Children In Need Is Back Again!

As a mark of how quickly time seems to pass, it is once more the middle of November, and the whole country will be celebrating the arrival of the BBC Children In Need Charity Telethon. Using the day as an excuse to behave with wild abandon, many individuals and groups set out to do outrageous things with a view to raising money for their efforts, sometimes just on the day, or in many cases as the culmination of fund raising over a period of time.

Obviously caring little for the future of their careers, Sir Terry Wogan, Fearne Cotton, Nick Grimshaw and Tess Daly will be anchoring the celebration, when not for the first time, BBC 1 hands virtually all of its evening schedules over to the extravaganza.

Fund raising is set out in two ways, being money that is raised on the day, and further funds which are pledged and then collected a short time afterwards. The figures associated with this most popular of money raising events are mind boggling.

It is estimated that since 1980, it has raised around £600 million towards good causes relating to children. The most successful “on the evening” total is deemed to have been last year, when over £26 million was raised, a marvellous achievement in these recessionary times. The best overall total appears to have been in 2009 when over £40 million was collected.

The format for the evening has remained generally unchanged, with an invited audience full of people with out-sized cheques being entertained by show business acts either doing their usual day job, or making fun of themselves by parodying what has made them successful. Even shows from opposing TV channels are not safe, and the news readers have turned out to be good sports over the years.

Running money totals are flashed up, and there is generally a feeling of a jovial hard sell. Other stars that are appearing (and hoping that their careers will make a full recovery) include One Direction, Little Mix, Susan Boyle, Paloma Faith, Leona Lewis, Il Divo and Tim Minchin.

About twenty Olympian and Paralypian medal winners will be there, meeting Pudsey the Dog, winner of the 2012 Britain's Got Talent. The three day eventing team will dance “gangnam” style, and the aforementioned news readers will risk ridicule in a special edition of Top Gear. Kylie Minogue will be putting a more modern slant on some of her earlier hits.

So draw the curtains, sit back and marvel at the indomitable British spirit that allows so many people to make absolute fools of themselves ...all in a good cause.