The girl in Covent Garden, fundraising for charity, was most surprised that I stopped for a chat when she asked if I had a couple of moments. It seems Natalie Perez (for that was her name) had had a dispiriting morning trying to accost tourists (not interested) or office workers (too busy).
She was expounding the virtues of Friends Of the Earth through the use of carefully crafted, closed questions along the lines of "If you could save the planet with no effort on your part would you be interested?" Like who's going to say no. All part of a script for getting "Yes" answers to draw the mark in.
I explained that we were all "donation-ed out" what with the monthly contributions to MacMillan Fund and Cancer Research, not to mention Children in Need, Red Nose Day and the Tsunami Appeal. But I do talk to strangers and FOE is a worthy cause even if I was not inclined to contribute. It seems her spirits were improved by having someone actually stop, so I wished her good luck and went on my way.
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