving money to charity is just another self-promoting tactic from the drug-fuelled callgirl-botherer. $10,000 may seem like a large sum of money to most of us, but given that he reputedly earned $1,000,000 per episode for his “acting” in anti-sitcom, 2 and a Half Men, it’s like me donating 3p, an old button and some pocket fluff.

Patrick Stewart thought he had it cracked too, but sitting calmly next to an ice bucket and taking out a cube to put in a glass of scotch that probably cost more than your house is worth whilst writing a cheque for charity didn’t impress me at all. His “look at me, I’m British and I was Captain Picard, don’t you know?” demeanour may have made him an internet legend yet again, but it was all about his ego. Stick to wearing lobster suits in the bath, baldy.

I can’t watch any more of these ridiculous videos. You might be dressed as Spiderman, or having a digger-scoop full of ice poured over yourself, or you might be on the bus. You might even be a celebrity, a proper A-list one, not some moron from TOWIE. You might be a footballer, duped into it by teammates or you might be a politician looking to increase your opinion poll scores. I really don’t care. You’re all idiots.

Give money to a charity you support, but without any gimmicks. Nobody need ever know and that’s fine. Charities need money, not people filming themselves acting like twats.

I wonder how many people will join in the next fad and attempt the “jump in a large vat of hot oil challenge”?