So how has your morning gone so far? Bit slippery on the pavement was it? Perhaps the train was delayed by a dead wasp on the line? Maybe the girl at the coffee shop didn't pump enough foam into your cherry latte? Or maybe the boyfriend sneezed over your grape and apple muesli and you can't sort the snot from the 5-a-day...... Is life really that bad in Britain? OK, it can be a bit of ball-ache sharing an island with plebs, but spare just 2 minutes for the poor sods in Haiti right now. They haven't even got pavements or trains anymore because half the earth decided to cave in and swallow their villages.

The excessive and traumatic earthquake that has struck the Caribbean island has already claimed the lives or livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people. All this in a country with the worst poverty in the Western Hemisphere - that's not 'poor' as in short of a few bob for the fruit machine on a Friday, but deep-set poverty brought about by shoddy governments and hurricanes.

They need a bit of help over there and the ball is already rolling. Oxfam has begun an emergency fund-raising program that will help offset some of the initial devastation. Hundreds of aid-workers are already compiling rations and stocks of food and medicine but this takes a huge chunk of cash.

In 2002, Coldplay's Chris Martin and Emily Eavis visited Haiti to experience the brutal living standards for themselves (as part of a coffee-farmers convention with Oxfam) - this has obviously been exaggerated with recent events. The pair have donated cash towards the new cause - why not do the same today? Glastonbury will actively raise money through various events in the coming weeks.

The Oxfam website is at www.oxfam.org.uk

Give up that after-work beer for a week or walk/ cycle to work and donate what you have saved. It's a pretty raw deal in Haiti right now.