The Name's Bono, Can You Spare A Dime?

Oh dear. This is one of those moments that no journalist cares for.

I'm afraid that I made something of an error last week: I said that Bob Geldof had charged a fee of €51,000 to speak against poverty in Australia some twelve days ago. He did not.

I stand corrected by Irish journalist Ian O'Doherty. In fact the Australian dollars he was paid apparently translated into €79,000, a much more acceptable figure.

Thanks, Ian. I had become concerned there that the man you so accurately describe as Bono's representative on earth had begun selling his wisdom short. After all, first- class flights don't come cheap. Nor do luxury hotel rooms and personal minders. Then there's the stress of cursing and swearing at a room full of people while trying to shame them into parting with their loot. Can't be easy.

Then when you've been paid you have the moral decision to make about whether to trouser the shekels for yourself or send them over to some African despot who will use the cash to keep his people in the poverty they have come to expect. It's a tough call, all right. Still, I'm delighted to see that Sir Bob, Officer of the Order of the British Empire and the man of whom Margaret Thatcher said: "True Brit! True Grit!" is continuing to do so well.

This tale of privilege has also cleared up something for those of us who were unfortunate even to see his daughter's sulky, I'm-so-bored-with-life look in Dublin a few weeks back. I'm talking of the rude Boomtown Brat known as Peaches. Well, at least we know that she didn't pick up her sense of entitlement from the side of the road.

Mr. Geldof's fellow speaker, World Vision director Tim Costello, charged nothing. Ah, but he probably didn't use the F-word even once. He'll get nowhere with that attitude.

Needless to say, Bono didn't let us down this week, either. I'm tired of writing about him and always swear that this is the last time; but then he goes and outdoes himself in the Hypocrite Stakes once again.

Look, I know that I am so far beneath the radar of the Exalted One that absolutely nothing I write will change anything. Especially outside of Ireland, where he is treated as some sort of God. Here it's a bit easier: people have copped on to his self-serving shenanigans and found him wanting. Indeed, I know of no one over the age of forty - apart from hangers-on and those with a vested interest - who can tolerate him.

A lot of this stems back to last year when he was willing to drag a female assistant into court and, without a second thought, bankrupt the woman.

She claimed that when she left his service his Stetson hat had been a gift to her. Bono, however, said that he would never willingly have parted with such an "iconic" (his words) item. I'm not going to go into the details of a court case that I've spent time on in the past, but let's face it. Anyone who refers to his headwear as "iconic" has lost said head up his rear end.

The Edge, of course, is on a par with Bono when it comes to self-importance; but at least Adam Clayton and Larry Mullins had the good grace to look totally mortiphied as Bono, ignoring public opinion, relentlessly used the might of the U2 Empire to crush and destroy this woman.

People here got sick of his constant preaching at us to give more and more of our money, especially when we damned well knew that African aid was, to a very large extent, not going where it should. But what finished him with most people who could think for themselves and not just trip out the hoakey "Don't they make you proud to be Irish?" claptrap, was when-having availed of the Irish Artists' Exemption rule (which was NEVER set up to help mega-rich rock stars) - they then saw their loot being threatened and moved the bulk of the U2 Corporation's assets to the Netherlands. So now they pay a pure minimum to the infrastructure of this country - to the run-down schools, to the roads and so on - while leaving the bulk of the tax to be paid by Joe and Jane Soap.

Contemptible. Quite contemptible.

Let me be fair on them for a moment: Like a lot of people my age I first came across U2 in the late 70s when they supported a really sensational Irish band called Paul Cleary and the Blades. If you want to hear how astonishing these Dublin guys were take a look for an album called "The Last Man in Europe"; and the singles, "Dublin City Town" and "Ghost of a Chance", which haunt me to this day.

For reasons I never understood they never made the long haul while U2, through a combination of hard work, relentless publicity and good management (OK, the music, though I never got it) have stayed at the top of their game for over a quarter of a century.

