Monday 26 October 2009

Sublimely tasteless fakecharity name of the day

There's an article in The Metro saying that "Teenage girls are so desperate to join violent male gangs that they are carrying guns, drugs and knives as well as being forced into group sex, new research by police and charities has found..."

Ho hum, that may or may not be true*, but what drew my attention was this:

Teresa Pointing, chief executive of In-volve – a charity dedicated to helping young girls in violent situations...

It is a tradition among fakecharities to choose an existing word, but then to insert a hyphen or a space, or capitalise a letter half-way through, in order to subtly alter the meaning or to give it a double meaning. My favourite example being Smoke Less over in the USA (as in 'smoke less than otherwise' or as in 'smokeless zone'?). I understand the word "involve", and I understand the word "in" but as "volve" is not a word in itself, I can only assume, from the context, that it's an allusion to "vulva", unless somebody has a better idea?

NB, per the 2008 accounts, 98.6% of their income is "Grant income" and Note 2 lists the following grantors:

Education Department, Local Authorities, Drugs Advisory Team, Single Regeneration Budget, Probation Service, Youth Justice Board, Health Authorities, Community Against Drugs, Community Fund, Employment Services.

* It may well be completely untrue, they don't seem to care any more, as evidenced by the recent admission that Inquiry fails to find single trafficker who forced anybody into prostitution.

10 comments:

BTS said...

It's a fake charity dedicated to buggering small rodents - it should have read In-vole..

w/v: broplay. Isn't that just what these girls are doing..?

Frank Davis said...

Nah. It's In-Volvo.

BTS said...

Nice big, warm exhaust pipes..

James Higham said...

Maybe the inquiry was flawed.

dearieme said...

Still, I expect that all these fakecharities supply lots of berths for the children of Labour stalwarts. Can't have them being required to work for a living, now, can we?

CityUnslicker said...

If I were a lefty I would be syaing this lot will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes...but then again that is what the grils seem to wnat..now I am getting confused...

Anonymous said...

Perhaps there really is nothing to be alarmed about and websites really do dissolve off the internet due to "technical difficulties" - but as of a few minutes ago, the official "fakecharities" website - became unavailable - a blank screen casuality (I hope not but truly the case tonight).

bayard said...

It may well be completely untrue, they don't seem to care any more,

Why bother with the truth, when the right lies will net you far more of that lovely taxpayers cash? Can't blame these people really - so much easier and rewarding than conning little old ladies out of their life savings plus the opportunity to be "doing well by doing good". The ones who really deserve our vilification are the ones who give them the cash in the first place.

MTG said...

Surely you could not suggest there are modern charities with ideal credentials for political support but which are invulvered with nothing other than obtaining public funding, Mark?

banned said...

Note 2 lists the following grantors:

Education Department, Local Authorities, Drugs Advisory Team, Single Regeneration Budget, Probation Service, Youth Justice Board, Health Authorities, Community Against Drugs, Community Fund, Employment Services.

Can you do Institutional Nepotism or is there another word for it ?