Tag Archives: concern

Bake a Difference with ‘Cake Boy’ this October to help support some of the world’s poorest people

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Local celebrity patissier Eric Lanlard calls on cooks nationwide to help raise funds to support Concern Worldwide’s life-changing work.

Eric Lanlard, owner of luxury cake boutique, Cake Boy, is asking people across the country to Bake a Difference and raise vital funds for Concern Worldwide’s work in tackling hunger in some of the world’s poorest countries.

Concern Worldwide’s London office is based on the river in Battersea, near to Cake Boy.

Bake a Difference runs in association with National Baking Week, (17-23 October) and Concern wants people to hold bake-sales during the week, at school, home or work, and donate the proceeds towards Concern. All money raised will go towards Concern’s child nutrition programmes.

Eric said:

“I adore baking, for work and for pleasure. It’s the perfect way to relax, and make something wonderful for your friends and family. And cake sales are also a simple and fun way to raise money – no-one can resist a cupcake baked for a good cause. So this October, I’m asking fellow baking enthusiasts to set aside some time and hold a cake sale or coffee morning for Concern Worldwide’s Bake a Difference campaign. All the money you raise will go towards Concern’s work with children suffering from malnutrition, children who without Concern’s help might not survive. Come on, join me, and make a very simple gesture to help some of the world’s poorest children get the support they need.”

Lucy Brown, Fundraiser at Concern said

“We are thrilled Eric has agreed to support our campaign – especially since we are neighbours!

Concern works with the world’s poorest people to help transform their lives. Last year alone, we helped over nine million people living in extreme poverty. But we can’t do it without your help. To help inspire people, we will regularly issue new recipes on our website from scones and cookies to delicious and healthy savouries such as baked samosas. So come on, help us Bake a Difference this year.”

The event is also being supported by fellow celebrity chefs Ainsley Harriott, Paul Rankin and Nick Nairns.

For more information about taking part, and for help with fundraising ideas and recipes, visit www.concern.net/bakeadifference or call 020 7801 1874 or email bakeadifference@concern.net

The Joy of Teen Sex?

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America is not impressed. Teens are having sex, and MTV is doing f***all to discourage them. As if showing Miley Cyrus’s videos on an hourly rotation isn’t abominable enough (AOL has voted her the worst celebrity influence for the second year in a row – why such a poll was considered necessary, or how Taylor Momsen slipped through the net who knows), the channel is currently airing a brand-new US version of Skins, the cult UK TV show thanks to which youngsters all over Britain have been snorting cocaine and having barely legal lesbian sex after and (more likely) during school hours since 2007. American parents, advertisers and activists are protesting, claiming that the show exhibits child pornography and violates legal requirements to protect young viewers and the teen actors themselves.

In one sense, I sympathise. I feel like I can’t switch the TV on these days without catching a glimpse of sexually hyperbolic children. During last Wednesday’s episode of The Joy of Teen Sex the nation was treated to one youngster’s cringetastic first attempt to ‘go down’ on his girlfriend having just overcome his chronic fear of vaginas. Cue applause from the cameramen?

Now it’s not that long since I was a teen (those who saw my last column will know I cling to youth with a desperation to rival Dorian Gray). However, as a mildly antisocial specimen I wasn’t privy to what one might call the full spectrum of experience early on. I wasn’t (quite) a complete dork, but I was nevertheless more an Inbetweener than an Effy (see below – notorious and sorely missed UK Skins character seasons one through four – I will cool off the TV references soon I promise). When a friend recently told me that he “was getting head in year eight at the school disco, and was one of the later ones,” I was taken aback.  I have a brother in year eight, perhaps why I found this particularly disturbing.

Left-right: Freddie, Effy, Cook and Panda- UK Skins gang seasons three and four

I remember a definite ‘awakening’ occurring during my mid-teens however. For example, I recall a year nine English lesson during which a friend and I compared what we’d done over the weekend. I had written an essay, ironically on Romeo and Juliet – an early parable about the potential hazards of teen sex. She’d given her boyfriend a blowjob during Shrek at the cinema. “WHY???” I gawped.  “He wanted one,” she shrugged.

Obviously there had been various infamous events: “I heard she had an abortion when she was 12,” “they had sex on the beach during the year nine Isle Of Wight trip and TEACHERS FOUND THEM,” and house parties were, by year ten, synonymous with all manner of sexual hijinks. Still, I wasn’t quite prepared for this revelation from a hitherto very shy and retiring girl. But it was not an outrageously outlandish example, and rightly or wrongly, a good proportion of my year had swapped fluids by via one means or another by the time they sat their GCSES.

More recently, I was chatting with a 14-year-old girl when the question of BOYS came up. Ah, I thought, a chance to share the wisdom of years, perhaps help my young friend avoid some of the pitfalls into which I in my naïve youth had fallen. What was the problem, I asked? “Well my last boyfriend dumped me because I wouldn’t give him a blow job. It was kind of unfair, as I had ‘received’, but wasn’t ‘giving’, yano? I mean I’m not at all what you would call frigid, but I just didn’t fancy it. Also the guy I like smokes, and I used to LOADS but I quit a year ago and I really don’t want to start again, and I’m worried if I go out with him I will.”

I took a deep breath. Then I told her as tactfully as possible that her ex was an asshole she was best shot of, and that perhaps she might prove a healthy influence on the new guy and get him to quit smoking. The admittedly tenuous point is that the decisions and attitude she expressed to me in no way mirrored what she had seen on the box the previous night (she likes QI). Furthermore, she rightly stopped when she felt uncomfortable, and this can probably be attributed to her own resolve rather than abstinence from inappropriate television.

The argument I’m havng a semi-arsed attempt at making is that teens are going to have sex whether their parents like it or not. At least some of them. We should accept this, and as they say in The Joy of Teen Sex, the main thing is that it is safe and consensual. Though Skins might be amplifying the fantasies of the Inbetweeners crowd more aggressively than Glee (I lied about the reference thing), if parents are to complain, I’d argue that the smoking/narcotics-related element of proceedings is more worthy of their energy. I personally found the total departure from any attempt at a cohesive or engaging plot in last week’s episode infinitely more offensive than the frequent references to f***ing.

Obviously the second my brother goes anywhere near a girl with the intention of touching anything other than her hand I’ll be whacking a chastity belt on him faster than he can say ‘hypocrite’.