ANDY PHILLIPS A more personal method of giving

HAVE a terrible admission: often when I see those people representing charities in the street, who are going to ask me to sign up to £2 a month or whatever, I pretend to be on the phone.

I know it's wrong, but I just don't want to have that awkward moment of them telling me how awful things are for children/ animals/ homeless people/ starving one-legged albinos and that my £2 a month could make all the difference, and for me to have to say that actually I've been giving XYZ and so can't really afford it.

I know there are terrible things going on in the world, but yet it seems to be my input that is necessary instead of governments or nationally funded organizations which seem to have gone for a collective wander while all this suffering was going on.

And I know that the people asking for the money - sometimes rather unkindly called 'chuggers' which is shorthand for 'charity muggers' - are only doing their jobs.

But I just don't want to engage, so that they can take £2 a month or whatever, and give me a leaflet on what it could well possibly be spent on. It all feels so impersonal.