Captain Tom

[Trickytreesreds]

om deserves his own, not a hand me down from some tosser.

Doesn't have to be his

But it would give the knighthood more credibility, like Camelot envisaged

[Ram59]

Let me be even more controversial, captain Tom is a great fellow, who fought for his country and has been the reason that over £20m has been raised for the NHS. I don't know about the rest of his life so I might be doing him a disservice. He may spent his whole life doing good for others.

The media and social media in this country seem to control our lives. The difference between Captain Tom, an unknown veteran raising a few hundred pounds and Captain Tom, Knight of the Realm raising £20m, is the media picking up the story and social media doing the rest.

I know many people who have devoted their lives to charity, every week, every month, year after year, without any recognition, are they not more worthy?

It's the same with sports personalities, a couple of outstanding events and the media are after making them a knight or dame.

This country seems very involved in mass hysteria on a regular basis.

[Trickytreesreds]

Let me be even more controversial, captain Tom is a great fellow, who fought for his country and has been the reason that over £20m has been raised for the NHS. I don't know about the rest of his life so I might be doing him a disservice. He may spent his whole life doing good for others.

The media and social media in this country seem to control our lives. The difference between Captain Tom, an unknown veteran raising a few hundred pounds and Captain Tom, Knight of the Realm raising £20m, is the media picking up the story and social media doing the rest.

I know many people who have devoted their lives to charity, every week, every month, year after year, without any recognition, are they not more worthy?

It's the same with sports personalities, a couple of outstanding events and the media are after making them a knight or dame.

This country seems very involved in mass hysteria on a regular basis.

Actually you are quite correct.
But like I said, it does give the knighthood more credibility, than some of the toss pots that do get them or get made Lords because they gave a politician a leg up, in the past.

[ramAnag]

Actually RA it's an unbelievable achievement, it tells us that the Great British Public are yet again brilliant for donating all this cash to the NHS!
It's OK saying when 66,000,000 consider it an amazing achievement to raise £20m, but not everyone wants to donate just to the NHS! Me for one!
We must remember there are about 166,000 charities in the UK, with a total annual turnover of just under £48bn. That in IMO is an absolutely fantastic achievement! Great British Public, take a bow!!!

That last paragraph I entirely agree with MoP and I did acknowledge that not everyone wants, or can, donate, but isn’t it just under 1,000,000 people who have donated so far? Doesn’t belittle Capt. Tom’s achievement at all, but is it really evidence of the ‘Great British Public’ or just a very small proportion of them?

[Geoff Parkstone]

So, erm, how much did you donate rA?

[AdiSalisbury]

Change that figure to just under 1 million households, and the statistic becomes a lot more impressive, coupled with people continuing to support their regular charities, it's not that bad at all.

[Andy_Faber]

...and now Michael Ball’s gone and spoiled it. The world’s second biggest bandwagon jumper after Richard Branson is turning Tom into a pop star

[ramAnag]

So, erm, how much did you donate rA?

Bit vulgar, GP. Not entirely relevant, but I’ll show you mine if you show me yours...as they say.

I think Adi makes the best point, that actually the number of ‘supporters’ probably represents families rather than individuals, but even that only gets us to around 4m out of 66m.

It’s just something that always surprises me. Last year for instance, ‘Children in Need’ raised an apparently ‘staggering’ £50.5m.

That figure makes Tom Moore’s achievement even greater imo, but is the figure of £50.5m raised by a population of 66m actually ‘staggering’?
Only in it’s paucity it could be argued.

It all just adds to confusion about the real nature of the ‘great British public’, who some on here (not me for once), have recently described as ‘untrustworthy’. Not sure about that, but £20m from a population of 66m seems disappointing to me. So, for me, Capt. Tom is indeed inspirational...not so sure about a large proportion of the British public.

[Geoff Parkstone]

£0.00 here, but I spent most of last week working for a charity for nothing, so I claim immunity

[ramAnag]

£0.00 here, but I spent most of last week working for a charity for nothing, so I claim immunity

I’m not judging anyway. Seeing as you’ve forced my hand...I meant to give £25.00 but somehow they turned it into £27.50...neat trick, not sure how they did that but Matt Hancock could do with learning it!
That’s between two of us of course, but seeing as some will doubtless have given much more, it arguably reflects even less well on the GBP.