Bluebottle's Bucket Blog
Created | Updated Sep 7, 2014
I've just found out that my brother-in-law has just nominated me to do the ice-bucket challenge and have decided to decline.
I am introverted individual who prides himself on being completely immune from unwanted Peer Pressure. I've never attempted to follow trends or copy what other people are doing, unless it happens to be something that interests me also. Yes, I have often been accused of being stubborn, I think of it more as being true to who I am.
I fail to see how having a bucket of ice poured over your head constitutes a real 'challenge'. A hassle, yes, but not really a challenge. The most difficult bit seems to be actually getting the ice. We have an a frost-free freezer, which means that attempts to create ice-cubes never really work. Therefore to get ice I'd need to cycle to the supermarket, buy a bag of ice, cycle back home with a bag of ice on my back (hoping it hasn't all melted on the journey) in order to put the ice in a bucket in the garden and pour it over my head. In the meantime I'd have to find someone with one of those modern phone thingies that can upload videos online and put it on Facebook. Even then it hasn't ended, as I'm expected to spread the challenge, like a virus, to people that I'd rather keep as friends.
To be honest, I have no strong objection to having a bucket of ice thrown over my head per se, except that I do not want to be a sheep and simply do something because everyone else seems to. How can I maintain an individual identity if I conform? If everyone jumped off Culver Cliff, it wouldn't even occur to me to join in. If no-one else had ever done the ice bucket challenge, I'd be more inclined to do so as then I would be different, but the first I heard of this thing is when a BBC news report showed a video of George W Bush doing it. I don't think anything was more likely to put me off considering it for a moment more than that.
Naturally I do not object to raising money for charities and have decided to do something actually challenging to raise money for charity instead. I have signed up to do the 10-mile1 Great South Run instead. That's more of a challenge.
And I would like to nominate to feel free to do the activity of their choice for charity too, but only if they want to.
