Poor Bob Geldof- You Need to Diversify....

One of the more amusing stories of the week's news has come from Italy, where, it is reported, Bob Geldof was forced to cancel two gig dates after less than 400 tickets were sold; and indeed, the Grand Old Man of Boomtown refused to go on stage on one 12,000 seat arena when there were only 45 people in the audience.

This is at first rather sad; after everything he's done, trying his damnedest to rid the planet of hunger, poverty, and unfair trade, no-one can be bothered to go and see him do what he first made his name for, good old fashioned rock'n'roll.

That's entirely the point, though, and one that Bob himself has clearly missed- he went backwards. He obviously felt a nostalgic delving back into his musical roots would be a fun thing to do, and no doubt it would have been- had he found anyone else who cared. Perhaps in his local pub, he may have done. But on a tour of Italy- one would imagine not one of the Boomtown Rats' strongholds of support at any time- perhaps he over-reached.

What he needed to do was move forwards. Not in any genuine, purposeful sense, but to anything new- think about the raft of reality TV shows he could have perhaps joined. Imagine him as an elder statesman on Love Island. Or sharing a pig-sty combat ring with Archbishop Rowan Williams, Bobby Davro and Ann Widdecombe on a new hybrid of Celebrity Wrestling and The Farm. The possibilities, as TV executives keep showing us, are damn near endless.

Another asset Geldof has, of course, is his offspring. Peaches Geldof is making her mark in society despite her tender years, and perhaps he could harness some of her evident popularity in a kind of Father & Daughter Tag Team Gladiators. On Ice. This would be a new way to see him, something the public would no doubt want.

The sad fact for Bob- dear, dear Sir Bob- is that he took a nostalgic step backwards when the world is crying out for new celebrity idiots to lose weight, beat lumps out of each other, kiss each other in a small wooden wendy-house on an island, or otherwise humiliate themselves.

It may of course not be a sad fact at all, however- perhaps, encouragingly for Statesman Geldof, he is just taken too seriously by the world as a charity campaigner for them to be particularly interested in how his singing voice has lasted the years. The magnitude of his achievements on the charity front far outweight his achievements in music, and he should be rightly proud of himself for that; perhaps the lack of numbers at his gigs should be taken as a compliment?

Imagine, if you will, Tony Blair reforming Ugly Rumours, his band from University days. Thousands would turn up, out of curiosity and fascination with the Prime Minister making himself look silly- people desperate for new and interesting ways to take aim at the PM would have a field day. If I were Bob Geldof, I'd be thinking that the failure of his musical tour merely shows him that, unlike Blair, people aren't so interested in finding ways to make fun of him. And if they respect him in his modern-day role as a one-man global pressure group- a very high-profile position- then he should be pleased. Let's face it, he wasn't that great a singer anyway. We all love "I don't like Mondays", but his back catalogue is far from inspiring.

The answer to Bob is this: stick to what you're good at, or try something entirely new that you're unlikely to be good at. That's what people will be interested in. Going backwards, as true in this case as ever, is never the way forwards. Especially when you've only got one famous song....

Why Shouldn't Party Donors Have Knighthoods?

Today's Labour Government is, as we are persistently being told, in turmoil- and not least of which among the reasons is that a scandal has erupted around party funding. The Government is accused of a "Cash for Honours" scenario- where their party donors are rewarded by a place in the Honours List.

The Honours List is an opportunity to reward those who have given great service to their particular field- and by doing so have helped the country in some way. So, the victorious 2003 Rugby World Cup Team were honoured; as have numerous footballers. However the same prestige is given to lollipop ladies who have given decades of service to their local community; headteachers, councillors, charity workers, and many more walks of life besides. Often in amongst these worth folk spring up the names of rich successful business people who can be honoured for "Services to Industry" or the like.

The accusation is, however, that rather than being congratulated and recognised for their "Service to Industry", these people are being honoured for something else- for having given part of their wealth to the government as party donors, and are being directly rewarded with a title. The precedent for the legal investigation that seems to have followed is Maundy Gregory, who in 1925, set up an office where he literally did sell honours to all-comers. An OBE for £100 sounds like a decent deal; it obviously was at the time, too, as 25,000 are reputed to have been sold. This is all a bit silly really though, isn't it? It's hardly the same.

