The lockdown stripathon: why Hollywood stars and BBC reporters are suddenly getting saucy
Name: Sexy charity fundraisers.
Age: 21. The phenomenon can be traced back to the runaway success of the naked calendar produced by the ladies of the Rylstone Women’s Institute in North Yorkshire, who stripped for a cancer charity in 1999.

Appearance: Naked, of course. And ubiquitous in the age of lockdown.

So who’s at it? Well, there’s Emma Vardy for a start.

The footballer’s wife? That’s Rebekah Vardy. Try to keep up. Emma is the BBC’s Ireland correspondent. She allowed her boyfriend to post a spoof sex video that they made showing her singing along in bed to Queen’s I Want to Break Free in an effort to raise money for the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic.
How did the BBC react? They were not overly pleased. They told her to remove the clip and warned their staff of the dangers of overexposure on social media.

I blame Comic Relief for all this. Agreed, although disrobing for charity is not exclusively British. The American actor Ansel Elgort has also got in on the act by posting a picture of himself naked in the shower to help to feed healthcare workers in Brooklyn.
How unseemly. “Sorry if I offended anybody, but we did a good thing,” the actor told his critics. His efforts have so far raised more than $200,000 (£160,000).

I fear there will be more of this self-exposure. Indeed. A group of men in Mansfield have announced they will be stripping off for a charity calendar in aid of their local hospital.
What’s with all the lockdown nudity? It seems the boredom of quarantine has led to a surge in sexting, with everyone photographing themselves in the nude and sending the pictures to friends.

No one has sent any to me, thank God. What a dull life you lead. There is even a campaign called “Nudes for Heroes” to get us to post naked pictures of ourselves on OnlyFans, a subscription service popular with adult performers, to raise money for NHS workers.
It all seems a long way from the dear old Calendar Girls. Perhaps they were inspired by the American Instagram model Kaylen Ward, who raised about $1m for victims of the Australian bushfires earlier this year by sending nude photographs of herself to people who donated at least $10.

Not to be confused with. Captain Tom Moore, 99, who has raised nearly £30m for the NHS by walking lengths of his garden, fully clothed throughout.

Do say: “It’s all for a good cause.”

Don’t say: “I hope Huw Edwards hasn’t got wind of this.”