Pratronise the paddy's like this for the Lisbon rerun ?

Our most famous, internationally famous advocate 'Bono' tells us, that in these times of credit crunchiness, we should all ensure that our Irish government adheres to it's development Aid pledges, we should make sure that a very tiny portion of our national tax is given to international worthy causes that, without doubt, deserve support. I will give outside that mechanism anyway - and still what Bono says appears to make sense. I will also gently recommend to friends that they do it also. The whole five friends idea in the above video is great isn't it.

That touch at the End with Mr. Dustin Hoffman (respect) seemingly ad libbing is very effective. In a subtle way it enforces the idea of "do as I do not as I say", which is kind of where the whole Bono ranting begins to fall down, I mean Bono tells everyone what everyone else should be doing, while also transferring the commercial operations and profit machine of his band U2 to the Netherlands- merely a very effective tax efficiency measure. Ensuring his company doesn't pay tax on profits here - but remember - make sure the government gives a portion of your tax to development aid as promised - hmmm quite disappointing and duplicitous there Bonio.

I kinda remember Bono, back in the eighties on the Late Late show that far off time when people under 55 used to watch RTE TV, telling Gaybo the difference between success in Ireland and success in America. The jist was something like this:

In America a walking man, looks and sees a mansion of a house on the top of a hill, complete with cars, designs, pool and the trappings of wealth, He says "Look at all that wealth and how successful that man has become, some day, if I work hard, pursue my dream, dedicate myself, I may make enough to have what that man has."

An Irish man passes in similar circumstances in Ireland and says "how did that gobshite manage to get all that, what stroke did he pull ?"

An illustration of 'classic Irish begrudery' or 'in-built cynicism from 800 years of oppression by forces of occupation' - or just Bono playing to the crowd, whatever about it, the story retold is now more like, look at that man preaching form afar, does he really, truly believe he has a higher spiritual understanding than those of us, happy with obscurity, modest incomes and quite conscience?

A couple of posts down this blog, I have a clip of Jim Corr, ranting on about international conspiracy theories and the need to vote no to the Lisbon referendum, despite, rather than because of, it most Irish people voted NO. Could a video campaign with well known Irish celebrities, advocating a yes vote, have worked ? Emm, I don't think so, it's a trust issue, we Irish just don't trust anyone who chooses to live on a hill, either metaphorically, physically or otherwise, we don't like condescensions of any type, after our failed love affair with the church, when someone does start preaching he just strikes us as a prat - and all he's doing is simply trying to Pratronise us.