That is some going in such a cut-throat industry and must be admired. But they were held up as some sort of Irish rebels. They were never that and I don't even think that they pretended to be that back then.

Now, of course, Bono struts around on his elevated heels and his preposterous Fidel Castro uniform, which he probably considers to be "iconic" and heads up a multi- multi- million CORPORATION. Make no mistake: that's what U2 are: a CORPORATION. And the purpose of a corporation is to make and to keep on making money.

That's what they do. Fair enough. It grates, though, that this strutting little popinjay trawls the world with a begging bowl that he appears to be curiously averse to filling himself.

To all of you marshmallow people who are sailing your banana-boats along the lemonade river that flows by the Big Rock Candy Mountains, let me explain something that really should be as clear as an azure summer day.

Bono is not some sort of flame-sword wielding Scourge of the Establishment - don't you get it? HE IS THE ESTABLISHMENT!

And he has been for a long time. For crying out loud, the Establishment - particularly in the form of dodgy politicians and scythe-wielding Grim Reaper Presidents - has been welcoming him and flattering his considerable ego for years. He may make you think that he's upsetting the apple-cart, but take a closer look. What is he doing exactly?

Even the money that he does contribute is given with one hand and taken back with the other. As for him moving his U2 base out of the country that he came from, that of course is legal. It's just that I've always believed that charity begins at home; and, as this week has proved, so does Bono. It's just that he has taken a rather perverse spin on it. In an intriguing report from Alex Lloyd in New York and Luke Byrne of the Mail on Sunday we learn that American tax returns for the Debt Aids Trade Africa (DATA) Foundation paid $323,419 in 2005 and '06 for concert tickets; $46,218 in 2006 for VIP receptions and $6,352 in 2005.

In fact DATA spent close on the equivalent of €300,000 on the band's Vertigo tour of 2005- 6.

So in other words, if you are contributing to this charity of Bono's and expect your donation to directly help in the battle against Aids in Africa, you may be a little perturbed to discover that YOUR hard-earned money is, in part, going to a few Fat Cats who in all probability have no damned interest in rock music.

Kathy McKiernan, spokeswoman for the charity that is now known as ONE (DATA was founded by Bono in 2002 and it merged with ONE this year) confirmed and defended the situation: "Over 3,000 tickets across more than 100 shows in the U.S and Canada and Europe were purchased.

"Tickets were provided to supporters and potential supporters of ONE's anti- poverty agenda.

"It was part of our awareness-raising strategy that helped grow ONE's membership from just over 100,000 in the spring of 2005 to more than two million by the summer of 2006."

Do you know, writing this reminded me of an article that I did several years ago. I looked up my notes of the time, as much as anything in order to see if I'm really so far out of step (not that it would bother me if I was) and was pleased to come across a couple of quotes.

One was from the late, great Irish concert promoter, Jim Aiken, who said: "U2 are capitalists, but it's sort of shaded. I believe the ultimate charity donation is to pay your taxes in the country where you live. U2 are arch-capitalists - but it looks as if they are not."

And, in the same period, the Labour finance spokesman Joan Burton added: "I am surprised that U2 are not prepared to contribute to the Exchequer on a fair basis. In the context of all the work Bono has done for Third World Debt, it's interesting to note that some of that tax might have gone towards, the Ireland Aid programme."

Now in 2008 a book by Italian academic Loretta Napoleoni entitled 'Rogue Economics' states: "None of the new initiatives have helped, including Red, the pool of companies gathered by Bono which dedicates a percentage of their sales to help Africa.

"All they have achieved is publicity for their own brands."

She then went on to say something that I have been saying for literally years and which initially made me few friends: that money raised by Live Aid and Live 8 has made Africa's problems worse, not better, with €1.3bn in foreign aid going into the Ethiopian civil war."

Bono, no doubt, has many good qualities, but to my mind he is just a man that has lost the run of himself. If you are a fan, go on enjoying the music by all means; but if you are a contributor to the various charities then please - take a cold hard look at where your money is going.

Hope to see you all again next week.

Same bat-time! Same bat-channel!