I have always loved Sir Bob Geldof. From the early days, when he was the front man of the Boomtown Rats and singing about hating Mondays (when I was on the edge of the ‘new romantic’ scene in my hometown and hanging out with some dodgy (but eventually quite successful) bands such as the Anti Nowhere League and the Damned), to his launch of Band Aid and then the incredible Live Aid concert, an event that no one who watched it will ever forget. Sir Bob and his rock star friends did more then (and he still does) to keep Britain ‘Great’ than any of the political or business figures that have since been celebrated with a knighthood or similar… not that he probably cares so much about his own.
We were actually lucky enough to have dinner with Sir Bob not so long ago. He was in Prague to give a special prize at a huge charity event and the Kempinski Hotel, for whom the agency worked at the time, was the hospitality partner. Without going into too much detail, the evening ended with a small group of us grabbing Bob and his manager and retiring to the hotel for dinner, and then staying until 3.00 am in the morning exchanging stories and listening, awe inspired, to Bob. By the end of the evening, eight people (male and female) were well and truly in love with him; his knowledge of just about everything, his great sense of humour and his total lack of self importance was something to behold; I said after that dinner, and I still believe, that if I was walking along a street in London and he was coming the other way, he would be sure to hail me with the words ‘Hey Jo, how’s it going’ or similar…. just a regular guy remembering a fun time in Prague.
Bob was banned from Irish TV for a while, having been invited to speak on a talk show and then going off at a tangent about the possibility that some old Irish priests had been guilty of abusing young boys (as if?!). He shook the British establishment when he said the ‘f’ word for the first time in daytime hours during the Live Aid broadcast (the words ‘give us your ….ing money’ still being regularly quoted in the same breath as Bob’s name). He has made millions (as has often been pointed out, with a little bit of a sneer), not through anything improper but because he is a stunningly good businessman and in huge demand by corporations all over the world as a speaker (on, probably, just about anything). But he still goes down the pub, collects his luggage at the airport like everyone else, and continues to live his life as normally as possible.
Sir Bob can always be relied on to shake up the establishment if there is something he feels passionately about. And when he speaks, many people listen, as he is usually right. He just says it, or does it, in a way that the British old school don’t really like. Who, therefore, could have been surprised yesterday evening, to hear that a boat travelling up the Thames to challenge the terrible Nigel Farage and his friends who were sailing along on a ‘Brexit mission’, had Sir Bob at the helm. Magnificent. Needless to say, the majority of the media have focused mostly on the rude gestures and Bob’s general ‘scruffiness’. But the sensible ones have listened and reported on what he had to say. So should we all. Brilliant people such as Sir Bob understand how dangerous it will be for Britain to leave the EU. Idiots such as Nigel Farage and his ilk have no idea.
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