GUILT. It’s a pointless emotion. Guilt doesn’t feed anybody. It doesn’t achieve anything. I know this to be true yet with every passing year as the shops swell with pre-Xmas goods and offers, I feel more and more conflicted in my decision making.

Anybody who has any spare funds at this time of year is likely to be deafened by an online and high-street clamour for their cash. If you want to spend money in a socially responsible way, you’re faced with so many choices. Send donations to countries stricken by famine or buy fairtrade roses supporting African farmers that have been imported by a global supermarket?

Support a cottage industry in your own town or sponsor a snow leopard? Buy something from an online shop that is delivered by courier or get on the bus to go to the local shopping centre? The horrible truth is that our shopping choices express our preferences for who and what matters most to us.

Would any of us ignore a three-year-old lying in the street, covered in flies, and struggling to breathe? No.

But when that three-year-old is halfway round the world, it’s easy to just switch the channel to a less distressing reality. The BBC did a report from Somalia’s drought-ravaged camps. It showed dying babies and desperate parents. At the start of the report there was a warning that some viewers might find it upsetting. I’m not sure of the rightness of that warning.

Should we protect people from being distressed by actual news?

I think not. The purpose of our national broadcaster is not just to be an entertainer, it is also to educate and inform. ‘Money makes the world go round’ as the song in the musical Cabaret goes. Certainly, it’s clear at a local level that the more beeswax candles, for example, that we buy that are made in Devon, the more chance there is that those companies will make it through to next year.

But while money may make the world go round, money certainly doesn’t make it all round the world. Millions are going hungry and dying from preventable diseases. UNICEF the global child-rights charity set up by the United Nations have reported that ‘more than 2 million children across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia need urgent treatment for severe acute malnutrition.’

UNICEF state on their website that they have ‘a passion for innovation and a commitment to make every penny count…. when it comes to protecting children’s rights and safeguarding their lives and futures’.

And as ‘many a mickle’ certainly does ‘max a muckle’ then I can only hope that people in their billions will find a penny or two to share with desperate families – in all regions of this increasingly populous world.