If a rich steel magnate wants to give money to the political party he supports, then good for him. Figures released last week detailing the 25m worth of debt incurred by the last General Election suggests that there could be few causes that would need the money more; and although certainly our hypothetical magnate might expect to hold a bit of sway in return for his contribution, so what? If he's so willing to give money to the cause, he obviously thinks the party to be at least competent; and if so, he probably doesn't expect to gain all that much influence
because of his generosity, else the party themselves wouldn't be worth supporting.

As Marcel Berlins of the Guardian wrote last week, aren't people who give the gift of finance to a political campaign more use to it than people who simply ponce around giving "the gift of rhetoric"? Why should the financial donors be frowned on as though they're engaging in some seedy practise, when in fact they're being genuinely useful? And if money is all they have to give, then who should stop them? You can't just think up millions, they're earned- and it's alot harder to give out cheques with multiple zeroes on them than it is to give out soundbites and verbal support.

Newspapers this month have been busy lauding Warren Buffet, super-billionaire in the classic American mould, who plans to give away his fortue to the Gates Foundation, which, set up by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, gave (for example) $287 in one go for aids vaccines. An excellent cause, one of the most admirable foundations, founded by an incredibly admirable man (Gates) and now supported by another (Buffet).

Would we have liked him so much if he'd been British and given a few of his millions to the Labour party? Philanthropy's a noble and admirable thing- surely an act worthy of a place in the UK Honours List. Yet giving to the political party of your choice has now become a filthy, dirty thing to do.

Certainly post-Cash for Questions and post-Major, it's understandable. But during the discussion over whether parties should be forced to name their donors, it was illuminating to see the dismayed reactions from some donors involved. Some said they would withdraw support after being named- some said they'd have turned down an MBE if it had been offered to them. Perhaps it is these shadey donors who'd rather stay in the dark, pulling strings from behind with their financial muscle, that should be frowned on- not the actual act of giving to a political party.

If you don't want to be named, don't give millions to a party. And if you get honoured for it, all well and good- the Honours system is widely regarded as an archaic one, and the benefit of being honoured is questionable, especially when they're given to someone who has already climbed the slippery pole of British industry. Give them a Knighthood if you want, it's unlikely to make an awful lot of difference! Although it is just conceivable that there may be some Lib Dem donors out there who simply want their names off-record for reasons of pure, simple, unadulterated embarrassment....

Jean Charles Menezes must be remembered; and as one of us.

Today's date cannot have escaped your notice. 7/7 is now the most emotive date in the calendar of the British consciousness; it is synonymous with sadness, loss, and pure, bitter shock. Yet it must also be said that in the year that has passed, there has been much we can be proud of; shows of strength, resilience, and fortitude. London's circulatory system, if you'll allow the analogy, was hit hard- but its heart beats stronger than ever.Today, as around the country, we observed a two minutes' silence in memory of the victims, their families and their loved ones.

Dozens were killed on three trains and one bus around London. The nation stopped; this was our 9/11.However the week after 7/7, there was a second attack; one that mercifully failed in its aim of echoing the first wave of attacks. We can be proud of London's response to this second attempted assault, and also the Police's reactions- a Europe-wide manhunt for the failed bombers was successful and brought them to justice, plucked from London flats and an Italian hideout to face justice. The search was relentlessly pursued, and during this search, constant news updates followed the search's every lead- and as they were reeled in, we felt safe again.

Yet in this furious search for these unsuccessful second wave bombers, there was a casualty- a young, innocent Brazilian named Jean Charles De Menezes. Lest we forget, he was shot dead at point-blank range at Stockwell Tube Station; the most bitter tragedy after his own was that it was a Police Officer who shot him. He was caught up as a suspect in the frenzied Police activity that followed both 7/7 and the follow-up.In these times of instant-gratification justice and blame, who on Earth do we point the finger at?

