I'M not an uncharitable person, not by any means, but I am sick and fed up of having appeals rammed down my throat.

The last straw came on Friday evening when some kind soul rang up to ask me if I would deliver and collect envelopes in the area - during Corrie.

As I came off the phone it was the commercial break, and believe it or not Eddie Izzard was appealing for £5 a month to help Third World Countries.

This comes on top of the supposedly harrowing NSPCC plea, Red Nose Day, sponsorship calls and collection bags through the letter box.

We have tins rattled under our noses every week at the supermarket and fund raising raffles everywhere we go. If we took notice of them all we'd be charity cases ourselves. It's now such big business on the high street.

I've decided the best thing to do is stick to a favourite couple and sadly ignore the rest.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.