Blanket coverage for Bono
Unfortunately with the wrong kind of blanket.
Bono is very busy; hassling world leaders, campaigning, singing in an American accent.
“You may not know much about it, but I bet you RECKON something”
(David Mitchell)
Celebrity opinions are just like any other opinions, but more passionate.
“Celebrity opinions are just like any other opinions, but more passionate. ”
Blimey, I wouldn’t want to be in Bono’s gusset.
“Everyone’s got Y-fronts…but mine have their own seat in first class” (Bono, speaking yesterday exclusively to a BBC nonce in a public lavvy cubicle, in a voice like the David Steel puppet off ‘Spitting Image’).
R
You should go easy on Bono,after all he was married to Cher.
“In ‘Dead Aid’ by Dambisa Moyo (in which she argues that Western Aid has been an unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster for most parts of the Western World) , the Zambian lawyer coins the withering phrase ‘Glamour Aid’ to dismiss the lobbying efforts of the Live Aid musicians and other celebrities. Now, while I am intrigued by her assessment of the problem, I would argue with her radical solutions (essentially cut all aid in five years and start issuing high interest government bonds instead) and her dismissal of the motivation, genuine effort and actual results of Geldof, Bono et al. But I nonetheless had some sympathy with the Zambian lawyer when she snapped in an interview this week: “How would British people feel if tomorrow Michael Jackson started telling them how they should get out of the housing crisis? Or if Amy Winehouse started to give the US government advice about the credit crunch? And was listened to?”
jimbob 9:38
Moyo is quite right. Idiots like Geldof, Bono et al. are too self-centred and insensitive to realise how it must feel for black Africans to be patronised by them.
“Glamour Aid”, indeed !
I actually call them Gandalf and Bozo. More appropriate.
Sarah jane. Thanks for the précis on Atlas’ post. I couldn’t bother to read it myself so you spared me. Not that I’d have read it anyway. I can’t bear the thought of a man being locked away in his nan’s basement for such a long period time he actually thinks his psychosis is normal.
Yes conspiracies everywhere Atlas. So smart they all are but not so smart they can’t shut you up for revealing all their dreaded secrets.
God I’ve just turned over to BBC 2 to watch the latest Liebour party broadcast (Newsnight) and it’s sodding U2 again.
Piss off Bozo you twat.
U2 – proof that you can fool most of the people all of the time. Saw them before they were famous – they were grindingly dull then and they’ve only got worse over the intervening three decades.
At the moment U2, twitter, Scumbag Milliner, and the supposed innocence of Binyam Mohamed seem to be the only things of interest to BBC Radio.
Rob Santiago writes: “At the moment U2, twitter, Scumbag Milliner, and the supposed innocence of Binyam Mohamed seem to be the only things of interest to BBC Radio.”
Well, it keeps McBean’s destruction of the British economy off the air, doesn’t it?
Ricky Martin | 24.02.09 – 11:10 am |
It’s too good to be true. Snopes already debunked it.
Rob 11:10
I think that , because U2’s music is so boring, the only way they can get publicity is through Bono’s political activism and, of course , the BBC fall for it.
This deal with U2 and the BBC is missing the point, I think. There is an important Charter violation issue here, but it’s not what Nigel Evans is talking about. It’s also not really even about BBC bias towards Boner because of their shared passion for enriching African dictators. They may love him for it, and that may be a factor in why they’re pulling out all the stops for the band, but it’s not the real issue this time. I’m sure at least as many Beeboids who love him for his Africa-mongering have been huge fans of the music since they were angsty teenagers in body as well as in spirit.
The band has a new album out, and so is doing the publicity rounds, just like anyone else. It’s the same thing whenever a new movie comes out: the movie stars do a whole day (or more) of studio hopping. They hit morning TV, morning and afternoon radio, then go to the afternoon taping of an evening talk show or two. So, we see them on all the channels, for what seems like a week. In this context, I don’t see much of a problem with the BBC providing too much publicity for U2, since the band would get that much across the spectrum in a fair market anyway.
Except, that is, when there’s a monopoly like the BBC. In this case, the fact that U2 will be on several different channels, both radio and TV, is a superficial detail. In reality, the BBC has an extremely unfair advantage over all other media outlets. In this case, the license fee is only a secondary issue, as they’re not paying huge sums of money to get U2 into the studio. But, the license fee has enabled the BBC to become the leviathan that it is, with a hugely disproportionate market position. Not only that, but there’s that trusted-for-generations national broadcaster thing, which no other media outlet can ever touch.
It’s not U2’s fault that they’re appearing on so many different BBC programmes. In a healthy commercial environment – and one in which the state broadcaster did not voraciously abuse its position – they’d be on all the networks, not just several channels owned by only one. It’s the BBC’s fault, taking advantage of its special position to monopolize the commercial market. This is beyond what the license fee is for, and a violation of their remit.
That’s odd – no sign of this non-pro-Bono story at the BBC :
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090226/ten-u2-robbing-world-s-poor-ea4616c.html
Oh that’s why – it is an ITN story :
http://itn.co.uk/news/0180a3d353573ee6351633dcba65080a.html