It is simplistic and straightforward to blame the Police; criticism have ranged through trigger-happy, bungling, all the way to institutionally inept. Yet the same Police service, all things considered, managed to reel in four desparately dangerous men- people who had proved themselves willing to strap explosives to their body, and detonate them, purely to harm others.I personally don't think any of us can know what goes through the head of a Police Officer confronted with the possiblity that they may be the only person able to stop a suicide bomber; the adrenaline, fear, and responsibility is something noone could ever be prepared for. A mistake was made; a tragic mistake.

But let us remember Jean-Charles Menezes as a victim of 7/7, or of the follow-up attack- not simply a victim of the Police. He deserves to be thought of as a part of this nation, part of the glorous multicultural patchwork that makes Britain what it is; he was taken from us too, by circumstances created by four men with rucksacks, trying to change the world for the worse.

Let us also remember the human stories that have moved us since; the priest who gave up her job because she found she simply could not forgive the bombers that killed her daughter. You can only hope that she reconciles her faith and her situation; if not, she becomes another tragedy to add to the list.As we observed our two minutes' silence, we remembers everyone lost on that awful day. Yet the fallout claimed one more victim; he should have been in our thoughts today. If not, then mark the 22nd of July with a moment's reflection on another tragic victim of Terrorism in the UK. He deserves our thoughts; and let us think of him as one of us.

Hillary Clinton, the blogger, doggers, and a whole boatload of jargon...

People in the UK tend to look at American Politics with a slightly snooty, raised-eyebrows kind of condescension, and let's be honest for us to be so dismissive of the political engine driving the biggest economy in the world is, at best, patronising, and at worst, pig-headedly arrogant.But- and there is indeed quite a "but"- we have to concede that American politics doesnt do itself many favours; and as a simple example, take their President, the erstwhile Mr Bush Jr. Competent and passionate he may be; surrounded by a well-stocked cabinet of political thought he may also be (that's not for this article to comment on, however). Yet as a representative of his nation, he is undoubtedly far from eloquent and hardly a figure of dynamism; when we think of all that is synonymous with the American nation, he doesn't quite seem to fit.

The main focus of this post, however, is another example of US Politics appearing slightly out of kilter. Hillary Clinton's recent recruitment of a leading political blogger, Peter Daou, as part of her "team", presumably in the run up to her seemingly inevitable run at the White House, is on the surface not a bad move. Daou himself has written on his Daou Report that he wishes to "close the triangle"- meaning his perception of the three prongs of mainstream media, the political establishment, and.... here it comes.... "the blogosphere".While it may seem odd for me to write, in a "blog", to criticise the use of the word, I just don't feel it lends any credibility to the man or what he can no doubt bring to the Democratic Party.He calls his mission "joining Senator Clinton’s team as a blog advisor to facilitate and expand her relationship with the netroots". Why must he use such ridiculous, convoluted net-jargon to describe his post- he is now moving into the mainstream media, which may find it hard to take him seriously if he insists on using such language.

We all know what he means, of course. Perhaps he is just a little bit too wrapped up in the "blogosphere" to realise that outside of its keen and committed enthusiasts, such terms aren't going to win him any fans, and indeed I can imagine that some prospective readers of his online missives could be put off by him speaking as though representing an online cult of "bloggers".Maybe in the UK we find a problem with the term "blogger" because of its alphabetical proximity to "dogger"- one who drives to shady spots at night to engage in anonymous sex acts with strangers of a similar disposition. Just a thought.

My main point is this, however; the man is a political consultant. He talks at length on his site about how he tries to fuse the two worlds- the world of the blogger, and the world of the consultant. Is he too stubbornly steeped in his own jargon that he can't call himself Sen. Clinton's "online outreach consultant", or something else that would actually mean something in the real world?Just like President Bush seems slightly incongruous when we look at the nation he is meant to stand for, the idea of a man being drafted into a Presidential Candidate's inner circle using words like "blogosphere" just doesn't sit right.

It either seems like a good idea but wrong choice of man (perhaps Sen. Clinton will take Daou to one side and give him a heads-up that he sounds like a teenage computer games enthusuiast) or a fairly cynical attempt to bring Daou, a well respected man in his field, "on-side".The commendable but sad thing is, you can't help but feet Daou's earnestness in everything he writes.I hope for his sake that he gets to bring his points of view to a whole new crop of "netroots" enthusiasts. I just wish he wouldn't call them that....

