IT'S NOT EASY being a charity researcher. You might think that we sit here all day, mouthing off [0]and writing charity profiles [0]. But nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, we're often in fear for our sanity - if not our lives - as we feel the world of The Very Angry encroach upon us...

1. The man who said he’d punch us
In the wake of our recent article on donations [1] from Premiership football clubs, an agitated gent claiming to be from "Chelsea Media" left the following hilarious message [2] on Neill’s answering machine. I reckon this qualifies legally as assault. Listen (MP3 clip) [3]

2. Terry Wogan – pride comes afore…
Tel’s response to our Children in Need story [3] in November was clearly a callous cry for attention to his pitiful Sunday Telegraph column [4]. We were deemed “an ‘independent watchdog’ that nobody had ever heard of” (guilty, then) whose actions were ”contemptible”, and a “callous cry for attention… a foul slur on an organisation that, as a trustee, I know to be scrupulous in all its dealings”. Funny coming from the only trustee to be paid (£9000 – by the BBC) for his one day compering CiN, and who seemed surprised when the Mail recently brought the fact to light [5].

3. Christina Noble’s friends
The name of a charity says a lot, and a small children’s charity called The Christina Noble Foundation says it all. Our review of its remarkably uninformative annual report [5] told us a lot about… Christina Noble [6]. And not a lot else. When we alerted the charity to our findings (which we always do), they weren’t too happy and subjected Adam to 20 minutes of violent language ending in a threat of legal action. Haven’t heard from them since.

4. Megan Pacey – our sparring partner
Megan is director of policy and campaigns at the Institute [7] of Fundraising [8] and we tend not to agree on much. In November ’06 she opined [9] that we were “the latest addition to the plethora of website-based, self-appointed ‘charity watchdogs’ [can anyone tell us where the others are?] which use crude and rudimentary league-table-style mechanisms to rate charities.” Subsequent criticisms have followed the same line, although we’re hearing less of Megan these days. Was it something we said?

5. Carole Malone – shock, blah, zzzzzzz...
In her regular bid to reduce the readership of the Sunday Mirror, Malone employed her 800-word column last November [10] to knock down Children in Need before hoisting it onto her shoulders. In a novel journalistic twist she lambasted the “whingers at the charity watchdog Intelligent Giving” and the “carpers” from disabled campaigners who don’t like Pudsey. Contrived and dull. Next!