As well as having a good laugh, we are also collecting money for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is the most common neurological disease in the western world – in the UK alone 85000 people carry MS. It affects people’s muscle control, vision, memory and thinking, mood, bladder control, and constitution. It never goes away, and while various treatments and holistic approaches can alleviate the symptoms, it cannot as yet be cured or made easily liveable. But there is hope: Researchers understanding of MS is improving rapidly. Just yesterday Danish researchers announced a major breakthrough in our understanding of why certain genes, normally used as part of our immune system, instead start breaking down myelin, thereby causing MS.

What the 2.5 million people who suffer from MS need is research funding. Unlike other “celebrity” diseases, there is still a stigma attached to MS; patients suffer quietly, in their homes, finding in almost impossible to separate between their symptoms and their reaction to these symptoms. MS is not a disease that attracts funding easily, but you can help and truly make a difference.

Follow our progress on www.munkfish.net/home2rome