Pete Doherty: Learn from Russell Brand

The nature of celebrity and fame throws up all kinds of moralistic outrage these days. For the last two years the UK has been treated to a one-man show of car crash TV, tabloid intrusion and rock-n-roll excess from the ex-frontman of The Libertines, Pete Doherty.

Widely condemned for rolling from shambolic, heroin-soaked gigs to drugs den, to rehab, and all the way back again via numerous run-ins with the police, he has become a figure of hatred, idolisation and fascination for all manner of folk. If you are twenty years too old to care about his band, you can still shake your head at his disgusting excesses. If you are twenty years too young to remember Jim Morrison, he's the rock idol the world has arguably been missing since Michael Hutchence passed away; a pied piper of disaffected youth to today's generation.But since being arrested and convicted on a myriad of drugs charges and misdemeanours, and even lashing out at a BBC Radio reporter outside a courtroom, he has lost his way entirely.

He has always been interesting to watch; he formed The Libertines, they became a phenomenon, and then was forced to disband them after his drug use spiralled out of control. He formed Babyshambles and watched them descend into an even worse melee of excess ; it was The Libertines with yes-men who couldn't throw him out.The irony of it all is that those fans who were with him from the beginning simply don't view him in the same way anymore. He isn't a Libertine anymore, not in the way he used to be. His dissolute behaviour and lack of restraint was an enchanting call-to-arms to thousands of young fans. Now they hold him with affection, but the affection of a cousin or friend who's lost their way. He isn't idolised anymore, he is pitied. A significant proportion of a generation has its fingers crossed for him; but for too many of them, his aim isn't to entertain them or enchant them any more.

Doherty has always been idealistic, and his fragile persona betrays a naiive and sensitive soul as much as it does his clever songwriting and talent as a wordsmith. Now it seems he is all too committed to writing himself into legend, except that with the only sporadic successes of his music, all he has left is the "Live fast, Die Young" mentality that has claimed too many of the world's great entertainers.The fads and phases created by the tabloid and magazine media's peaks and troughs of taste and decency have created a new hero, of sorts- one equally tainted by drugs, debauchery and self-indulgence and all without Doherty's air of innocence to lend him the excuse of being a young pup led astray.

No, the current flavour of the month is none other than Russell Brand, the fiercely verbose and intelligent comedian and host of E4's Big Brother's Big Mouth talk show and also MTV's 1 Leicester Square, both shows where he and his surreality have total sway over the audience.Brand, in many ways, should never have made it back to his current level- he was sacked from MTV once before, for arriving in to work dressed as Osama bin Laden on September 12th, 2001. Crass, drug-fuelled and arrogant, he could never claim to have been led astray- he always seemed too clever for such an excuse to wash.Yet, despite the fact that most of his audience (on the E4 show at any rate) will struggle to understand him- references to philosophy, classics, and literature abound at any moment Brand feels the urge- he is everybody's favourite. He has even been linked romantically with Doherty's obsession, the Supermodel Kate Moss- and the world is his oyster. Even she, after her own drugs scandals and the loss of numerous high-profile contracts, has come back even more of a success after rehab and a rethink.

The message to Doherty is simple- a downward spiral and glorious exit isn't the only way to make it from here. Since his disastrous Live 8 performance, and subsequent performances at court, there has been a sickening inevitablity about his demise. Yet surely, if Russell Brand shows us anything, it's that people love fighters- careers resurrected by sheer force of will and talent. We love Brand for his pluckiness, the fact that he has blown every chance he's had before this, and yet is grasping his good fortune with both hands.

If Doherty can acquire some of the spine Russell Brand has exhibited, then his place in his old fans' affections will be cemented. His mewling vulnerability isn't doing him any good any more- the only people who care are folks who like the image of all that debauchery without ever needing to go near it, and a whole new fan base of young teenage girls, looking for a controversial figure to idolise, without the slightest care as to what he's saying to them.Every drug-influenced lyric, every abandoned gig, every court appearance- it's all worth nothing it he doesn't come out of the end of it.

