does not even come close!

haahhahahah

and to think there are children starving to death in the world this xmas.....

I will spend up to a fiver on a bauble, but as I said earlier, I have a collection of baubles built up over the past 17 or more years. Initially that was padded out with cheaper packs of baubles.

UNICEF also do excellent work in all three countries.

You could make a start. Though considering by one estimate I heard recently, Laos has 1 tonne of unexploded ordinance per citizen.

There are hundreds of clearance and rehabilitation projects (most working on a very small scale - my handbag was made by Cambodian landmine victims. Most are children or agricultural workers or both, and need to be trained in a new trade once they can no longer walk).

This is one, but there are hundreds: http://www.cmac.org.kh/

We actually have a £10 bauble it came from one of those paint-your-own-pottery places we went to once - DS wanted to do a bauble and I had no idea how much it cost until he got started. I love it though. Now that's a one-off.

Otherwise I'm Mrs cheapo bauble - ours are all multipacks, 20 for £3.99 etc.

Could you really do all that for £82,000, ninedragons? Wow. Which charities are doing it? (Not that I was planning to buy the £82,000 bauble so have that kind of cash lying around, but possibly a donation closer in size to my normal bauble outgoings...)

Or make a decent start on clearing Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia of landmines so there are no more 7-year-old double amputees in the world.

That's fucking sick.

You could build a primary school or a maternal health clinic in every village in Laos for that.

(the first one is quite pretty, that is. The second one is hideous)