Bob Geldof wants you to put your money into bricks and mortar

Like his chum Bono, Bob Geldof isn't just interested in equality and aid; He's also fascinated with making a quick buck out of property.

He's turned up to push a thing called Progressive Property - shill is such an ugly word, isn't it, so let's use that. He shills in the least attractive way possible, by claiming that land-grabbing is exactly what Gandi would do. PlanetyPropetyBlog raises an eyebrow:

They’re a bit like ... Gandhi (I swear, I’m not making this up!)... who, as we all know, was famous for preaching the redeeming qualities of buying Below Market Value.

Then he goes on to laud Germany for its relatively stable housing market – it’s not a casino economy based on property says Bob, because lots of people rent and rents are capped by the Government (“not something you want to hear”, he admits).

Ooops. Quickly changing tack, he then gets back to the flattering stuff (you’re all great entrepreneurs who will save the country!) and slags off the banks for not lending money to property investors and for giving themselves big bonuses.

Hmm. You can watch the full video here; it's rather long and a bit rambling, but in short: free Daily Expresses and Bic-style razors all round...

UKIP about to get knocked down again

I know they're just the BNP, but played for laughs, but who at UKIP thought it would be a good idea to use Chumbawamba as their conference theme song?

Former singer Dunstan Bruce is fuming over the politician's unauthorised use of the pro-anarchy song and admits he will consult lawyers if it continues.

He tells Britain's The Guardian, "This song being used by Ukip is so wrong. I am absolutely appalled that this grubby little organisation are stealing our song to use for their own ends. It's beyond the pale and if they use it again we will consider legal action."

Chumbawamba star Alice Nutter adds, "If ever there was gross misuse of a band's music this is it."

It was Chumbawamba, Farrage. Why would you think that there would be common ground?

Mind you, can you really defend a song about anarchy by going to the courts?

Favourite son: Ireland rallies round Bono

With Bono's moon-june/peanut butter-was a nutter Elvis poem about to find a slot on Radio 4, the wackily-eyeclad one's work has come in for a bit of a lashing.

But today is his birthday, and as a special present, The Irish Independent has rallied up some experts to stick up for Bono as a lyricist:

"Bono has written his fair share of bad lyrics, but when he gets it right his words really stand out. Look at some lines from 'Ultra Violet (Light My Way)': 'When I was all messed up/ And I heard opera in my head/ Your love was a light bulb/ Hanging over my bed.' That's so evocative and works as beautiful writing away from the music. It can stand on its own on the page and, of course, it's even more effective when accompanied by the music."

Although given that's the opinion of Scott Calhoun, who is organising an international U2 conference, it's the admission that there's a "fair share" of bad lyrics which really stands out.

Calhoun -- who has to contend with the bemused reaction of his academic peers when he talks about U2 -- is not afraid to criticise Bono's less inspired moments. "I don't think he works on his lyrics in the pain-staking manner of people like Dylan or Lennon. Often, they change at the last moment and sometimes his words can come across as lazy or very silly. I mean a line like 'some days you can't stand the sight of a puppy' from 'Some Days Are Better Than Others' is pretty difficult to defend."

Yes, the Irish Independent did hyphenate painstaking in that curious way - as if the lyric is something on which you would gamble pain, rather than the more usual "something with which you would take pains to get right".

The most interesting part of the story, though, is this:

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail greeted news of Bono's recitation with unbridled hostility. "Why is the BBC so in love with Bono when he's a dreadful old hypocrite?" Thursday's headline screeched. And Mail journalist Christopher Hart offered his own poem: "Bono in your sunglasses, even when it rains/ Bono in your private jet while the rest of us take trains/ Bono with your tax affairs safely overseas/ Bono, oh will you shut up, please." The poem's title? Bono: Irish Twit. Readers of the paper's Irish edition won't have been able to sample Hart's poetic attempts: it was only published in the UK.

Only the Mail could actually be hypocritical about calling someone a hypocrite.

Sit Down? Shut up, Gordon

Sit Down was a bit of an odd choice for Gordon Brown to come on the stage to anyway, wasn't it? Besides being a song that reeks of student discos from nearly twenty years ago, isn't it a bit of a terse message to be giving the masses?

Anyway, Tim Booth isn't happy that it was used at all:

"We have always been supportive of the Labour Party, as well as Greenpeace, Amnesty and CND, but obviously the machinations of a desperate politician trying to restore unity by using our song is not something we are totally behind."

Oddly, NME.com describe 'organisation playing record' as an "incident" which perhaps overplays it.

Booth thinks that Brown missed the point:

"The song is about unity and that's obviously how Brown is trying to use it. But it's about unity of people and spirit rather than healing the divisions of political parties."

Is unity why Brown chose it, though? Perhaps it's the lines "now I've swung back down again, it's worse than it was before/ if I hadn't seen such riches I could live with being poor..."

iTunes "too expensive"

Laurence Trifon is covering the Bandwidth digital music conference for Hypebot; they launched today by inviting four young people to talk about the way they collect music. Obviously, there's no reason to assume the four people they found are typical, but there's two interesting points:

# Several panelists admitted to downloading a lot of free music… but they don’t actually listen to much of repeatedly, if at all.
# All of the panelists have iPods, but none of them buy music from iTunes – they said it’s too expensive. A few said they occasionally buy CDs, and would be even more willing to buy CDs at shows where they might be able to get it signed by the artist, or find an exclusive release they couldn’t buy anywhere else.

I'm using the word interesting to mean 'stuff that reflects things I keep banging on about', of course.

One for the industry

It might seem that there is no way to keep track of the burgeoning world of music industry conferences, seminars and get-togethers. As they grow at an alarming rate - third-world manufacturers of hand-stitched swag bags can hardly have children fast enough to keep pace with demand for their products - the organisers of Musiikki & Media have come up with a simple solution: an open Google calendar which will collect them all.

(Also handy for planning those 'Free the Clare Grogan solo record' protests, too, of course.)