Opinionated News

Once a year, in November, the BBC does something spectacular.  During the rest of the year it occasionally messes up but every November, Aunty Beeb, as she’s affectionally known, pulls out all the stops and puts on an extravaganza for a charity Children in Need.  This is a UK based organization with a mission to “positively change the lives of disadvantaged children and young people in the UK”. 

The organization has been around since the mid 1920s but it’s only been in its current telethon format since the 1980s. It’s one of the biggest fundraisers in the UK with the money raised being in the millions of pounds.  Last year, a staggering £37million (that’s around $74million) was raised by the general public through sponsored events and donations.

The telethon isn’t a red carpet affair.  You won’t find anyone telling you what they’re wearing.  But you will see the BBC celebrities in a number of unfamiliar guises - as you’ll see below in some youtube.com videos from last night’s event.  They do have celebrities answering some of the phone lines, but usually they are used to get the viewers to ring in with donations. They also turn up with their own checks and donations from collecting in the audiences at the West End shows on Children in Need night, or from auctioning/selling personal items. 

The UK isn’t always full of good news or even good decisions (the recent government support of China’s ruling Tibet being just one recent example of a bad value judgment), but the annual Children in Need event is a shining light in the BBC calendar.  What you should remember here is that the celebrities are giving their time free, they are not always doing something that’s familiar (see the BBC news team’s Mamma Mia offering), and that the people of the UK are holding money raising events up and down the country in the week or so proceeding the main telethon. 

Despite the rumored recession, and gloomy financial forecast, last night’s Children in Need telethon raised just under £20million, and this will increase over the next couple of weeks as money comes in from the various fundraisers - in the past it has been known for the total to actually double what was raised during the actual telethon.  If you want to know more about Children in Need, visit the website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/.  For anyone who has donated money to this wonderful children’s charity, feel proud of yourself for contributing!

The following video is the actors from UK soap opera “Eastenders” showing that they can do more than act out the misery of life’s down moments in the East End of London:

The next one is the cast of a popular UK police drama “The Bill” showing they can do more than catch criminals and fight crime in a Blues Brothers routine:

Lastly, here’s some of the BBC news readers with their tribute to the Mamma Mia musical: