Beckham And Bono On The Big Rock Candy Mountains

By Charley Brady

The United States of America has given some great things to the world; and America has done some great favours for this side off the Atlantic Ocean.

In no particular order some that one could list might include such notable efforts as: the hot dog and coca-cola combo; the great Johnny Depp; Cohen and Bernstein; helping to win World War Two; sixties rock group The Velvet Underground; influential film director Sam Peckinpah; that "I can do this" sense of confidence and, of course, you gave us the hard-to-overstate power of writers like Gore Vidal and Kurt Vonnegut. And George Dubya Bush (all right, you got me - that last one's a joke).

Last year, however, you gave to this side of the pond what may be the greatest gift of all.

To the sound of tens of thousands of cheers right across Europe you took the ghastly Victoria Beckham and her husband David off our hands.

How can anything ever repay such self- less generosity? (And don't say by taking Paris Hilton. We're not that grateful.)

The Beckham Brand may make a fortune every year, but just looking at Posh Spice

Posh! How laughable is that? It would make people want to chew their own hands off. Just the sight of that stone-faced, eternally pouting stick insect is another reason to despair of this celebrity-obsessed society, where money counts for everything and talent for nothing. At least her soccer-star husband is in possession of some genuine ability - even if it is a pointless one to my way of thinking - but that voice of his would drive you completely around the bend.

And let's be honest, he's not the sharpest pencil in the box, is he?

When I was a boy I loved the surrealism of the Depression song, "Big Rock Candy Mountains."

So I wasn't sure if I wasn't having my leg pulled when I heard that the dreaded Bono had talked David into doing a sponsored climb for the charity, Unicef.

Not only that but they're doing it by climbing Africa's highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro.

All right now, before the usual suspects all start sharpening their little claws, I know that it's commendable and a good cause and blah, blah, blah; but YE GODS! Come on!

The climb is going to take about six days! SIX WHOLE DAYS stuck on the side of 19,000 feet of rock with Bono, one of the world's most irritating men. I mean, can you imagine what the conversation is going to be like? Because I can.

Poor old David will have to listen to 'God Himself' droning on and on about Third World debt and how heartless the richest nations are.

He'll be frozen with boredom as Bono lectures him on how he manages to have dodgy politicians eating out of his hand. Until he's safely away from the photo-opportunity, that is.

Then they flip the finger at his diminutive receding back, have a good chortle to themselves and go on their merry way, doing what they've always done, i.e. feathering their own nests.

When Beckham finally gets back down from Candy Mountain, his mind gone and reduced to a babbling wreck of a man he will at least have a good working knowledge of how to rattle the begging bowl in every country he goes to while managing to pay no tax in his own. Because he'll have learned at the feet of the Master, and all it will have cost him is six days of his life that he'll never get back. Oh, and his sanity.

To turn serious for a moment: a couple of weeks ago I intimated that the IRA is still active in another form.

Needless to say not everyone agrees with this observation. Well, if these fools want to believe that everything is suddenly hunky- dory here, with the Provos completely innocent of dealings in racketeering, drugs, punishment beatings and-yes-murder, then let them continue to live in Never-Never land, at the foothills of the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

Criticism can be energising but it can also wear you down.

So it was great to come across a piece by a writer called Ed Moloney, who puts it all so much better. He writes: "The IRA has not gone away, despite the claim that it has totally decommissioned its weapons, despite the July 2005 'end of war' statement by the leadership and despite the power- sharing deal with the DUP that was characterised, fatally it now seems for Ian Paisley, by the Chuckle Brothers' love-in between the First Minister and his deputy, Martin McGuinness."

Also" "The implied threat [from Gerry Adams when he said: 'They haven't gone away, you know'] ...was the engine behind Sinn Féin's peace strategy and it was one of the major reasons why Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair nourished the Provos for so long.

"Keeping the IRA in existence was always very much in the interests of the Provo leadership and it is the reason why, despite decommissioning and end-of-war declarations, the IRA has not been wound up and disbanded or the Army Council dissolved." Spot on.

If you're interested, Ed Moloney is the author of "The Secret History of the IRA" from Penguin Books and "Paisley--- From Demagogue To Democrat," newly published by Poolbeg Press.