The middle class guide to feeling great about donating to food banks

WANT to feel good about yourself but can’t be arsed with yoga? Here Waitrose shopper Charlotte Phelps explains why she’s never felt better since discovering her local food bank.

You are basically Jesus

Keep this to yourself, but you’re like Jesus feeding the five thousand. One minute they have no food, then along comes the Messiah and hey presto! A large bag of pasta and some tinned carrots. I doubt God exists, but if he does he’ll be noting down my purchases, which pretty much guarantees getting into Heaven.

It’s good exercise

If you donate in person you’ll be bending and stretching to reach the tins of food in the supermarket, then carrying them to the car – great for toning your upper arms. Then you’ve got to press the pedals on the Land Rover Defender, and who doesn’t want nice trim calves? It’s a gentle all-body workout. Obviously you shouldn’t donate food just for the exercise – it’s great for getting one up on those bitches on the school run too.

You don’t have to meet the poor people

I feel I’ve discharged my responsibilities to the poor, so I don’t need to endure their witless, ungrammatical conversations about Love Island or immigration or dog fighting or whatever they talk about. Also, and I don’t like to say this, but I will: lice.

You can make the uneducated eat properly for once

I’m weaning the underclass off their chicken stegosauruses by donating upmarket foods such as quince jelly and wild red salmon (fortunately they only accept tinned, because Waitrose smoked would test anyone’s generosity at £7 a pop). I get them the cheap Tesco mascarpone sauce, as the spicy Nduja version would probably scare them and they’ll be back to square one with their McWhopper Twizlet Burgers.

My conscience feels great!

Sometimes I get a niggling feeling that my expensive private education and wealthy parents have somehow given me an unfair advantage in life. But then I donate to the food bank and my conscience is back in peak condition, and all for just three quids’ worth of baked beans with curious little sausages in.

It might save your life

Okay, this is a bit paranoid, but I’ve seen enough films about the French Revolution to know the peasants are sympathetic to aristocrats who’ve been nice to them. If there’s a bloody revolution here I’ll just say ‘But I donate tinned ham and Weetabix to the food bank!’ and they’ll let me slip away quietly instead of putting me on the tumbril to the guillotine.

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Don't stick a flare up your arse: James Cleverly's guide to being gay in Qatar

JAMES Cleverly has told LGBT football fans they will need to make compromises when visiting Qatar for the World Cup. Here’s his guide to how you should behave.

Don’t stick a flare up your arse

Taking your trousers down and shaving a lit flare up your bum is a traditional way to express your delight that England are playing. However, the Qataris may not understand that this is the completely normal behaviour of a fully heterosexual British male, and we don’t want to upset them, so be sure to only do this in the safety of your hotel.

Don’t hug your friends

We must show respect to the homophobic, human-rights-abusing host nation, so think twice before giving your male pals a cuddle when England scores. And the Qataris don’t even like public displays of affection that couldn’t be interpreted as gay, so you can’t snog your girlfriend either. A firm handshake will have to suffice.

Don’t get pissed

Brits love getting drunk at the football and doing stupid things like fighting or urinating in public, but this will go down very badly in Qatar whether you’re gay or not. Unfortunately, telling England fans to take it steady on the beers is pointless, so the local British Embassy is going to have a lot of work on its hands come November.

Don’t ponder the ethics

The event has been dogged by accusations of corruption, bribery, slavery, exploitation and a rollback of LGBTQ representation in football. But don’t say that aloud in Qatar because that’s the kind of thing a woke, liberal, gay leftie would bring up. And Qatar’s got the right idea about a lot of things. Public floggings in this country would go down well with our voters.

Don’t go and watch the rugby instead

Ultimately, is it really worth stepping back into the closet so you can spend hundreds of pounds going somewhere unpleasantly hot where you can’t drink? Yes. Don’t you dare watch the rugby world cup instead, even if a British team might have a hope of winning that.

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