Today's class: Heroes and Zeros

"Philanthropy" is acting for the betterment of society as a whole. I can think of two great philanthropist examples.

Role Model: Norman Borlaug

The first is the late Norman Borlaug, who scientifically mastered the growth of crops in India, Mexico and other places suffering from shortages. Borlaug is widely credited with saving over a billion lives from starvation. He is widely remembered as a hero, though many are still ignorant of his name and some on the left still reject the GMO engineering utilised by Borlaug or refuse to acknowledge him. That's lefties for you: some of them would rather children starved than see their ideology defied.

Another example of remarkable generosity and humility is Phillip Wollen. Once a top banking executive, he became so shocked by animal cruelty in slaughterhouses and exploitation of child labour that he pledged to give away his fortune via worldwide philanthropic projects. He has stayed true to his word.

Not a role model

These are the kind of people that put the rest of us to shame. They perform such selfless acts that the rest of us know we should endeavour to follow, but don't. They rarely, if ever, seek publicity for their deeds. They help others in the truest sense: without seeking material rewards.

Then, on the opposite end of the spectrum we have the selfish. Not the usual selfish - which most of us can be guilty of imitating at times - but the charlatan selfish, the self-serving, self enriching cretins who profess to be performing each moment of self-gratification in the name of others. Case in point: Russell Brand.

If you're not a British native, you may never have heard of Russell Brand. That's because his attempts to make his name in film have failed utterly due to his abysmal lack of talent. The former drug addict has, however, remained a constant background feature in British media. Russell makes  constant appearances  - usually involving juvenile-level political commentary - and publicity stunts. His most memorable incident occurred on radio when, live, he sang a song to an answerphone of elderly actor Andrew Sachs about having sex with his granddaughter while co-host and friend Jonathon Ross yelled: "He f***ked your granddaughter" down the line. Classy, eh?

Brand is nearly forty, he has vast wealth that includes an impressive car, a very large house that he rents  for 76k GBP from a tax dodging landlord and he has been involved in drugs and pornography. It all sounds very similar to the stereotype corrupt politician doesn't it? However he is perhaps best known for advising young people on politics: usually telling them not to vote, not to pay tax, right wingers are ' fascists' and 'racists' and highlighting 'inequality'. Naturally then, he's an icon of the modern left.

His career highlight surely came this week when Brand managed to perform an "interview" with our possible next Prime Minister, Ed Miliband. The interview was a cringe-worthy as the situation might suggest, with the desperate Ed trying to impersonate a London accent ("That's hard, yeh? But you gotta do it.") , and Brand heavily editing the interview - the opening and closing were clearly devised after Miliband was long gone - and full of the vacuous, pretentious and utterly nonsensical comments sprinkled with big words flowing from Russell. All, of course, performed in the name of a man who would tell you not to vote, that politicians are all out of touch and don't understand what it means to be working class.

It's enough to make me want to type an open letter to Russell Brand. The only problem is I couldn't better the man who Russell spoke to on one of his indignant visits to a bank - supported by a publicity crew - when a chap penned this open letter to him. I can't top that.