Before I set foot on English tarmac I would have said that a 'Chugger' was a fast drinker - someone who regularly engaged in 'chugging'. If my alcohol-impaired memory serves me correctly, chugging is the act of gulping down a large quantity of fluid, usually alcoholic, and even more usually surrounded by students...or at least those of student age. The more boisterous of the group might compose a chant for the occasion - something along the lines of 'Chug! Chug! Chug!' is often a popular choice.
I soon learnt this wasn't the case. Londoners don't need to wait for or stop at their tertiary education in order to imbibe their own body weight in alcohol. Moreover the person not drinking is more likely to be singled out for a nickname than the many that are.
Chugger, of course, is the name coined by the Metro, and quickly taken up by everyone else, for the 'Charity Mugger'. These are the people who further clutter up an already cluttered High St, desperately trying to make eye contact so that they can charm you out of £3 a month for some or other dubious cause: saving the rainforest or some other such nonsense...
For those who didn't spot the tongue in the cheek of that last paragraph, I'm not anti Chuggers. At least I'm certainly not anti-charity. Moreover I'm amazed that so many people seem to be so, repeating, as they tend to, spurious arguments about how everyone knows all charity money goes on expensive stationery or supporting warlords. If I had a pound for every time I heard one of these dreadful arguments I'd empty a valuable handful into the next charity bucket I saw...except they don't have buckets any more do they? They want your bank details, so in fact I would just be about £20 better off. I have neither the space nor the eye-rolling energy to dissect why these arguments are nonsense, but they are. If you don't want to part with £3 a month to help build a Starbucks in the third world then don't, but don't pretend this was a moral rather than a parsimonious decision.
So I'm taking the previous point as a given. You/ We/ I don't want to give money because we don't want to, simple. We feel like we can't afford it. It's not like most of us are that short of money though. When a middle-class child comes banging at your door in late October dressed as one of the killers from the Scream franchise and demands a mortgage's worth of organic chocolates lest they vandalise your house, you think they're adorable and swiftly empty your pantry into their already full rucksack of goodies. Conversely when a badly paid Chugger asks you for a minute of your time to help starving East African children who really do need your help, they're a pain in the afternoon. We seem to treat competing causes (if you can really call trick-or-treaters a 'cause') like prospective lovers. In either case neediness is always an unattractive quality.
I think the Chugger needs a makeover. He/ She (it's often hard to tell) needs a week on The Apprentice learning a few more tricks than Hey, like your sunglasses! Have you got a minute for Darfur? They need to sell their product the way other salespeople sell theirs; that is making you think a hungry child is something you need in your life, not just giving you another story about how malnourished Greenpeace volunteers have to walk fifty miles to get decent wi-fi. We're a cynical lot and in a crowded charity market people will soon feel flustered with the array of clipboard causes lining up for their signatures. How are people going to decide between prudish pandas and greenhouse gases? Pretty soon they'll just ask 'what's in it for me?'
The other problem for the Chugger is timing: it really is everything. Charities almost always seem to catch you at a bad moment - on your way to or from work or during your lunch break. If you don't work in an office and are therefore more likely to be wandering the streets during office hours, you get pestered more than anyone. If WorldVision isn't paying students to bounce on their heels and wave clipboards at people on high streets then they're buying up ads on daytime TV. I could be wrong on this, but if a disproportionate number of people listening to your sales pitch are on the dole, then you really need to rethink your marketing strategy.
Hit people around 6:30/ 7ish, when they're having dinner. They're not on the way anywhere; they're just sitting, watching skinny people whilst making themselves fatter. Perfect! Get rid of the Charity muggers and let's return chugging to where it belongs: in the pub or back on the High Street at one in the morning.