Alexei Sayle: Charity begins at home, in the downstairs lavatory

'My agent's driven mad by groups wanting me to do a benefit at a sewage farm in Dundee'

Staying with some friends over the weekend, I idly picked up a copy of OK! magazine. On the front cover it said: "The photos the world has been waiting for ­ the wedding of Tracy Shaw." There was a picture of a woman in a wedding dress with her grinning husband, and I had no idea who she was. Somebody explained that she was a minor actor in a TV soap, but really it is ridiculous that such an insignificant figure should get this much coverage.

Dr Werner von Braun, who invented the V1 and V2 rockets for the Nazis and went on to work for the United States space programme, would offer an opinion at cocktail parties and then say, "But hey, I'm no rocket scientist." Then he'd pause and say, "Oh yes I am!"

I have always thought it odd that while we are told daily in minute detail about the thoughts and doings of every minor TV soap actor like Tracy Shaw, we know absolutely nothing concerning the interior lives of those men and women who are really changing our world in the most profound way, ie scientists. Obviously others feel the same way, because this Thursday has been designated "National Scientist Awareness Day".

I was all ready to become more aware of scientists in any way that I could, when I suddenly noticed that next Thursday, as well as being "National Scientist Awareness Day", is also "National Ride to Work Day", when commuters are urged to cycle or motorbike to work in order to lift pollution and to ease congestion or, if they already do ride to work, to give a friend a pillion ride so that they, too, can experience the joys of two-wheeled travel.

I didn't know what to do: learn more about scientists or ride to work. I took part in the ride to work event last year, and there is still a 1200cc Harley Davidson wedged in our downstairs lavatory after I tried to ride to work from my bedroom to my office, which is in the basement. However, Thursday is not only National Ride To Work Day, it also happens to be UK Banana Day as well as being one-seventh of Leprosy Awareness Week and one 365th of the International Year of the Environmentally Aware.

These special days, weeks and years do serve an important function in that they draw attention to vital issues or provide a pre-packaged, light-hearted item for tabloid journalists too exhausted to think them up for themselves. Unfortunately, however, because of their usefulness, there is now a log-jam, in that every single day of the year has at least one worthy cause or humorous event attached to it, leading to an all-round dilution in the desired effect.

Some remedy needs to be found. The authorities could, for example, make the year longer, say 600 days long, so that every cause could again have its day, yet this would lead inevitably to problems: the football season would be too long, for a start, having the kids at home for the four-month-long summer holidays would drive parents mad, and people's Filofaxes would get too fat. Plus, I suspect, causes will simply multiply to fill the number of days available until the same old problem reappears. If charities and special interest groups see an opportunity, they will grab it.

Solely in order to assuage my guilt over my decadent lifestyle, I do a certain minimal amount of charity work, but the problem with charities is that because they are involved in good works they have a ruthless sense of their own importance. My agents are driven mad by certain interest groups who I have done stuff for in the past and who won't take "piss off" for an answer because they can't believe that I don't want to do a benefit for their cause in a sewage farm in Dundee or to take part in a sponsored vomit for woodland animals.

Therefore what I propose is that all special days will have to be combined, so that, for example, 14 May 2002 will become "National Ride to Work on a Leper Day". The benefits will be several-fold: the two sets of interests will share the spoils equally, commuters will still travel to work in an environmentally undamaging way, plus, they will learn a lot more about this disease by striking up a conversation with the leper who is carrying them in on their backs from Surbiton.

And as usual, as well as all the other events, every day next year will be "National Being Governed by a Gang of Self-Important Twats Day".