Live 8. Heard of it? Most probably by now as there's not been such blanket media coverage since the bombing of Baghdad. There may even be a joke in there somewhere. In fact, it's fair to say that the more we hear about it the less we remember about what else is going on (One or two ongoing wars immediately spring to mind). This wasn't going to be a rant until the BBC interviewed some students in Leeds this morning and left me seething over my (possibly non-fair trade) coffee. Apparently people want to go to the Live 8 event at Hyde Park so they can say they are a part of history.

What a load of self-serving, hypocritical nonesense (trying hard to avoid swearing). 'I was there on the day' they'll say. Tossers, like that's what counts. If they cared that much, perhaps they'd consider increasing their donation from £1.50 (plus the standard text messaging rate: check with your network operator for details). Oh, it's not about raising money but raising awareness. About making poverty history and giving people the means to support themselves. I'm not saying I'm some heart-on-my-sleeve activist individual with intimate knowledge of the issues at stake, nor am I a complete hard-hearted cynic. Maybe I'll be in Hyde Park too, lighter aloft, although having no credit on my mobile may impact upon my chances of answering the bloody-ridiculously easy question.

For a more measured perspective on this, I tend to agree with the author of this article. It refers to another article in last week's Times (which you can't link to because they charge for access to the archives. Information wants to be free? Knowledge is power? These seem mutually exclusive to me):

In the Times on Wednesday, for example, Bruce Anderson wrote that Geldof "would like his young followers to believe that the west is to blame for all of Africa's difficulties" and that his solution is to "stop encouraging Africa to participate in global trade and content ourselves with providing enough aid". Yet, no doubt to the disappointment of many who will descend on Edinburgh via Seattle, Make Poverty History is manifestly not promoting an anti-capitalist, anti-free trade revolution. Indeed, although it wants developing countries to be able to protect some of their markets, on the whole, its goal is to make trade more free by abolishing punitive import tariffs in the west and ending Europe and America's huge farm subsidies, in order to open up western markets to developing economies.

I'm sure something will inspire me to follow this thread. Later.