Next Friday, here in the UK, it’s Comic Relief’s Red Nose day; a day of fund raising for extremely worthy causes in the UK and abroad, with an emphasis on lighthearted fundraising methods and the use of lighter entertainment for the greater good (and it’s not very often you get to say that…)

This post - well, this post is to highlight two things, really. One is that they’ve released their usual fundraising single, which is the target of my video deconstruction column on Guardian Unlimited Music this week. I know it’s all in a good cause, and thus realise I should feel bad for being spectacularly mean about it, but weirdly, I don’t. Because it really is shit.

The other reason I don’t feel bad, of course, is that this year I’m going to be doing my bit to support and raise money for Comic Relief - and you can too…

How? I hear you ask.

Well, I’m about to tell you, don’t be impatient.

Mike over at Troubled Diva has come up with an idea that I happen to think is quite, quite splendid. And also spectacularly - possibly suicidally - ambitious, but quite, quite splendid for all that.

But what IS the splendid idea?

Yes I’m GETTING to it, hang on, have you never heard of dramatic tension?
Oh, you’ve all buggered off to Mike’s.
Impatient bastards.

Well, for anyone who is still here, the idea is this:

Mike’s going to put a book together in a week.

There’s an open call for submissions on his site for people who would like to contribute a funny (funny, mind you) post from their blog to a paperback collection of humorous tales from the (oh god, I’m going to say it, I’m going to say it…) blogosphere.

He’s going to take the submissions, lay them out, submit them to Lulu (the self-publishing site thing) and by next Friday, piff-paff-poff, the book will be available for order at a good price-which-is-yet-to-be-decided.

And ALL profits will go to charity. No one will be making money out of this apart from Comic Relief (and Lulu, obviously, who are the cheapest we can find but still expensive - so if you have the means of printing several hundred paperbacks by next Friday for cheaper, can you let one of us know?), although having said that, it’ll be a great way of collecting together some of your favourite voices from all over the internet and putting them in print in one handy tome. So who NEEDS to make any money out of it? The happy glow and happier customer base will be payment enough.

How can you get involved?

Well, if you’d like to submit something for possible inclusion, get over to Troubled-Diva and his Comic Relief Shaggy Blog Stories Project, and find out how. I’ve already decided on and sent him my entry - now it’s your turn.

If you’d like to help by publicising the project, get over to Troubled-Diva and his Comic Relief Shaggy Blog Stories Project post and link to that post - not this one here, obv, because I’m being vague, and he really isn’t.

If the way you’d like to help is by buying a copy of the fabulous book, then come back here or visit any number of your favourite blogs next Friday to find out how you can do that.

[Oh, and as mentioned above, if you happen to have a high quality book printing facility in your pocket with capacity to print a limited run by next Friday, don't be a stranger...]

It’s a great idea, isn’t it? I think it’s a bloody brilliant idea.

Huzzah for Mike. Huzzah for comedy blog posts. Huzzah for Comic Relief.
Boo for their official Comic Relief single, which is arse.