Stuff you don't normally hear about.

[Colin]

Not just because I support Celtic, but I thought this was worth posting.


ORPHANS affected by HIV and Aids in South Africa have been given a special gift by Celtic.Football-mad kids at the New Jerusalem Children's Home near Johannesburg were handed 30 football shirts by an airline stewardess who asked Celtic to help her crusade to improve the children's lives.And she hopes that Celtic will step in again by donating cash towards a new school she's planning to build, complete with a football pitch.Rita Iannuzzi, 43, who works for British Airways, said: "Celtic are one of the most caring clubs I've had the pleasure to approach.

"They straight away gave the children shirts to play football in and all their young supporters at New Jerusalem will wear them with as much pride as an entire stadium filled with Celtic fans on a Saturday afternoon!"The 75 children at the home were orphaned by HIV and Aids and some are HIV-positive.
Many were abandoned by their families, with some even dumped in bins - but now they're looking forward to a better life, thanks to Rita.
She set up a fund, Education Is Life, to raise ?175,000 to build new houses and a school.



Rita, who was born in England but now lives in Italy, has applied to Celtic's charity fund for help to finance the project and finds out this month if she's been successful.
South Africa will host the World Cup in 2010 and Rita hopes that by creating a football pitch it will provide a focus for the children ... and give them something to aim for in the future.
She said: "The children love to play, they have suffered so much but are totally unaffected and happy and when you put a ball down, it's bedlam."A Celtic spokesman said: "We were struck by the work Rita was involved in and we were delighted to give any help we could."
Rita has also been awarded ?2000 towards the orphanage from BA as part of its staff Community Volunteering Awards.
Mary Barry, BA community relations manager, said: "Rita has done a fantastic job and it's great BA has been able to recognise her hard work."

[Roger Kettle]

I'm not knocking this, Colin, but it seems that Celtic have donated a couple of sets of strips which they get for free. The organiser is "hoping" that Celtic will step in with some cash as well. Fair play to them but it doesn't strike me as an overly charitable gesture to get kids running around in South Africa, wearing their strips. Sorry. I'm a cynical old sod.

[Tarquin Thunderthighs lll]

It's a brave person who questions a charitable act, but I'm afraid I'm with Roger on this one, whilst acknowledging that if the kids are happy then that's great. But the good PR Celtic will get from this is worth a thousand times the cost of the strips (even at trade prices - as Roger says, the club wouldn't have to pay for them at all). Hopefully, the club will cough up the full ?175,000 that Education Is Life need (pocket money to a business like Celtic F.C.) and prove us both wrong.

And I have to wonder if you'd have posted the piece if those wonderful kids were posing in Ibrox Blue shirts?  Yes, I'm a doubly cynical old sod (and it doesn't help that I've just clocked up another year this morning).

[The Peepmaster]

Happy Birthday, Tarquin! I hadn't known. Diane usually posts reminders about this kind of thing.

I understand the cynicism of the 2 old boys earlier, but it's still an uplifting story. I'm sure there was a certain amount of genuine charity in the gesture. After all, the Far East is the place to be capturing the hearts and minds of the kids these days, not Africa, surely.

[Tarquin Thunderthighs lll]

Happy Birthday, Tarquin! I hadn't known. Diane usually posts reminders about this kind of thing.

Thanks, Peepsie. Diane's hopefully still in the land of Nod, and she wouldn't have known - it's been a closely guarded secret until now.

...the Far East is the place to be capturing the hearts and minds of the kids these days, not Africa, surely.

Now that's cynicism! Well done, old bean!

[Vulture]

Happy Birthday, Tarquin.

[Tarquin Thunderthighs lll]

Thank you, Vult, although since you beat me by one measly second on the quiz today, it's a little grudging. Then again, I beat Fydo by the same margin, so  to him!


Stop Press:  Colin's come steaming in with a maximum 10 in 63 seconds...who was that masked man?

[Malc]

We've had terrific flooding in Queensland, as I have mentioned, but yesterday someone actually drowned near where I live. He was an 18 year-old who decided to go body boarding in a park area where the drains had burst and were sending a torrent of water down the streets and lanes.

Floods are the nearest sub tropical Australia gets to snow. Whereas in the UK I used to come into work with stories of how snowdrifts were banked up over such-and-such road, and how someone's roof had just collapsed, etc, here it's all about how the dams had to be opened, how sports fields are underwater to the tops of the goalposts and how streets have become brown rivers.

Well it IS stuff you don't normally hear about...