British Donate £37 million to Red Nose Day Charity for UK & Africa

Donations of over £37 million have been pledged by Britons during the televised Red Nose Day fundraising extravaganza. By 2am this morning, viewers watching BBC1 had donated £37,809,564.

Over six million red noses were sold in the event organised by Comic Relief, which is held every two years. Since the event was first initiated in 1985, Comic Relief has raised more than £337 million for 6,000 charity projects.

The money raised is used for good causes in UK and Africa. In Africa, the money goes to HIV and Aids sufferers. In UK, young people in crisis, older people, vulnerable refugees, people suffering from mental health problems and families fleeing domestic violence receive help through the funds raised.

Over 370,000 copies of the Little Britain/Comic Relief DVD were sold by music retailer HMV, raising over £1,250,000. The eight and a quarter million voters who judged Radio One DJ Edith Bowman the queen of Comic Relief Does Celebrity Fame Academy raised £1.3 million.

However, Comic Relief has once again been attacked for being "tacky, tawdry and tasteless" by a leading member of the Scottish Catholic Church. The fundraising effort has been accused of being guilty of alienating viewers with "vulgar humour and salacious sketches" by Peter Kearney, spokesman for the Scottish Catholic Bishops Conference.

He criticised the "top shelf content" of the fundraising telethon, saying: "It seems each new edition of Comic Relief has to sink to a new low in order to outdo the previous ones.

"Too much of Red Nose Day involves vulgar humour and salacious sketches. It is particularly sickening that young school children, who are encouraged to raise funds for Comic Relief, are subjected to this offensive humour when they watch it on television."

These comments follow a mistaken belief by the church that the charity money was used to fund projects that carried out abortions, but was later corrected by Church leaders.

However, a spokeswoman for Comic Relief reassured that there was no attempt to offend anybody. "In 2003, we raised £61 million and this year our sales of noses and T-shirts are up, so that shows people are still getting behind the event," she said. "Mr Kearney has his own views, but there is absolutely no intent to offend."