Charity Mugger British Bulldogs

A technique, to be adopted en masse by massed shoppers on advent high streets, whereby said shoppers can minimise the risk of being accosted by forcedly enthusiastic twentysomethings hell-bent on making a living wage by denuding your bank details for the purposes of direct monthly bank payments to whatever charity has employed their services this Saturday. The technique is modeled, with some tweaks, upon the classic and now-banned UK schoolyard game of British Bulldogs, in which a hapless Last Pick is made to stand in the middle of said yard while the remainder of the players (who usually number in the plenty) charge past screaming "British Bulldog!", "Charge!" or, indeed, "Waaarrrrrgghggh!", depending on levels of frenzy, the Last Pick having to stop one of the charging party making it across the playground, thereby bringing this usually rugby tackled unfortunate onto his Side, whereupon the charging recommences.

I am not proposing that every charging shopper successfully accosted by a Charity Mugger should throw of his or her current occupation and become a CM, rather I am suggesting that a collectivist Pictish battlecharge approach (complete with flailing shopping bags) will improve CM-bypass success rates by rendering impossible their current one-at-a-time sniper technique. It will also create (a) interesting foot traffic patterns in pedestrianised areas and (b) periods of "High Noon"-style tension in otherwise drudgetastic shopping trips.

School uniform optional.