Doing it for the kids..

There's always a day you've never had before.. Last week we popped over to Superquinn in Finglas to collect money for Heart Children. I don't normally talk about my charity work (mostly because I don't normally do any charity work) but Helen's nephew has had some heart problems and so, when we were asked to give a bit of help to the collectors, we were happy to dig in..

The 2 guys who had been collecting all day were heading off for lunch and told us it had been slow all day but I've got to say that I was hugely impressed and touched by the generosity of the lunchtime shoppers.. Some people gave us 5 and 10 euro notes without taking the plastic windmills we were hawking.. Others just gave us whatever change they had.. Mostly it was old women and young men who donated. Either way we did ok in the time we were there. Despite the biting cold I had a great time out there. When the lads came bak from their lunch, we handed their yellow bibs back to them, bought a few windmills and headed in to The Gresham..

One of the reasons we were happy to help out with Heart Children (besides the fact that it's good to, y'know, give a little back once in a while) was that we had the to go in to the Gresham with Helen's nephew for a photo opp with Daniel Day Lewis. His new film was being shown as part of the Dublin Film Festival and Heart Children were hosting a reception beforehand. Day Lewis was attending and had agreed to have his photo taken with one of the Heart kids. We went in with Helen's nephew and her sister and waited for an hour or so in the foyer. While we waited James drew a little card for Daniel wishing him luck at the Oscars. Of course James didn't know who he was meeting and couldn't really care but as the photographer hung around and the organisers hovered nervously, it was hard not to get a little excited about what was about to happen.

Eventually we were told that Daniel wouldn't come in to the lobby and was going to be whisked in through the back entrance (cos you know famous people are just like you and me). We were rushed down hallways and through attended doors that were locked after we walked through them til we stopped in a small lobby somewhere in the bowels of the hotel. A moment later he was there! Tall, skinny, greyer than you'd expect and very charming. He sat for a few photos with James and read the card that he made for him. Putting it inside his jacket he told him that he'd take the card to the Oscars with him and keep it in his pocket on the night. James just looked a little bit bemused by the whole thing but the rest of us were melting in the great man's presence. We were all led into the reception room where hundreds of well-heeled men and women and members of the glitterati (no - of course I didn't recognise anyone) were enjoying little canape nibbles and champagne.. We were asked to stick around for a while and were even given tickets to see the film but in the end we didn't go along. I'm really looking forward to seeing There Will Be Blood but I'd been listening to Mark Kermode reviewing it the previosu daty and one of his rewuirements for seeign it was that you should be very sober and very alert going in. After several glasses of wine I was afraid that i'd fall asleep within 10 minutes of sitting down in the dark.. That seems to happen more lately.

At one point as were drinking wine and listening to the speeches, I thought back to the poor lads who'd been collecting all day outside the supermarket in the cold. If they could have seen us in the Gresham drinking free plonk they mightn't have appreciated the injustice. But as far as I can see, life's is full of problems and tough times so I'm not going to feel bad about meeting an Oscar winner and drinking some free wine..

Besides, the canapes really weren't that great. You wouldn't have liked them!