Bono & Madge: Egos Made For Each Other

Dear oh dear. Dear oh dear oh dear. I seem to have ruffled the wool of a few sheep last week. Unfortunately not the sheep that I had my rifle aimed at but rather because of one sentence at the end of last week's column where I made an observation on the Dutch rock group U2.

I simply mentioned that they had refused to say whether or not they would pay tax on this summer's Irish gigs. Which have so far totalled them €13 million. They have added another concert but I don't have the figures on that at the moment.

Needless to say, the Usual Suspects crawled out from under whatever tent they're parking their sorry backsides in while waiting to get tickets for Holland's Number One band, to lecture me on the fact that Bono and the boys are giving €9 million of their takings to charity.

I've been writing about Bono ever since 2005, ever since they were an Irish band in fact, so I know that any one thing that Bono or The Edge ever utter is subject to scrutiny and usually to their detriment. Cases in Point:

Not all of their companies are in the Public Domain, but there are certainly over a dozen that look after each other to an incestuous degree. I've tried to track down every company that they are involved in, but it really can't be done. They muddy the waters so much that it eventually seems like wading through treacle.

However, I am indebted to Irish journalist Brian Carroll for pointing out that €25.7 million worth of loans was given by U2 to companies controlled by - wait for it - U2!

These loans have been written off.

He goes on to point out that in April 2007 they wrote off 21 million that they owed to THEMSELVES.

Now any of us who can string a couple of sentences together have known for years that what Bono says and what Bono doesn't say are interweaved and fascinating. Who can forget his lack of willingness to talk when it emerged in 2006 that he was involved and sat on the board of a games program that was in large part funded by the American military?

As Mr. Carroll points out, effectively €55 million has vanished from the books of the Dutch band to date.

These guys are the best I've ever come across. I'm leaving Adam Clayton and the founder of U2 Larry Mullins out of this, as I believe they are just happy to be in one of the leading bands of the last quarter-century.

I wonder, though, has Mr. Carroll noticed the significance - I'm sure he has - that a loan of (wait for it) €9 million given by Bono and The Edge to the company running the Clarence Hotel in Dublin has been wiped off.

The Clarence was set up by Bono and The Edge, by the way. €9 million. Interesting, that. Interesting figure. I make no comment, of course. It's just an observation. But it comes from a man who doesn't believe in coincidence.

Could it be true that they are thinking of changing their moniker to FU2? It would seem more appropriate. After all, the poor sods who pay for the schools, roads and infrastructure of Ireland are already - let's be kind - puzzled at how in 2007 Bono and Co. only paid €270,000 in corporate tax when their wealth amounts to €628 million.

Let me say this hopefully for the last time to the fan boys and girls who hang on their every word, who spend their mommy and daddy's savings travelling the globe to see them and who sit in their lonely rooms listening to U2's self-serving, solipsistic lyrics: FU2 are no longer an Irish band and I'm not even sure they've even been a rock band for years. They are a CORPORATION and in that respect they are very good indeed at what they do.

Bono: "I was never much good at throwing a television out the window of a hotel. Now I look at television and I want to buy the company."

Way to go, you bloody hypocrite!

The Edge: "I worked out the math - there's something like 40 million possible running orders. It was a conscious thing for us, to make a collection that was whole... we were fighting to hold up the idea that an album can be sacred art form."

As Damien and his good lady Martina say from Dublin, "Ya winding me up or what?"

FU2 generate a shed load of loot that they couldn't spend in their greedy lifetimes while giving endless lectures on how the little people should live, all the time giving very little back in return for what is extraordinary loyalty from a bunch of well- meaning eejits.

Oh, by the way, these intra- group loans and director's loans are interest-free and unsecured. The mind boggles.

Then again the mind boggles at the amount of people who take every word said by Bono as sacrosanct. Do you remember the release of "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb"?

In New York, there was the preening little popinjay answering a question on how DO you dismantle an Atomic bomb: "That's how you dismantle it. A lot of love under the Bridge," he smirked.

He has a way of making absolutely trite nonsense sound profound to the gobshites who hang on his every word. In fact, I've heard that some American academic idiot with too much time on his claws is writing a book on the religious aspects of Bono's meanderings. Say it ain't so, Uncle Sam.

The problem with Bono the Great, of course, is that he wants to be a revolutionary and an iconic rock star but far, far more than that he wishes to be in the Big Boys' Club. Has he driven himself schizophrenic at this stage, I wonder?

How else can you explain a man who loudly claims his dislike of war while at the same time wearing the 'revolutionary' garb of Fidel Castro, poncing around prayer meetings with war criminal George W. Bush and loudly proclaiming that he 'loves' the war criminal Tony Blair?

One final thing: the latest accounts filed with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce show that U2 have very successfully avoided paying tax. FU2 indeed.

Oddly enough, I don't feel the same grievance against Enya who avails of the same tax-dodging. Perhaps it is simply because she has always kept to herself and has never lectured us or waved the begging-bowl in our face to the same extent that Holland's premier rock group U2 has done.

The Edge, meanwhile, finds himself caught out in Malibu. (Jesus wept. We have one band member who can't be seen without his elevator shoes and wrap around shades and another who can't be photographed without a tea-cosy to cover his bald pate. And both are so insecure that they can't even use real names.)

The Edge's new neighbours were initially delighted when they heard that they had a planet-saving celebrity in their midst. That was until he revealed the plans for his "dream home".

This will be an environmental disaster as the 170-acre plot is going to be substantially altered with the flattening of a mountain and all the havoc wrought on wildlife and flora that this entails.

When Bono said they were going to change the planet I think The Bald Edge took it too literally.

To finish on irritating rock stars, and also to cheer me up, let's round up this week's visit to the bat-cave off by being nasty about Madonna.

She's been on her latest tour for the last couple of weeks - African Orphanages 2009 - where she's continuing her war with Angelina Jolie on which phoney can adopt the most children.

Amidst scenes of frightened men and women scurrying for cover lest they be adopted on the spot by the wild-eyed Madonna (89) she fell off her treadmill and sprained her ankle.

Just as an aside, could she think about adopting Ireland? We're kind of in trouble also, you know.

Yes, we have no bananas! The heroine of the ludicrous Live Earth concert, where she told her increasingly sad worshippers to jump up and down if they want to save the planet, had flown a mini-gym in to Africa by private jet.

Don't know what that says about carbon emissions but I do know what it says about ageing rock stars that can't bear even one minute out of the limelight.

A worker at Kumbali Lodge in Lilongwe said, while trying to keep a straight face: "There was a bang and she came suddenly flying off the machine. She looked hurt." God forgive me, it doesn't really take much to make me happy.

Hope to see you all next week.

Same ward!

Same restraints!

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

And Damien Foley! Where's my money!?

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net