BONO: WILL SPOUT FOR CASH

After Mr. Bono had enjoyed his prayer breakfast with President 'doing a lot of good work' Bush on Thursday morning, are you curious how he spent the rest of his day? After all, when you wake up and start telling a bunch of legislators what God wants them to do, filling the evening might prove a bit of a comedown.

Not for Mr. Bono, though - he gave a lecture in the evening. Of course, that he pocketed $95 bucks per person, and there were 3,000 of them. Yes, clearly not content with having enough money to buy most of Europe, Bono felt the need to scrape a few more dollars by being a performing monkey for the American Society of Assocation Executives. Funny that for a man who claims to care about the weakest in society, you only ever see him hanging out with the richest these days.

Now, we're sure those people who believe in Bono would argue that he was delivering an important message to people who are in a position to make a difference, but really? He really thinks that the sort of person who pays ninety-five quid for a ticket to see him is going to take away any message? They'll be on the golf course right now saying "Hey, I saw that Bono last night... yeah, orange glasses this time. That crazy guy... what? What did he say? Something about Africans or something. The starving stuff... no, he didn't sing. I think next time round we're getting Doctor Phil."

There's something slightly sickening about the idea of Bono turning the death of Africans into an after-dinner speech circuit interview for the wealthy and comfortable. The simple question is: how is $285,000 best going to make a difference in the world - being used to pay for 2,600 trainee teachers for a year in a Kenya (which is how Oxfam could use it), or paying for some managers to get the chance to hang out with Bono for a few minutes?

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