Mello Yello – what ever happened to that drink? I guess it got discontinued… NEWAY…How’s every one? Hey if you are alive in reasonably good health, everything will be alright.

This past weekend some of us had the pleasure of being whisked away to Sun City for a managers conference. A pretty decent affair, but one thing really stood out for me and that was the fact that our guest speaker was Sir Bob Geldof. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you are going who the @#*& is that! I’ll be honest and say that up until last year I think, I had no clue who he was neither. But this man is big! Well huge enough for the queen to want to call him ‘sir’! His address to us really stuck in my head, (not because of the use of profanity, but because of its content). It was something along the lines of he couldn’t believe that it takes a European to tell Africans about what is happening on their continent and how the west is raping us here and how we should be more vocal and those that can help should do something, anything! There is a quote from Mother Theresa, which reads something like “if you cant feed 100 people, feed 1”.

His claim to fame…Born Robert Frederick Xenon Geldof in Dun Laoghaire, Dublin. In 1975 he became the lead singer of the Irish band Boomtown Rats. Who the… remember the song I don’t like Mondays, no worries cos neither do I, but apparently its quite well known, perhaps if I heard the lyrics. Anyway, that song was written after a lady Brenda Ann Spencer tried to kill a whole lot of children in an elementary school across the road from her home in San Diego, California. As one would assume, there was a lot of controversy around this song, which in all likelihood led to its success. Apparently they are quite a famous band, a group known by many top be linked with the punk movement.

Between ‘75 and ’84 the band did very well. But September 1981 was the beginning of his charity work when he performed as a solo artist in an amnesty international concert at the invitation of Martin Lewis the producer of the Amnesty show. At this show he became very friendly with Sting, Eric Clapton and Phil Collins, musicians who would later perform with him in his Live Aid concerts. The show was a huge success and raised huge amounts of money as well as raising awareness of human rights violations. In 1984, the Rats were pretty arb if at all a feature in anyones life, one day in November 1984, Sir Bob was parking off on the couch with his daughter, thinking what a loser he had become, he switched on the telly and what was being shown? A BBC report by Michael Buerk about the famine in Ethiopia. This report had him in shock! He couldn’t believe his eyes. And from that day his crusade for Africa began. His first call on this was to Midge Ure from Ultravox and together they co-wrote the song “Do they know its Christmas?”

The next step was to put together a group called Band Aid, made up of British and Irish pop and rock groups. His target was 70 000 pounds the reality was many millions of pounds, in 1997 it even became the biggest selling single in the UK. This spilled over into the US where “we are the world” was recorded and had equally great success. He and Bono, met with Pope John Paul II to chat about their debt relief plans. The Live 8 project was made public in March 2005, it was to be aired all over the world on the 2nd July 2005, about 4 days before the G8 summit. The line up included the following:
London – Elton John, Coldplay, U2, Madonna, Paul McCartney and Pink Floyd (for their first concert since 1981)
Paris – Andrea Bocelli, Youssou N’Dour
Rome – Duran Duran, Faith Hill
Berlin – Brian Wilson, Crosby Stills & Nash
Philadelphia – Bon Jovi, Dave Mathews, Sarah McLachlan and Stevie Wonder
Ontario – Niel Young, Deep Purple and Bryan Adams
People were bleak that there weren’t many African artists involved and I totally agree with Sir Bob’s retort that to make the word heard it would require popular bands and artists, and quite frankly Europe and the US currently aren’t that interested in African artists. Perhaps the concert had an effect on the G8 summit because, many are calling it the most favourable for Africa yet, but hope you forgive my skepticism when I say time will tell!

Other than music and the quest for the world, Geldof has been involved in some rather lucrative business ventures. In 1992 he co-founded Planet 24, a tv production company that made programmes such as the Big Breakfast, The Word and Survivor. He sold the company for $7mil, but still retained the rights to Survivor. He set up an online travel business he sold for $17mil. He has a media and entertainment company, Ten Alps Communication in which he still holds 8%.

His personal life was not all that rosey. He met a groupie Paula Yates, got married, had 3 daughters with her. She dropped him for Michael Hutchence from INXS. Yates had another girl with him. He was found dead in his hotel room in 1997. He filed for custody of his daughters after hearing this. Yates later died of an overdose.

I have maximum respect for the man. He has absolutely no reason to be doing what he is doing, but he is using his fame to generate awareness of the issues facing this continent. I think his reasons are pure, but to those who doubt that so what?!! Boss he is doing and trying to do more for this country than any of us who sit on our backsides and pay lip service to the issue and or attempt to evaluate the sincerity of people that are trying to do something. We all can make a difference to someone elses life and I say we do what we can whilst we are here and able. Speakin of which I have a friend called Michael Rea, he has worked at PwC and KPMG doing corporate social responsibility work. In his own time and with his own resources he does a lot of work with Cotlands and is currently working on a project with some kids. He has a few initiatives that he is running. He has recently sold his Ducati to fund some of these projects himself. If you are in a position to assist in terms of a corporate sponsorship I am sure he will be more than happy to hear from you.

On that note I am out. Come Lent you boys and girls will be hearing from me.

Birthdays
17th Nadia
18th Sarah B and Lourie
22nd Lindsay and Victoria
24th Kirsty N
25th Abena
26th Themba, Louise and Me (eish its over)

Maximum respect and I am out for another week or so ;-)
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