Aggressive Charity Workers

I live in the centre of London and walk from home to work everyday. This is generally a great deal (that cost me an arm and a leg) and I very much enjoy the walk through Mayfair. One thing though that is getting more and more common and quite frankly annoying is aggressive, and usually very shabby, agents of various charities that accost you in the street wanting to obtain donations. Usually, they will start the conversation with some variation of “do you have a moment for… the environment, the homeless, abused children etc”. This very clever icebreaker is supposed to make you stop because you look like a total bastard if you don’t even have a minute to spend on such worthy causes.

I usually ignore these people and their entreaties and continue without a word. Yesterday, however, I ran into a particularly annoying and persistent young man who hopped up and down in front of me asking if I had “a minute for the environment”, I’m afraid I snapped. “I’ve got a lot of time for the environment but not a nanosecond for you” was the somewhat less than gracious response that I let out before I could stop myself.