Category: “Charity”

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I was really determined not to drone on about the Olympics any more, but having just been to City trader BGC’s charity day, I feel I have to. Because the Olympic spirit was alive and well and wafting around spreading its goodness whenever an Olympian or Paralympian ventured near. BGC has had a September 11 [...]

Much has been made of the contrast between the values and heroics of our Olympians and Paralympians, and the often not so great values and not so great values of our multi-millionaire professional footballers. Well today provides an opportunity for football, football clubs and football stars to show that the caricature is misplaced. I know [...]

The excitement (mine) is mounting … Not quite to the peak of the day I trotted out in front of 72000 people at Old Trafford with Diego Maradona (I never talk about it as regulars know) and three other World Cup winners as team-mates … Nor even an excitement to match election days 1997, 2001 [...]

If I can go back to my old life as what the French might call a ‘medicin de rotation,’ I’d like to alert the media to something happening next week, when a group of Brazllian former street children arrive in London. You may remember at the time of the last Soccer World Cup in South [...]

I have written on here before about the tragic death of Gareth Crockett, who was killed in Anglessey last year whilst trying to raise £10,000 by cycling more than 500 miles  and running four marathons in eight days, culminating in the London Marathon. He was driven to raise funds in memory of a friend who [...]

This is a straight-forward thank you to Commons Speaker John Bercow who last night co-hosted with me a Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research dinner at Speaker’s House. The dinner allowed us to bring together leading lights in what might be termed the ‘cancer community’ to discuss the charity’s Trials Acceleration Programme, TAP, a clinical trials network [...]

One of the downsides (or should that be upsides?) of being moderately well known, and very accessible via social media, is that you get bombarded with people asking for time, money, contacts, ideas and expertise for their (invariably) good causes. On twitter, there is rarely a day, and some days rarely an hour, that there’s [...]

I’ve been back from holiday for a few days, but am still not back in the swing of things, so apologies to anyone who has missed my political and other musings. Thought I would ease myself back in with a guest blog from Labour councillor Sarah Hayward. It is worth a read. It is how [...]

After yesterday’s guest blog on happiness, today I turn to the subject of madness, more specifically my own. I was approached a few months ago and asked to write a poem for a book being prepared by Bovington Middle School in Dorset, to raise money both for the school’s English deparment and for Help for [...]