Now that the universities are on holiday the Brittox in Devizes has once again become a gauntlet of charity collectors.

You know the type, they hang around in tabbards waving clipboards and pounce on people as they go to get their sandwiches at lunchtime.

Their opening gambit is usually something along the lines of: "Do you know a little girl in Africa will die of starvation while you are eating that sandwich?"

This is supposed to guilt you into signing a direct debit form for £10 a month to allow you to eat your lunch without being haunted by the thought of the little girl.

I have now developed a knack of saying "no thanks" before they breathe the first syllable of their guilt salvo. I can usually throw that out and get a good ten yards away before they can wave a picture of an old lady with catarracts in my face.

The other day I was about to be railroaded by a youth brandishing a Shelter leaflet.

I countered with my usual escape clause phrase and he gave me a filthy look like I'd just stamped on his tortoise.

I asked him why he was looking at me like that and he replied: "I'll look at you like that if you aren't going to be nice to me."

Excuse me, I thought, are we married? I would venture that if you want people to be nice to you then don't become a charity stalker.

I assume these people must pay dividends, I can't understand why else charities would risk the damage to their image. Why do they have to be so aggressive? Is giving so far down that they really need to be so in our faces?