Charity singles ‘worse than earthquake’ say Haiti survivors

An article I wrote for the satirical news website cultsha.com. View the original here.

After suffering a devastating earthquake only days ago, the Caribbean island of Haiti is bracing itself for a second seismic disaster, this time in the form of an onslaught of charity singles.

The first tremors were felt on Tuesday when Robbie Williams revealed he would be re-joining former Take That band members to sing a verse of the Simon Cowell-sponsored cover of the suicide-inducing ‘Everybody Hurts (In Haiti)’. Since then the musical monstrosity has had vocals added by such humanitarian luminaries as Susan Boyle, Will Young and Dappy from N-Dubz.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who personally requested Cowell organise the charity track, said he thought the single would make a big difference: “The agony and anguish of the people in Haiti that we are seeing on our television screens is something that the British public want to respond to. However a decade of sordid reality TV has left the nation emotionally stunted and drained of any sense of empathy for our fellow man. The only way we can expect people to donate is by paying ninety-nine pence on the i-tunes website to download four minutes of musical pap. Having said that I love any excuse to hear Will Young’s silky smooth voice. It’s like having a whole bar of Galaxy poured in your ear”.

Real charities can only look on in amazement at these fair-weather friends of adversity. A spokesperson for Oxfam revealed “we simply don’t have the resources or the publicity to compete with these celebrities. We wanted to make a charity song ourselves, but all we could afford was seventy seconds of studio time with Jimmy Nail and the drummer from Hanson.”

The scene on the ground is equally bleak. First hand reports reveal that precious little of the food and medical aid sent has reached the island, as cargo planes are constantly requisitioned to fly over philanthropic Hollywood stars.

Yet amidst the chaos there are success stories. Only yesterday a man was pulled out alive from the Port-Au-Prince branch of HMV, after being trapped for twelve days under an avalanche of copies of the ill-conceived charity collaboration between Jay-Z and U2. He described how “I survived by reading Kerry Katona’s autobiography ‘Too Much, Too Young’ from cover to cover. It gave me a chance to put things in perspective and made me realise how much worse my situation could be.”