James Dean was an icon, but only made three movies where he appeared on the credits. Go back to rehab. Sort yourself out. Cement your place in the nation's consciousness that way; after all, Russell and Kate both did it.

What would the British media do to Zinedine Zidane?

On Sunday night, the World Cup of football- or soccer, for those of you that way inclined- was won by Italy. This, however, is not even the main story of the night. Nor is the fact that it is the fourth time "the Azzuri" have won it, putting them one win behind Brazil. No, the night's intrigue centred, as so many times before, on Zinedine Zidane.

Universally regarded as a genuis, voted the player of the tournament by FIFA's committee, darling of the French people- he managed to score his nation's only goal in the first 90 minutes of play, and then get himself sent off for what amounted to a pretty grave physical assault on an Italian player. A running head-butt to the chest was delivered with sickening force to the sternum of Marco Matterazzi, who coincidentally had scored Italy's only goal just a few minutes after Zidane had scored his.

The issue I wish to discuss here is not whether he did was right or not; not whether Matterazzi's blatant mischievious baiting of Zidane was as reprehensible as the subsequent attack, or whether Zidane, in his last ever match, has ruined his own legacy and tainted his own career. Even now, only two days after that fateful night in Berlin, the French people are rallying to support Zidane- the Champs d'Elysees bore numerous messages of adoration for Zidane, whose role is now of fallen hero, rather than the pantomime villain you would expect had be been the English captain. The English captain of this tournament was, of course, David Beckham. Back in 1998, as a precocious youngster, he was sent off for a petulent flick-kick at a nearby standing Argentinian player, while Beckham himself was prostrate on the ground.

This dismissal, warranted or not, earned him the position of Public Enemy number one for a long time. Voodoo dolls were created and burned while the national tabloid media orchestrated an effective hate campaign against him for allegedly ruining England's chances of winning the World Cup that year. Beckham himself has come full circle, of course. Just two years after his ordeal and subsequent trial by tabloid, he was named England captain in a surprise move that stuck well, and can on balance be considered a success. Yet Zidane, by physically attacking an opponent three-quarters of the way through a World Cup Final, as Captain, disgraced himself on a far larger stage, with a much higher stake- his crime (and it was a crime, against football, sportsmanship, and his nation's hopes) was all the more disgusting for that; and more to the point, far more serious than Beckham's was.

What, had it been England and Beckham in that final and not France and Zidane, would have become of the disgraced captain? The answer is simple. Our snide red-topped arbiters of national mood would have banded together once again to form a journalistic lynch mob; pulling the strings like cowardly puppeteers hiding behind their by-line, and letting the passion of the nation's supporters do their work for them. In short, "Beckingham Palace", as Beckham's country pile is known, would have been burned to the ground. It wouldn't be safe for him to return for quite some time. Maybe there is more than a hint of resentment over Beckham's shrewd playing of the fame game, he being the pioneer of "image rights" in football contracts, and using himself and his own sporting profile as a marketing tool on a scale hitherto unseen. Footballers from the 60's onwards have been used for advertising- Brut, Brylcreem, all stalwarts of Sunday League changing rooms, have used footballers- but never quite like Beckham.

Contrast this with Zidane; not only did he perform such a reprehensible act on the biggest stage in the world, but as he was dismissed and walked to the dressing room, showed nothing in the way of emotion. He had the same arrogant look in his eye that he has always had; the same one he had while lifting the World Cup Trophy in 1998, and the same one he still wore while headbutting a Champions' League opponent a few years later, earning him a five-match ban.

The British media would have pilloried him even more for the sheer arrogance of his appearance as he left the field- at least Beckham would have had the decency to cry or at least look disappointed. Zidane yesterday enjoyed a reception with the French President, where he was treated still as a national treasure, and told he was a "man of the heart". Only a handful of French commentators have come out in open criticism of Zidane, even then preferring to bemoan the "shattered dreams of a nation" rather than pursuing an open campaign of targeted blame.

While this sickly adoration of their talismanic Captain seems misplaced given his track record of nastiness and the gravity of his most recent and terminal act, we must surely reflect that it would be preferable to the vicious attack-mode thatwould have swept England had the same happened. And no Englishman would like to admit it- but perhaps the French are simple better losers than we are?