I’ve just seen an advert on the TV telling me that some child across the world is starving or freezing or dying of some sort of torturous, slow acting disease and I don’t care what happens to that child, I didn’t care enough to pay proper attention to the advert.

You could call me cruel hearted but people adjust to what they’re exposed to. If someone was murdered in front of you it would be a big thing but of it happened twice every hour the effect of it would be lessened on you which is exactly what is happening to me with charities.

The first time I saw a child starving and covered in flies on my TV I was moved a little bit, my mind said let their own government help them but emotion did flicker inside me which is the point of those adverts. I now see so many charity adverts that the images no longer move me, I’ve become desensitised to the problem and it’s worse when they show it and you’re in the middle of a meal, they just end up putting you off your food and what has the advert then achieved? Not the child getting a meal but a meal being wasted because they’ve ruined your appetite so one more person is going hungry for the night.

I’m all for helping people. I don’t think people should have to suffer terrible lives. I do however think that if I’ve seen something as horrible as a child in the state that the adverts show them and I don’t feel anything then must have seen them too often. And when there’s an advert with a voiceover telling me how terrible it is that the child can’t get food but they’ve filmed a child then why did they film it instead of feeding it?