It was fantastic to see this year’s UK Comic Relief effort raise more money than ever. Is this an example of people actually wanting to give more when they have less? A shift in society away from the greed and selfishness so typified by the global financial crisis?

Anyway, I watched the celebrity ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro (titled Summit Funny for Money) with great interest and admired the obvious effort those participating had gone to to catch our attention and extract some cash from us for a worthy cause, a lot of which didn’t look much like fun to me.

It also reminded me of a massive charity driven venture a former colleague of mine is currently enduring which is also in Africa and for the benefit of African charities. Spookily enough, he is currently in Tanzania and probably not that far from Mount Kilimanjaro as I type this. However, his efforts are as part of the ‘Tour D’Afrique – otherwise known as one of the toughest cycle races in the world that takes the participants from Cairo in Eygpt to Cape Town in South Africa over the course of 5 months.

Whenever possible, Simon has blogged about his experiences so far and it makes for fascinating and awe inspiring reading.

The biggest contrast for me is the staggering amounts of money the celebrities managed to raise for their tough but relatively short challenge. You can see Simon’s donation page here and if you are similarly inspired by the sheer determination and dedication he is putting into this challenge then I’d urge you to donate some cash to help spur him on for the second half of his venture.