LIVE 8: THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

We'd already reported that less than two days after Live 8, Geldof's celeb management team at Kruger Cowne had whacked up photos of him and Birhan Woldu onto his 'hire the humanitarian' website; now, it turns out, they've virtually doubled the cost of getting Geldof to your event, happening, or lecturn:

"We reassessed his fees after Live 8. We have about 20 people on our books, including Gordon Ramsay and Ruby Wax but Geldof is absolutely the most in demand. Everyone wants him.

"We upped his fees to £50,000 and now we are in New York arranging a talk tour for him across America."

Now, what was the phrase that Geldof used to describe people making a couple of hundred quid flogging tickets on Ebay? "Making filthy money off the back of the poorest people in the world", we seem to recall.

Intrestingly, Youssou N'Dour popped up on Today last week expressing the hope that Bob and Bono might find a couple of hours to help pull together a benefit single for those caught in the Niger Crisis - oddly, he doesn't seem to have been called back by them yet. On the programme, John Humphrys asked N'Dour why, when the Niger situation was already at a crisis point when Live 8 happened, nobody thought to mention it during the concert. The question was ducked by N'Dour - understandably, as it really should have been directed at Bob-Bono. Why was Bono waving his ducky suitcase around making jokes about golfing with world leaders when people were starving to death - sure, Live8 had another agenda, but... couldn't someone have at least taken the chance to bring another humanitarian crisis to the attention of the watching world? Or would that have harmed the prices on the after-dinner speakers circuit?

music bob geldof live 8 live8