h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I agree! We saw him recently and this is the blog I wrote about it on my site, www.gypsyteacher.blogspot.com.

Gypsy Teacher: A Yank in ‘Brum’
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
Sir Bob and Us
Last month I saw a listing in The Guardian announcing a reading of Lytton Strachey’s letters at the British Library in London. Lytton was one of “my writers,” so I checked the train schedules, did the math, and quickly computed that the tax-deductible day trip would be worth the time. At the Library I picked up a flyer about an upcoming reading of William Butler Yeats’ poetry by Irish actress Sinead Cusack. I tucked it into my diary for future reference.
Still debating whether to go, I saw in The Guardian that Sinead would be joined by two other readers: The actor Rupert Graves and the activist/singer/Irishman Sir Robert Geldof. Now THAT is worth a tax-deductible trip. Even the hubby decided to go.
When booking our tickets by phone, I asked if Sir Bob was really going to show. “He has been a bit busy, hasn’t he?” laughed the operator, understating his ubiquitous presence on British media this past week promoting his “Live8” concert. “Will there be protesters?” I asked, hopefully. “I don’t think so. He’s done things for us before and it’s always fine,” she added.
So after packing up turkey sandwiches and mini-Snickers, Tony and I hopped the bus to the train today, using tokens from the Birmingham Post to buy two return tickets for ten pounds each. We ate our lunch on the Chiltern Railway special to London Marylebone and I corrected a few papers to assuage my guilt. We arrived two minutes ahead of schedule at 3:59.
Having done this same trip just a few weeks before, it was easy to catch the right Tube to King’s Cross/St. Pancras, and make our way through the construction of the new Euro tunnel station to the British Library. We had a light supper at a nearby bistro, and then soaked up the rare English evening sun outside the Library’s conference centre.
Tony saw him first. There was Sir Bob, walking alone, talking on his mobile, heading into the building for his next gig. Black cotton top, white cotton pants. Does he own a comb?
From our vantage point in the last row we had a good view of the crowd, a mix of little old lady book club members and young groupies. Were they here for Sir Bob or Rupert?
The hostess introduced the three well-known participants, but not herself. Because it was billed as the “Josephine Hart Poetry Hour,” we were supposed to recognize her as Josephine. She introduced Geldof by saying, “We called him because we felt sorry for him. He seemed to have nothing to do this week. So we said, ‘Come along Bob and read some Yeats.’” He looked down at his black binder modestly, laughing along with the crowd.
Having her name above the title also gave Josephine the right to inform us, between readings, about Yeats’ life in relation to his poetry. She intimated that all her information came from just one recent biography. Ha! Amateur.
From up in peanut heaven we could see lovely Sinead’s dark roots. Her light Irish accent was the perfect touch for the brief early love poems—
“That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.”
Rupert’s upper class British whine was suitably sombre for “Friends”—
“And what of her that took
All till my youth was gone
With scarce a pitying look?”
But Sir Bob’s low-key, south-Dublin, nasal tones gave the perfect emotional intensity to Yeats’ paeans to his life-long unrequited love, Maud Gonne:
“I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread upon my dreams.”
And…
“How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you.”
And…
“O she had not these ways
When all the wild summer was in her gaze.”
But I’m partial to Dublin men falling hopelessly in love with their women anyway.
Then came the section devoted to Yeats’ political poems. Geldof gently mourned, “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone.
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.”
And lamented,
“But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they’d wrought it.”
Then, leaning forward, elbows on knees, he repeated, slowly, intensely,
“All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.”
You could feel Yeats’ passion for the rift that turned Ireland from one of the “Lesser Colonies” of Britain into an independent, intense, emotional republic.
As they left the stage, Sir Bob graciously gestured to allow the ladies to exit first, and Tony said, “C’mon. I want to see this guy.”
I assumed he would be surrounded by hangers on and groupies, and we didn’t have anything for him to sign, but I followed my Irish husband’s lead. There was Bob, over in a corner, just one or two people around him. As soon as the blonde guy monopolizing him moved away, Bob went to leave, and Tony moved in.
“Bob. I’m from Dublin.”
Smiling, more grizzled and grey than we are, even though about the same age, Sir Bob stopped and shook our hands.
“I thought that was fabulous. Congratulations,” Tony said.
I added, unnecessarily, “I did my research on Yeats. Your ‘Changed utterly’ was perfect. I could hear old Willy rattling in his grave.”
“Well, thanks,” he said. And moved on.
As we walked out, I said to Tony. “When Pope Benedict canonizes him, you can tell your granddaughter that you shook his hand.”
On the train back tonight I asked Tony for some background about his fellow Dub.
“He went to Blackrock College in South Dublin.”
“So is he uppity?”
“Yeah. Well, I think he actually was expelled from Blackrock College.”
“What did he do before he started saving the world?”
“He hung around a lot of clubs in Dublin and started the Boomtown Rats in 1978, ‘79. They were punk, sort of. They had two number one hits.”
“Hum them.”
“’I Don’t Like Mondays,’ and I can’t think of the other one. Then he went to London and hung around with other guys. And then he saw this documentary about the starving in Ethiopia and so he decided to do Band Aid.”
“Bono is from north Dublin. Did they know each other before?”
“In his book Geldof says that Bono came over to him at an event and said, ‘My name is Bono…’ back before anyone had heard of U2.”
“So what do the Irish think of Geldof?”
“Well, y’know. Secretly we’re really proud of him. But we’re a nation of begrudgers. So we always have to say, ‘Aaah, y’know, he’s just a bollocks.’”
When we got back to Birmingham, Tony texted his son in Galway to tell him that he’d met Bob Geldof.
Stay tuned.
FYI: If you would like to read more Yeats, I recommend, W.B. Yeats: Selected Poetry, edited by A. Norman Jeffares, who died recently. It’s all the best stuff and the introduction is a good overview of the poet’s life and loves. To find the full poem for any of the quotes above, just Google it. What a world.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4466340.stm

Canonization is one step nearer...



I can't believe you've met him, He's top of my list of people I'd like to meet.


GB

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4445516.stm

Well,now it's only two degrees of separation for you. 'Meet' is kind of a loose term. Shook his hand tho.
Shook Bill Murray's hand once too. So I'm the link between him and Sir Bob.

Well I have shaken Prince Charles' hand - I consider that "met" he is the Queen's son, so Charles is the link between me & The Queen